Pursuing emotional moderation or equilibrium ad infinitum is a form of death by armor. Albert Camus understood that, to truly lean into the intensity of being alive, you have to “live to the point of tears”—to be moved by beauty, to be hurt by connection, to be overwhelmed by the absolute absurdity of existence. This is the highest form of courage! Lao Tzu wrote: “The living are soft and yielding. The dead are rigid and stiff.” Stoicism is a shield for war, not a lifestyle design playbook.
and after a little bit of investigation I find their assertions and claims are bullshit
Stoicism encourages apatheia (freedom from passions) and enduring fate with equanimity.
so did the buddha, dumbass.
THE PROBLEM with (too much) Stoicism is that it lacks intensity, energy, and passion. Stoicism undeniably provides a marvelous moral constitution; but it’s full of platitudes and clichés.
everything this guy's writing is platitudes.
tell me this lacks passion, intensity, energy.... moral letters 82
Too much Stoicism dulls life. If I hang out with my friends to enjoy 2-3 bottles of Riesling, this could merely be tolerated by Stoicism but never encouraged.3 Stoicism doesn’t blithely support intellectual vagabonding, procrastination, idleness, or any forms of play—even though these could very well be virtues. Stoicism feels more like a medicine you may take every now and then rather than a nutritious and delicious meal to eat on a weekly basis.[4]
[4] Although Seneca discusses this briefly, Stoicism doesn’t provide any extensive guidance in terms of rest and leisure. Epicureanism is more promising in this respect but equally lacks a mystical aspect or transcendent ideal.
ugh... anyway, I can't stand sophistic philosophy.
I'll add that I loathed the characters of "On The Road" by Kerouac ... even after I realized they were, so many of them, of my best friends and of myself. we should work hard, so as not to waste our lives. and we shouldn't either work so hard that we waste our lives.
wrong