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Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic. Each weekday we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoic, something that can help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, wisdom and temperance.

And here on the weekend we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers, we reflect, we prepare, we think deeply about the challenging issues of our time.

And we work through this philosophy in a way that's more possible here when we're not rushing to work or to get the kids to school, when we have the time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with our journals and to prepare for what the future will bring.

Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast.

I've had this person on the show before and I'm having them again because not only are they one of my favorite people of all time, but I think they are one of the best living writers of our time.

And certainly have influenced me more than just about any other writer that I've ever read. I'm talking about Stephen Presfield. I have his book, The War of Art right here.

This is my very well-worn, well-thumbed through copy. I don't think any of my books would be possible without this book. I reread Stephen's book Gates of Fire at the beginning of the pandemic. I loved it as much.

The second time as I did the first time when I read it almost 15 years ago, I remember it being delivered to my college dorm room.

I feel so humbled and flattered and inspired by the fact that I get to know Stephen that I get to send him early drafts of my books. He's just been a wonderful mentor and inspiration to me.

And so I was very excited to get his new book, A Man at Arms. I think his best book since Gates of Fire, it's just an incredible story about a man, not an arms, although it is a man at arms, but a man who lives by a code.

And it's a really inspiring, fascinating historical novel as all Stephen's books are. We have a great conversation today about stoicism, about battling the resistance, about becoming who you're meant to become.

And about the triumph of good over evil, which I think is the real core theme of Stephen's books. I would actually say it's not that the triumph of good over evil, it's the triumph of love over all things. And I might seem like a strange description of a guy who writes books about Napoleon and Alexander the Great and King Lee and Idis of the 300 Spartans.

And the core of it, I think, Stephen's books are really about love and the power that love has to help us do incredible things. I'm so excited for you to listen to this interview with Stephen Pressfield.

His new book, A Man at Arms is out now. Please read it. Read Gates of Fire, Read War of Art. And of course, check out his writing Wednesday pieces, following on social media. Just a great dude.

Stephen Pressfield, A Man at Arms, and some stoicism. So we'll talk about the book, which I absolutely loved. But I was curious how many books is this for you now?

I think it's 20.

It's 20. Wow. So what keeps you going? I mean, obviously at some point one could stop or rest, but you seem to be always in the middle of a project. What keeps you going?

It's probably the same as you. You know, I mean, I feel if I stop, I'm going to be in the grave, you know, plus I keep having ideas. You know, I keep having things I want to do. So we want to keep you going.

Well, that sort of was going to be my next question. Could you stop if you wanted to?

No, I couldn't. I really couldn't. You know what? You may have heard this before, but a friend of mine has a analogy. Apparently rats rats. Their teeth like grove back up into their brain.

If they don't keep knowing on something that to wear down the teeth at the front of teeth grow back in that brain and kill them. So they got to just keep knowing.

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