Welcome to the Not Old Better Show, Smithsonian Associates Interview Series.

I'm Paul Vogel saying and this is episode number 348.

Today's show is brought to you by Storyworth.com.

As part of our Smithsonian Associate Series, we are joined today by author and stoicism scholar James

Ram.

James Rom will be appearing at the Smithsonian Associates program, May 10th, 2019, and his presentation

is entitled Seneca and Stoicism and ancient philosophy's modern relevance.

In recent decades, ancient stoicism has served as the basis of therapeutic movements,

especially cognitive behavior therapy, and as a guide to the good life for

thinkers like Michael Foucault and Martha Nusbaum. Our guest today,

classicist James Rom explores the version of Stoicism transmitted to the modern world by Seneca

the younger, a Roman moralist who lived in the time of Nero and served that emperor as chief advisor and spokesperson but understood the issues

of real world anger and the power to defeat it.

Let's get rid of anger's evil.

Let's purge the mind, tear out by the roots that which would grow back,

if any small pieces hang on anywhere. Let's not just restrain our anger, but expunge it altogether. For what restraint can there be when we're

dealing with evil. We will have the power to do it provided we make the effort.

Nothing will aid us more than the contemplation of our mortality. Let's say each to each other and to ourselves,

what joy is there in proclaiming our grievances and wasting our brief lifespan, as though we were born to live forever?

What joy in taking the days that could be devoted to honorable pleasures and devoting them

instead to someone's pain and torture. Such days aren't disposable. We don't have

spare time to squander. Why have we rushed into a fight? Why bring quarrels on ourselves? Why

...