8 ms·

Why, though? What has produced that effect?

writeslowly 9y ago
I feel like it might be related to the interest, in the US at least, in Buddhism (like the secular version that people talk about with regards to meditation and yoga classes etc). I'm not sure where that started though.
- wavefunction 9y ago
  Buddhism is about experiencing and understanding that suffering though, not trying to claim to be a great rock standing against the restful sea. I think there is value to be derived from Stoicism but I'm leery about any reason to commit whole-heartedly to an extreme.
diegoprzl 9y ago
My opinion is that the popularity of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has brought the attention to Stoicism. I reached Stoicism by reading about CBT, and started reading about CBT because I wanted a proven tool to improve and modify my psychological state. I would not call myself Stoic but there is a lot of wisdom there. I particularly like Seneca and Epictetus. The best modern book for me is "A New Stoicism" by Lawrence C. Becker.
- bykovich2 9y ago
  Is CBT seeing significantly increased interest amongst people in tech? I haven't noticed that, but I also haven't been looking.
  - munchbunny 9y ago
    I actually happened upon Stoicism through both CBT and researching meditation. I had some anxiety issues that I more or less learned to control by implementing CBT on myself alongside meditation. Those issues aren't gone, but I now have the mental tools to manage them such that it doesn't affect my life. Later, I found that if I tweaked those techniques, they were also useful for staying focused and clear-headed in stressful startup situations, as well as compartmentalizing work and life, and a number of other things. In practice it meant that by adopting certain mental exercises, I was able to sleep better, work better, take care of myself better, etc. I didn't encounter the term "Stoicism" until several years after, and I found that its practices aligned pretty well with what I was already doing. I don't call myself a Stoic because it's really not a religion or philosophy to me. It's more of a set of mental practices that help me go about my life with a clearer head. However, if you dig through Stoic writings, there's a ton that resonates.
    - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
      How would you best summarize those mental practises?
      - munchbunny 9y ago
        I'd probably summarize it into three general exercises: 1. Notice when I am feeling stress, anxiety, fear, anger, etc. Mentally identify and acknowledge the feeling, and then step out of the cycle. Meditate if I'm really having trouble detaching from the immediate situation. 2. Once I'm no longer stuck in the immediate situation, I have the space and mental presence to figure out the source of my problem. Why was I feeling anxious or stressed? What event caused it? What about it was bothering me? 3. Once I have that answer, I can understand my emotional situation rationally, and I can decide what I'm going to do about it. My goal isn't to stop feeling emotions, but rather to address the root cause or the mental pathway leading to it. For the anxiety issues I mentioned, the conclusion to step 3 was to slowly recondition myself by exposing myself gradually to the triggering condition. Rationally, nothing bad was going to happen, so I needed my brain to learn that. I combined that with developing mental exercises to distract myself and get me away from the downward feedback loop of anxiety. For general life situations, the answer comes closer to Stoic philosophy: understand what I can and cannot control, and then either decide to do something about it, or let go because further worrying about an effective dice roll is a waste of energy. Trying to influence the odds and making contingency plans counts towards "doing something about it." The key to my happiness day to day was understanding that I actually have much more agency than I might initially assume. One or even several setbacks don't necessarily mean I fail my actual goal, and situations that look bad often only look that way because I think I'm out of options, or because I'm trying to eat my cake and have it too when I actually need to make a hard choice. Among all of this, the key insight for me that CBT and meditation unlocked was that many of my limitations had a huge internal mental component, and if I can intentionally mold how I perceive the world, I can live much more effectively, and happily. The goal isn't to delude myself so much as to put myself in a mental state where I can be be more open-minded and deliberate.
  - diegoprzl 9y ago
    The fact that our brains have "bugs" and biases has seen a significantly increased interest, so I suppose that methods to solve those bugs has seen an increased interest too.
- afarrell 9y ago
  This is also how I got interested in stoicism. This isn't about becoming some Ubermensch. It is about meaningfully improving one's ability to meet the commitments one makes and the obligations one has to loved ones.
rocqua 9y ago
At the modern core, stoicism is self-therapy. It is about handeling set-backs by tempering one's emotions. Considering the amount of hype and bubbles in tech, this probably seems reasonable. Especially when you think the hype is nothing but empty hype. It also just seems more sustainable than constant jubilee, and more honest for considering the possibility of failure.
- bykovich2 9y ago
  Well, a certain sort of therapy. It's pretty insightful to connect the increased interest in stoicism to the boom-and-bust cycle. As the specter of a bust looms larger (hallucinatory or not), I can imagine that people who would be affected by the bust might find themselves seeking out ways of psychologically weathering the storm. Stoicism ain't it, in my book, but it certainly presents itself as if it were.
booleandilemma 9y ago
I don't think it's limited to just tech, I think it's become popular because of this guy Tim Ferriss and his TED Talks. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/06/14/tim-ferriss-simple-strategy-to-manage-fear-is-his-secret-to-success.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/06/14/tim-ferriss-simple-strat...
nisa 9y ago
I guess some books and talks from people who discovered stoicism i.e. maybe by reading Albert Ellis and put around some modern day self-help stuff. William Irvine, Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferris and so on. Stoicism as a label and some nice quotes from ancient authors and their stories make up for a good sell. I still think stoicism is interesting but you are better off reading the original texts especially Epictetus and some books from historians about that time-frame for some context and criticism.
Bakary 9y ago
It has all the elements to make it popular. The image of a strong and resilient sage and the implied idea that you can transform into such a being if you just follow the instructions. The gravitas from its association with the Ancients and books with cool titles penned by badass sounding people (most notably Marcus Aurelius). The appearance of having discovered a "life hack" based on rational thought. The fact that it can be neatly packaged into the modern day American self-help culture we are familiar with (LinkedIn "influencers", Tim Ferris-type books, self-affirmation, etc.)
wu-ikkyu 9y ago
Perhaps it may be the increasingly worrisome and out of control political climate?
Malician 9y ago
Stoicism unites key principles of early Christian thinking, Buddhist thinking, and modern humanist techniques for transcending mental illness (CBT/DBT.) It filters down from here through almost every bit of psychological self help you can find. (See Scott Alexander's "CBT is in the water supply") - and through it, stoic principles. The modern world confronts us with a planet of people who are better than us at one thing or another and a planet of risks we have no ability to confront. We might work five years on a project that never ships without ever experiencing the gratification of chopping wood to burn that night. I would bet there's a genetic correlation between programmer / good at tech and overthinking / predisposition to anxiety; even if not, humans placed in an environment which causes our brains to run wild will look for some sort of peace. We find this from many sources - especially through addictions (legal, illegal, television, refreshing HN) - prescription medications (different from addictions? sometimes!) - but the idea of being able to train ourselves out of our internal agony is quite appealing. Stoic philosophy itself is the foundation of the ideas which come to us through every part of culture, so people who are into tracing the source are liable to find it sooner or later.

