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Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation,

but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoke, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance, and the Art of Living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Steve Enhancelman.

And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stokes, from Epititus Markis Relius, Santa Cah, then some analysis for me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

This is how to treat your brain. On the one hand, the Stokes were big believers in the power of reason. They believed we were rational creatures, capable of thinking through all the distractions and impulses and biases of the mind and body. On the other hand, they knew people were crazy, that our mind, that our thoughts were hardly infallible, and they didn't always have our best interest at heart. So how do you square these two ideas? That Markis Relius is at one point telling us that, in the end, the whole thing is going to be a little bit more complicated.

And so, we're telling ourselves to trust themselves, and just page as later, telling ourselves to be suspicious of himself. How do you square living in accordance with nature, with all the very unnatural habits and systems in self discipline that the Stokes deliberately practiced?

Perhaps an interesting comment from Jerry Seinfeld on the Tim Ferriss podcast can help us. He says, you gotta treat your brain like a dog you just got. The mind is infinite in Wisdom. The brain is stupid.

The brain is a stupid little dog that is easily trained. Do not confuse the mind with the brain. The brain is easy to master. You just have to confine it. And that is done through repetition and systemization. The brain versus the mind. Perfect.

The mind is our nature, our incredible gift. We were given it birth. But we are also stuck with our silly brains, our puppy-like brains that mean well, but get into so much trouble and mischief.

A puppy you don't train turns into a nightmare or worse, a liability that can hurt someone. So we train them. We contain them. We watch them. And of course, love and understand and play with them while always remaining in charge.

The marks of a rational person. This is the Daily Stoke entry for April 22nd, and it's a short one.

These are the characteristics of the rational soul, self-awareness, self-examination, and self-determination. It reaps its own harvests. It succeeds in its own purpose.

Marcus Aurelius' Meditations 11-1. To be rational today, we have to do just three things. First, we must look inward. Next, we must examine ourselves critically. Finally, we must make our own decisions un-inhibited by biases or popular notions.

I thought I would also read Gregory Hayes' wonderful translation of the same passage, because he seems to do so much so well, and he's always been my favorite. 11-1, on the Daily Stoke, he says, this is a long one. He says, characteristics of the rational soul, self-perception, self-examination, and the power to make of itself whatever it wants.

It reaps its own harvest, unlike plants, and in a different way animals. That's a parenthetical who's yield is gathered by others.

Then he says, it reaches its intended goal, no matter where the limit of its life is set. Not like dancing or theater or things like that, where the performance is incomplete, if it's broken off in the middle.

But at any point, no matter which one you pick, it has fulfilled its mission and done its work completely. So it can say, I have what I came for.

It surveys the world and the empty space around it, and the way it's put together, it delves into the endlessness of time to extend its grasp and comprehension of the periodic births and re-births that the world goes through.

It knows that those who come after us will see nothing different, that those who came before us so know more than we do, and that anyone with 40 years behind him in eyes and his head is seen both the past and the future alike.

Also, the characteristics of the rational soul, affection for its neighbors, truthfulness, humility, not to go any place above itself, which is characteristic of law as well. No difference here between the logos of rationality or that of justice.

I think what Marcus is really saying here, whether you look at the short one or the long one, I think he's really saying that the rational soul or rationality is intrinsically wonderful.

It's done for its own sake. We have self-awareness, we practice self-examination, we seek self-determination. Why not? Because it makes us more successful.

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