Fame
Hey lovely people,
We had a wild and fun-filled day at the Stoa.
The day started with crushworthy Bonnitta Roy dropping her wisdom, then the Stoa’s matriarch Ria Baeck lead a beautiful Collective Presencing session. In the afternoon Brent Cooper took on the “sensemaking web” (and me) in his Who's Sensing the Sensemakers talk. The evening started with the lovely blackbird doing another Socratic Speed Dating session, followed by the epic finale to season 1 of Pat Ryan’s Dark Stoa series.
Saturday’s events:
Metagame Mastermind w/ Daniel Kazandjian.Every Saturday @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.
Flowing With Unknowingness w/ Tyson Wagner. Every Saturday @ 8:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.
Sunday’s events:
Stoic Breath w/ Steve Beattie.Every Sunday @ 10:00 AM ET. RSVP here. 60 mins.
Chapel Perilous w/ Rebecca Fox. Every Sunday @ 12:00 PM ET. RSVP here. 90 mins.
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June 12th
This is what my homeboy Marcus Aurelius has to say about fame ...
Consider the lives led once by others, long ago, the lives to be led by others after you, the lives led even now, in foreign lands. How many people don’t even know your name. How many will soon have forgotten it. How many offer you praise now—and tomorrow, perhaps, contempt. That to be remembered is worthless. Like fame. Like everything.
Fuck fame. Seriously.
Stoics can be famous though. Marcus was famous. So was Seneca. I do not want to become famous, but I do worry if I keep listening to the dameon I may become at least semi-famous. I want to avoid pathological parasocial relationships and I do not want people projecting their unowned issues on me.
The fame game is a game I do not want to play and I do not want to court fame for its own sake. Tim Ferriss had a good blog post on becoming famous. Here are the risks he listed: stalkers, death threats, harassment of loved ones, extortion attempts, kidnapping, pleas for help, identity theft, and more.
To be real here: I fear fame. Sure, I get a slight high when I get public attention but my high is not desirable enough for me to pursue fame for its own sake. I do wonder how much this fear is holding me back from what the daemon is asking me to do though?
When fear enters the scene, and I get consumed by it, I find my relationship with the daemon dries up. I do not want to break up with the daemon again, but at the same time the daemon sketch I sketched out yesterday is daunting. I think I can pull it off, or at least try to pull it off, but a part of me does not want to pull it off. I sense this fame shit is what is getting in the way.
Maybe I can help steal and seduce the culture without ever becoming famous or even semi-famous? That would be my strong preference. I sense the trick is to risk becoming famous, and Stoically do my negative visualizations so I can psychologically prepare for all the downsides of fame, while doing everything I can do to not to get famous.
Another question that feels alive: how unfamous can The Stoa be while still achieving what the daemon is asking it to do? I do not know how to do this at the moment, and I am not interested in forcing an answer, but this feels like the right question.
Fuck becoming famous. That is not what Stoicism is about, but this Stoic is ready to ride the knife's edge of the fame game if need be.
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