In just TWO WEEKS, Ryan Holiday is taking the stage in Seattle, WA at Town Hall Seattle!
Join us for Daily Stoic LIVE—an evening of timeless wisdom about applying the Stoic Virtues to modern life and modern problems. It will be one of the first times Ryan talks publicly about his newest book and instant New York Times Bestseller, Wisdom Takes Work.
One of the most interesting things you come to understand about Meditations is how unoriginal it is. It's largely made up of short quotes and passages from other writers.
On one page, we see him using a metaphor from Panaetius. On another, he's quoting Epictetus from memory then riffing on something he heard from Rusticus. Here he is quoting a lost line from Euripides ("You shouldn't give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don't care at all"). Here he is quoting Chrysippus, and then it's Socrates and then Homer and Plato and Heraclitus and Democritus and Aristophanes and Pindar and Hesiod and on and on.
In a way, Meditations is really Marcus's "commonplace book"—which is the name for a practice that lovers of wisdom have been following for centuries, collecting observations, quotes, ideas, diary entries, and anecdotes that they wanted to preserve. "A collection of anecdotes and maxims is the greatest treasure for a man of the world," Goethe explained, because we can draw on it in conversation and in moments of personal crisis alike.
Montaigne's essays, so filled with quotes, read as if they might have been torn directly from his treasured commonplace book. Emerson referred to his journals as his "savings bank," and it's true: many of his best talks and writings first appeared there. Anne Frank filled her diary with passages from the biographies and history books she was reading, celebrating sentences she liked and anecdotes that meant something to her.
The Daily Stoic itself would not exist without Ryan Holiday's longtime habit of collecting stories, quotes, and ideas on 4 x 6 index cards, which also serve as the backbones for his books. Each card is a story read, a lesson learned, a quote remembered, a moment wrestled with. The cards become emails like this one. They also become chapters in books like Wisdom Takes Work (which was not only built by notecards, but has two sections on journaling and writing as a means of thinking).
Whether we're beginning some creative work or we're trying to solve some complex problem, we should never be starting from zero. Invariably, at some point in our lives, we have seen or read or heard something that would be of use in this or that situation. But will we remember it? Will we have access to it?
Whether in a journal like Marcus, a diary like Anne Frank, or on index cards like Ryan—start keeping a commonplace book. So that in the end, it can keep you.
P.S. We know starting can often be the hardest part when it comes to journaling. That's why we created The Daily Stoic Journal—your companion in working through whatever you're working on.
Each week, the journal prompts focus your attention around a core Stoic principle, and daily prompts guide your reflection on how to better apply that principle in your life. Following these exercises for a whole year will result in you discovering the most essential lesson in Stoicism—learning how to turn words into works. In short, The Daily Stoic Journal will help you become the person philosophy tried to make you.
You can grab signed copies of The Daily Stoic Journal here. And make sure to pair it with our official Daily Stoic Journal leather cover, which will protect your journal from inevitable wear and tear that traveling with a journal invariably delivers.
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