I feel like it might be related to the interest, in the US at least, in Buddhism (like the secular version that people talk about with regards to meditation and yoga classes etc). I'm not sure where that started though.

wavefunction 9y ago
Buddhism is about experiencing and understanding that suffering though, not trying to claim to be a great rock standing against the restful sea. I think there is value to be derived from Stoicism but I'm leery about any reason to commit whole-heartedly to an extreme.

diegoprzl 9y ago

My opinion is that the popularity of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy has brought the attention to Stoicism. I reached Stoicism by reading about CBT, and started reading about CBT because I wanted a proven tool to improve and modify my psychological state. I would not call myself Stoic but there is a lot of wisdom there. I particularly like Seneca and Epictetus. The best modern book for me is "A New Stoicism" by Lawrence C. Becker.

bykovich2 9y ago
Is CBT seeing significantly increased interest amongst people in tech? I haven't noticed that, but I also haven't been looking.
- munchbunny 9y ago
  I actually happened upon Stoicism through both CBT and researching meditation. I had some anxiety issues that I more or less learned to control by implementing CBT on myself alongside meditation. Those issues aren't gone, but I now have the mental tools to manage them such that it doesn't affect my life. Later, I found that if I tweaked those techniques, they were also useful for staying focused and clear-headed in stressful startup situations, as well as compartmentalizing work and life, and a number of other things. In practice it meant that by adopting certain mental exercises, I was able to sleep better, work better, take care of myself better, etc. I didn't encounter the term "Stoicism" until several years after, and I found that its practices aligned pretty well with what I was already doing. I don't call myself a Stoic because it's really not a religion or philosophy to me. It's more of a set of mental practices that help me go about my life with a clearer head. However, if you dig through Stoic writings, there's a ton that resonates.
  - BoiledCabbage 9y ago
    How would you best summarize those mental practises?
    - munchbunny 9y ago
      I'd probably summarize it into three general exercises: 1. Notice when I am feeling stress, anxiety, fear, anger, etc. Mentally identify and acknowledge the feeling, and then step out of the cycle. Meditate if I'm really having trouble detaching from the immediate situation. 2. Once I'm no longer stuck in the immediate situation, I have the space and mental presence to figure out the source of my problem. Why was I feeling anxious or stressed? What event caused it? What about it was bothering me? 3. Once I have that answer, I can understand my emotional situation rationally, and I can decide what I'm going to do about it. My goal isn't to stop feeling emotions, but rather to address the root cause or the mental pathway leading to it. For the anxiety issues I mentioned, the conclusion to step 3 was to slowly recondition myself by exposing myself gradually to the triggering condition. Rationally, nothing bad was going to happen, so I needed my brain to learn that. I combined that with developing mental exercises to distract myself and get me away from the downward feedback loop of anxiety. For general life situations, the answer comes closer to Stoic philosophy: understand what I can and cannot control, and then either decide to do something about it, or let go because further worrying about an effective dice roll is a waste of energy. Trying to influence the odds and making contingency plans counts towards "doing something about it." The key to my happiness day to day was understanding that I actually have much more agency than I might initially assume. One or even several setbacks don't necessarily mean I fail my actual goal, and situations that look bad often only look that way because I think I'm out of options, or because I'm trying to eat my cake and have it too when I actually need to make a hard choice. Among all of this, the key insight for me that CBT and meditation unlocked was that many of my limitations had a huge internal mental component, and if I can intentionally mold how I perceive the world, I can live much more effectively, and happily. The goal isn't to delude myself so much as to put myself in a mental state where I can be be more open-minded and deliberate.
