Saturday 9 December 2017

Introduction to Stoicism

I changed my middle name to Seneca, as an homage to my stoic master — for helping me find more peace, tranquility, purpose, and strength in my life.

Practical Philosophy

I’ve studied a lot of philosophy, and to me, the only practical philosophies include stoicism and zen. Everything else is too unpractical.

What is Stoicism?

Stoicism: a school of philosophy in which you remove the downside of the pain and fear of life, with unlimited upside (to feel the maximum amount of joy in life).

Basic concepts:

Know what your maximum downside is, to have no fear.
To not fear death.
To feel peace and tranquility in your life, in order for you to do more meaningful work — like empowering humanity (present humanity, and future generations)

Pretty simple.

1. Removing fear

We are all slaves to fear. But consider — how much more epic of a life could you live, if you didn’t fear?

For example, I know that I often fear financial bankruptcy, and fear what others think of me. But over the years, I’ve been giving fewer fucks. Which is good — which means I have less fear about going broke and dying on the streets, and I don’t fear if others like me or not.

My focus,

Do I like me or not? Am I happy with what I’m doing with my life?

Lesson: when you feel afraid or anxious in life, do a vivid imagination of the worst possible scenario, and realize – your biggest fear is probably not that bad.

2. Not fear death

Spoiler alert: we are all gonna die one day.

I’ve learned from stoicism:

We fear the pain related with dying, not death itself.

For example, we see a lot of people suffering in pain before they die. But once we die, it is calm and peaceful.

Also,

The pain of death is identical to the pain of not being born.

Therefore, you don’t have to fear death, because once you’re dead nothing will hurt. You won’t feel pain.

Some folks fear hell— thus fear death. But if you get the notion of hell out of your mind, there is truly nothing to fear.

3. Empowering humanity

Once you feel peace and tranquility, the point isn’t to just be peaceful and tranquil for the rest of your life. Or else, what’s the difference between you and a cow?

The purpose of human beings:

To make stuff, empower others, and help humanity.

To me, the survival of the human species is far more important than the individual. Therefore, the less you worry about yourself as an individual — and the more you think about humanity as a collective, the more purpose and meaning you will have in your life.

For me, I want to empower humanity to become more dope and awesome, through using photography as a tool of self empowerment, and by creating information and keeping it open and accessible.

Therefore to find true joy and “happiness” in life — think about the social purpose your life, consequences, and actions have.

After all, no man would consider himself happy, even if he were a billionaire, with all the houses, toys, and gold in the world — if there were no other human beings to appreciate it with.

Conclusion

To learn more about stoicism, the best to study include Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, and Epictetus.

Books I recommend:
– Letters from a stoic by Seneca
– The meditations by Marcus Aurelius
– The Enchiridion by Epictetus

To simplify stoicism and how to apply it to your life:

Fear less, empower humanity more.

BE STRONG,
ERIC

STOICISM

eric kim portrait by cindy

Become invincible:

The Stoic Masters

eric kim photography black and white hanoi-0009910

Learn from the master stoics:

See all philosophy >

from ERIC KIM http://ift.tt/2iISl9d
via IFTTT

Great Tech 101

Amazon UK