Reflections After Smoking a Cigar on a Sunny Day
Hey beautiful people,
The above meme is from my boy Campbell Dixon’s ‘ta eis heauton’ writings. Check out his recent entry, where he discusses a concept we co-discovered: minimum viable chad, which he explores further in his entry.
I will also be journaling live every day until July 1st at 8:00 AM ET.
Join me and other Stoans while we journal together in silence. I’ve done a few of these before, and were beautiful experiences. This is available for both Patreon supporters and participants in Rebel Wisdom’s ‘Becoming a Live Player’ course.
Tomorrow’s events:
Live Journaling w/ Peter Limberg. Daily @ 8:00 AM ET. Patreon event. 90 mins.
Verbal Aikido: Mini-Practicum w/ Luke Archer. May 17th, and 24th @ 1:00 PM ET. Patreon event. 90 mins.
Integral Theory: Pre-History, History, and Future w/ Layman Pascal. May 17th @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.
Newly posted events:
Live Journaling w/ Peter Limberg. Daily @ 8:00 AM ET. Patreon event. 90 mins.
Beyond-Self Discipline: Cultivating Sovereignty and Finding the Others w/ Peter Limberg and Daniel Kazandjian. June 3rd @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
An event to get excited about:
Dead Cool: Unmasking Coolness w/ Alex Ebert. May 21st @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here.
Alex Ebert, singer-songwriter-philosopher, visits The Stoa to discuss the phenomena of coolness. Alex will demystify the “rules of cool,” and he will show us how coolness has been weaponized.
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May 16th, 2021
It is such a beautiful day. I was just smoking a cigar while enjoying the sun. The cigar and sun combo is a good one.
A rush of thumos came online while smoking, and now I have that go, go, go energy. I do not want to engage in ‘thumos bypassing’ though, by rushing in to things that should not be rushed in to. A desire to challenge myself is here, and a desire to be challenged. The Resistance is also near, and fear is usually on the other side of it.
Resistance is the force that blocks one’s creativity, or put in another way: Resistance is the force that blocks the daemon. I wrote recently about being a ‘Resistance connoisseur’, and perhaps it would be good to write about Resistance mastery. This is about feeling the fear and doing it anyway, or put with more gravitas: it is about exercising courage.
The ‘Becoming a Live Player’ course started on Thursday. It was a hype session. John Vervaeke was there, and there was aliveness in the Zoom room. This is the first thing I have done in the market economy since starting The Stoa, and there is a subtle fear here.
People have invested money and time. I could disappoint them. I could disappoint myself. The course is designed well, we aim to make it beautiful, and that may be enough to appease whatever fear emerges.
This fear is related to everything else I am called to do in the world. I am afraid I may not show up to what I am being called to show up for. The fear needs to be honored, and respected, but not capitulated to. The wise words from Nassim Nicholas Taleb come to mind:
A Stoic is someone who transforms fear into prudence, pain into transformation, mistakes into initiation, and desire into undertaking.
This is true. I will honor the fear, respect its advice, and be aware of what it falsely foreshadows. I will not follow it though, because I am called to follow something else.
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