- diegoprzl 9y ago
  The fact that our brains have "bugs" and biases has seen a significantly increased interest, so I suppose that methods to solve those bugs has seen an increased interest too.
afarrell 9y ago
This is also how I got interested in stoicism. This isn't about becoming some Ubermensch. It is about meaningfully improving one's ability to meet the commitments one makes and the obligations one has to loved ones.

rocqua 9y ago

At the modern core, stoicism is self-therapy. It is about handeling set-backs by tempering one's emotions. Considering the amount of hype and bubbles in tech, this probably seems reasonable. Especially when you think the hype is nothing but empty hype. It also just seems more sustainable than constant jubilee, and more honest for considering the possibility of failure.

bykovich2 9y ago
Well, a certain sort of therapy. It's pretty insightful to connect the increased interest in stoicism to the boom-and-bust cycle. As the specter of a bust looms larger (hallucinatory or not), I can imagine that people who would be affected by the bust might find themselves seeking out ways of psychologically weathering the storm. Stoicism ain't it, in my book, but it certainly presents itself as if it were.

booleandilemma 9y ago

I don't think it's limited to just tech, I think it's become popular because of this guy Tim Ferriss and his TED Talks. https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/06/14/tim-ferriss-simple-strategy-to-manage-fear-is-his-secret-to-success.html https://www.cnbc.com/amp/2017/06/14/tim-ferriss-simple-strat...

nisa 9y ago

I guess some books and talks from people who discovered stoicism i.e. maybe by reading Albert Ellis and put around some modern day self-help stuff. William Irvine, Ryan Holiday, Tim Ferris and so on. Stoicism as a label and some nice quotes from ancient authors and their stories make up for a good sell. I still think stoicism is interesting but you are better off reading the original texts especially Epictetus and some books from historians about that time-frame for some context and criticism.

Bakary 9y ago

It has all the elements to make it popular. The image of a strong and resilient sage and the implied idea that you can transform into such a being if you just follow the instructions. The gravitas from its association with the Ancients and books with cool titles penned by badass sounding people (most notably Marcus Aurelius). The appearance of having discovered a "life hack" based on rational thought. The fact that it can be neatly packaged into the modern day American self-help culture we are familiar with (LinkedIn "influencers", Tim Ferris-type books, self-affirmation, etc.)

wu-ikkyu 9y ago

Perhaps it may be the increasingly worrisome and out of control political climate?

Malician 9y ago

Stoicism unites key principles of early Christian thinking, Buddhist thinking, and modern humanist techniques for transcending mental illness (CBT/DBT.) It filters down from here through almost every bit of psychological self help you can find. (See Scott Alexander's "CBT is in the water supply") - and through it, stoic principles. The modern world confronts us with a planet of people who are better than us at one thing or another and a planet of risks we have no ability to confront. We might work five years on a project that never ships without ever experiencing the gratification of chopping wood to burn that night. I would bet there's a genetic correlation between programmer / good at tech and overthinking / predisposition to anxiety; even if not, humans placed in an environment which causes our brains to run wild will look for some sort of peace. We find this from many sources - especially through addictions (legal, illegal, television, refreshing HN) - prescription medications (different from addictions? sometimes!) - but the idea of being able to train ourselves out of our internal agony is quite appealing. Stoic philosophy itself is the foundation of the ideas which come to us through every part of culture, so people who are into tracing the source are liable to find it sooner or later.