Dear friends,
Another full day at The Stoa. We started with an amazing Psychotechnology Playground with Bonnitta Roy, then another Socratic Speed Dating with Raven Connolly, and we ended the day at The Dark Stoa, with Pat Ryan, talking about Trauma Drama.
Sessions this weekend:
Staying Inside: Solitude and Cultivating Interior Life w/ Greg Sadler. April 18th @ 1:00 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
Metagame Mastermind w/ Daniel Kazand. Every Saturday @ 6:00 PM ET. RSVP: April 18th
Freestyling Through a Pandemic w/ Tyson Wagner. April 18th @ 8:00 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
Stoic Breath w/ Steve Beattie. Every Sunday @ 10:00 AM ET. RSVP: April 19th
Oxytocin Party w/ Raya Sun. April 19th @ 8:00 PM ET. Learn more. RSVP here.
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April 17, 2020
I'm so—I’m so reborn, I'm movin' forward
Keep movin’ forward, keep movin' forward
Ain't no stress on me, Lord, I'm movin' forward
I feel called to listen to this song, on repeat. Yeah, it is easy to feel worthless, and also, yeah, as any good Stoic knows, peace is something that starts with oneself. I felt a moment of unworthiness last night. Who am I kidding? It was more than a moment. I wanted to hide in my cave, where I can fester, and risk becoming a monster.
I’ve shut myself off from the world before, but as I just told a friend, with whom I recently broke up: The truth will hunt you down. The truth hunts us all down. I can only speak in fragments right now, the real is fast moving, and is asking much more than any coherent sentence can offer.
This crazy wisdom that I thought I possessed, is just feeling crazy, and fully listening to the daemon is like being ill prepared to hold on to a fire hose, and I have never done either before. I feel the need to back off. I am becoming unpredictable, dangerous, feral. I am ready to turn my life upside down.
In this interregnum, between the games, I do not know how to play. Well, the daemon thinks he knows, the daemon always thinks he knows. It’s funny that I had to be in a state of complete unknowingnesss, like Socrates, in order to access this knowingness, like Socrates.
I wanted to say that this moment feels like a Gethsemane, but that feels insulting to Jesus. I took a break from writing this, I had to. I took a walk, and talked with brother Daniel. Whom I love. Daniel has a strong mind, stronger than mine, and he is probably better looking than me, too. We talked about love, and about how to play the metagame.
My prudence is now coming online in a fuller way. I feel grounded, with a noble masculinity. Yes, I previously justified, through practical reason, fully listening to the daemon. But, in the interregnum, and in the upcoming liminal war, I think a dual approach is needed. The world needs virtuous men. The world needs Stoicism to be reborn.
You might be asking yourself, dear reader, what does any of this have to do with Stoicism? Well, I don’t know either, but in the midst of all of this disorientating confusion and the groundingness of reason, I have one truth that is unshakable: you make me want to be a virtuous man.
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