Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key stoic virtues,

courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world.

The terror of knowing what the world is about.

There is a burden to the study of history. It not only takes a lot of work,

it's heavy, knowing what people have done to each other, knowing what they do to each other,

making sense of the contradictions, the failures, the stupidity does not exactly fill one with hope

for humanity. And perhaps this explains some of the weariness in

Marx Reles' meditations. Marcus was not just a student of history, but an aspiring historian,

even working on at one point a little book called Deeds of the Ancient Greeks and Romans. He knew

that history was so often the same thing happening over and over again. He knew it was cruelty and

awfulness. It was bloody and pathetic. There is no escaping the terror of knowing what the world

is about, except perhaps not knowing. An ignorance, however, soothing is unfortunately a vice.

It is a violation of our responsibility to seek wisdom.

And it is also a childish luxury that people involved in public life do not get to indulge.

So yes, you will have to face facts. You will have to get uncomfortable. You will have to take up the burden of history. And this will not always

be fun. It will strip you of some of your illusions. It will also, it should be said, make you stronger

and wiser and ultimately more just. It will make you great as it did for Marcus Aurelius, who,

despite his understanding of the world, still strove to be good and decent,

refused to give in to despair or cynicism, and did his damnedest to be the exception to

history's rules.

I don't know if you've ever done any live shopping, but it's blown up.

And some of the kids, I don't know if I call them kids, but some of the Gen Z kids on my staff had to tell me about it.

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