The What Is Stoicism? Podcast

The What Is Stoicism? Podcast

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Why Good People Suffer

This episode tackles one of life’s most enduring questions: why do misfortunes so often strike those who seem least deserving of them?Drawing on Seneca’s On Providence and the poetry of Octavio Paz, we look at suffering not as injustice but as a form of moral training and self-di ...  Show more

Don’t Lose Today in the Trap of Tomorrow

This episode explores how expectation quietly robs us of the only time we ever truly have: today. Through a wry story from John O’Donohue and Seneca’s sharp warning about waiting on tomorrow, we see how imagined futures colonize the present and dull our awareness of what’s alread ...  Show more

The Stoic Morning: Poems To Wake Up To

This episode is a quiet pause at the start of the day—a meditation on mornings as gifts rather than obligations. Drawing on Stoic gratitude and four short poems by Billy Collins, Mary Oliver, Rumi, and Frank O’Hara, it invites us to meet the day with attentiveness instead of hast ...  Show more

When Escape Isn't Possible, Acceptance Is The Way

This episode examines a quietly radical insight: that much of our suffering comes not from pain itself, but from our attempt to escape it. Drawing a line between Alan Watts’ observation and Stoic acceptance, we explore how resistance to reality keeps distress alive long after the ...  Show more

You'll Never Be Perfect, And That's Just Fine

This episode reframes Stoicism not as a quest for unreachable perfection, but as a practice of steady progress. Drawing on the ancient idea of the prokoptōn—the one who makes progress—we explore why even Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius saw themselves as students rather tha ...  Show more