Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon Music. Download the app today.

Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each day we bring you a passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength, insight, and wisdom every day life.

Each one of these passages is based on the 2000 year old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more you can visit us at DailyStoic.com.

What it means to carry the fire. We talked about this before, this idea of carrying the fire. It's a concept that comes to us from the beautiful and haunting novel The Road by Cormic McCarthy.

Set in an apocalyptic world, one that echoes Rome in the aftermath of the Antenine plague or even our own days of pandemics and unprecedented unemployment, the novel follows a young boy and his father who are trying to survive in a world of darkness.

The father inspires and instills purpose in his young son by telling him that they are carrying the fire. Everyone else has become selfish, sadistic, even murderous. But this small boy, he is good. He remains true.

He and his father have drawn hard lines about what they will not do even if it comes the cost of their own survival. They retain as hard as it is some hope. They help people when they can and even when wronged, they do not give in to hate or fear.

We can imagine them repeating to themselves just as we must try to repeat to ourselves in our own dark times these words from Marcus Aurelius. No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be good. Like gold or emerald or purple repeating to itself. No matter what anyone says or does, my task is to be emerald. My color undiminished.

Courage, temperance, justice, wisdom. That's our task. That's the fire we are carrying, a fire that is sadly very rare these days. But we must soldier on. We must keep the soldier's faith because it's the only thing we can do because it's the only hope in things go dark.

And we have a beautiful four virtues, Medallion, a coin that emblazoned with those four stove virtues of courage, justice, temperance, wisdom in the daily stoke store to check out at store.dailystoke.com.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the daily stoke early and add free on Amazon music. Download the Amazon music app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts.

Amazon Pickup is a convenient and secure way to collect your Amazon parcels from locations near you. Help keep gifts a surprise when you choose to pick up from an Amazon locker or counter.

Passels can be picked up on your schedule and you can rest assured knowing that your packages are kept safe and secure. Plus, there's no additional cost to use an Amazon locker or counter. Find a convenient pickup point near your home, work or the places you already visit. Amazon Pickup is the worry free option for the times when home delivery isn't ideal.

To find your nearest pickup location or to learn more, go to Amazon.co.uk slash Wondry. That's Amazon.co.uk slash WONDERY.