And why is there so much hype around it nowdays?
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You will need to read several books to gain an understanding of the topic. It is too broad to summarize. Start with Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations.
Stoicism is an ancient Greek school of philosophy founded at Athens by Zeno of Citium. He taught that virtue, the highest good, is based on knowledge; the wise live in harmony with the divine Reason that governs nature, and are indifferent to the vicissitudes of fortune and to pleasure and pain.
It’s the opposite of an emotionalism philosophy. Stoics don’t care about their own feelings, much less yours. Think more pragmatic that Mr. Spock from Star Trek, the Vulcans are relatively idealized stoics.
Stoicism is like having a superpower that helps you stay calm, focus on what you can control, not worry about what you can’t control, and be kind and fair, no matter what happens.
A Hellenic philosophy popularised by the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius in his collected writings, “Meditations”.
In an absolute nutshell, it’s learning to not let shit you can’t control occupy your thoughts or bother you, but instead to strive for a life well lived, whilst practicing self control and moderation in all things.
The hype’s because a few influencers got their hands on it and started quote mining it for content whilst practicing exactly none of its tenets.
In simple terms, you can boil Stoicism down to: “Do not let yourself be dominated by your negative emotions.” That is, you might be unhappy about something, but to be a stoic you won’t get stuck on it. You’ll move on to the positive things instead, and look at the FEELING of unhappiness as being beneath you. It doesn’t mean ignore or dismiss the problem that lead to it, or anything like that.
The hype around it is an enormous spectrum. You have the misunderstanding end of it, people who think it’s their idea of peaceful hippy Buddhism. You have the “no emotions at all” side of it, where people think it means acting like a robot. You have the gaslighting side of it, where people are saying “Be stoic. Don’t have feelings [about things I did to you that you’re unhappy about]!” It’s a seemingly easy concept to jump on because nobody really studies it and most people don’t understand it, but can simply reduce it to “Chill, bro!”
I find it compatible with CBT.
Don’t let your feelings dictate your actions, use higher brain functions.
And recognize you can only control your own actions, you cannot control anything else (events, other people, etc).
I’m more of an Epictetus versus Marcus Aurelius type guy.
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