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

but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoic,

365 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 Stoics, from Epititus Markis Relius, Seneca,

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 worse than death. There are things we fear that we should, and there are the things that we should fear, but don't.

Most people fear dying. Most people don't fear, don't care that they are living a kind of death.

A grippinus, one of the great Stoics of Nero's time, refused to compromise his beliefs or keep a low profile,

even though it put him in danger of running a foul of that tyrant.

He wanted to be the purple thread, as we've talked about, even if it was safer to be black or white or gray.

He would have liked the lyrics to that great Allison Chan song, The One That Goes, If I Can't Be My Own, I'd Feel Better Dead.

Indeed, he eventually died for it, as his incorruptible father had before him.

There are things in this life worse than death, living a bankrupt cowardly life as one of them,

being a patsy or a stool, a Vichy enabler, or a faceless member of the mob is one of them.

You have to repeat that in your head again and again, you have to fight, you don't want to be like that faceless, nameless person that Seneca mentions

was dealt a withering retort, you're pleading for your life, but how is the way that you're living any different than being dead?

If you can't be your own, if you refuse to be your own, what is the point? The question is rhetorical, you can be your own, so choose to be, and don't compromise or appease with those who want to bully you into anything different.

And if you want to know more about Agrippinus, I think he's one of the most fascinating Stoics there are, we profile him in the new book, Lives of the Stoics, The Art of Living from Xeno to Mark's Realist, which is out now, people are loving it, check it out, anywhere, books are sold.

The Philosopher's School is a Hospital. Men, the Philosopher's Lecture Hall is a Hospital. You shouldn't walk out of it feeling pleasure but pain, for you aren't well when you enter it.

That's from Epic Teedis's Discourses, and today's little riffing is from the Daily Stoic, 366 Meditations on Wisdom, Perseverance in the Art of Living.

From yours truly, Ryan Holiday, my co-author and translators, Stephen Hanselman, you can pick up a copy of the Daily Stoic anywhere you buy books over a million copies in print now.

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