How I Discovered Stoicism
A New Dad’s Stoic Journey
I’ve been reading stoic philosophy since I discovered it in a used bookstore. It was this small bookstore that had an area dedicated to gameplay. I was playing the board game Risk.
If you’ve ever played Risk, you’d know it’s a game of world domination, the goal being to essentially conquer the world one country at a time. Most games end with the last two players, one player has conquered every territory except one, and the other player is in Eastern Australia. Don’t ask me why but the final battle always takes place in Australia.
I don’t recall how I lost, but knowing my luck, I hadn’t made it past my third turn (and Ontario). My game was over.
So, I ended up in the philosophy section, where a battered copy of Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations” was staring back at me. The book itself was not old enough to warrant the level of wear and tear it wore. It was a seasoned veteran, with sunbaked pages and old underlines from someone who not only read the book, but reread it and revisited passages again and again.
I like used books. I especially like used books with highlights. It’s interesting to see what other folks found compelling. The book grows character, personality. Reading a book with highlights builds another layer of community. If a book is a conversation between the writer and the reader, highlights are like a discussion, offering a new layer of communication.
For a book so heavily read and reread, highlighted and underlined, why did the previous owner ditch it? Were the highlights for study, maybe for an exam. At the time, I believe it would be 2009, I was in college myself, and in a philosophy class. But the teacher didn’t talk much about Stoicism. It was my humanities professor who did, but we didn’t have to read “Meditations.
At the time, my friend Nick was obsessed with our philosophy teacher. In college, or fresh out of high school, you are curious, curious about the world, curious about your place in it, more so than you ever will be, at least more curious for a long time. The mind is open to these new experiences, new attitudes and ideas.
You’re especially more open if you lost a game of world domination to your friend Nick, and you have nothing better to do than wander a bookshop. I remember sitting back down at the table with my new find. It was one of those cheap, plastic, white-top foldable tables with the sturdy metal legs that if you don’t pay enough attention to kick you in the shin.
I opened the pages and read lines here and there. All while listening intently to the battle cries of the Australian division (Nick).
I still have this same book (it’s the lede image of this post) and I’m leafing through it now. It’s the Gregory Hays translation, a more modernized version. It has more wear. Its pages are more yellow. The back cover is missing a corner because my dog went through a phase of eating book covers. He had good taste.
Later that evening, I would read it. Read it through and through over the course of a few months. Over the course of a few years, I’d reread it again and again, multiple versions and translations.
But this version, this translation is my favorite. There’s a strange attachment you have to the first book you pick up and read, and I’m happy I still have this edition, this aged version. I have two editions of this book, because, if you haven’t learned this already, when you lend a book, especially one of your favorites, you should have a copy in case the person you lent it to never gives it back, and for the off chance you suddenly want to read what you don’t have. Happens all the time.
Little did I know that day I was in that bookshop I’d be discovering a philosophy, Stoicism, that would change my life.
I wouldn’t say I’m a Stoic by any means, but I find myself always going back to Stoicism, finding comfort in Aurelius, and the other Stoic philosophers.
Since that fateful day in the book store, I have read beyond Meditations. I discovered Epictetus, Seneca, and Musonius Rufus, and more modern thinkers like Ryan Holiday.
I haven’t gotten any better at Risk, but I like to think that because of Stoicism, I’m okay with that.