Index of Socratic State of Mind

Exercises, Tools, Meditations

• How to Journal Like a Philosopher

• A Surprising Way To Find Your Real Values

• Feeling Lost and Passionless? Do This.

• How To Stop Making Mistakes You Really Want To Make

• Stoicism vs Mindfulness for Weight Loss

• How To Find Happiness By Remembering Death

• Horace’s Wedge: Wanting What You Have Instead of What You Don’t.

• Decomposition: Destroy Temptations by Really Seeing Them

• A Quick Trick To Find Your Values and the Truth

• The Greatest Comfort When Life Sucks

• People Who Struggle With Gratitude Make The Same Mistake

• Stoicism’s Last Gasp Gratitude Generator

• How to Recruit Peeping Toms For A Great Life

• My Only Romantic Superpower

• Mastering Irreverance & Awe

• How To Give Great Gifts To Ourselves

• Dichotomy of Enslavement: Epictetus’s Key Insight For Taking Back Our Lives

• How to Wring Lasting Happiness From Our Dollars

• Awe: A Charm Against Life Weariness and Dispair

• Rescue Yourself From Mindless Mistakes

• Find Places That Slap You

• How To Take Our Minds Back

• Think On The Darker Side

• On To Become Curious About Anything

Future, AI, Tech & Philosophy:

• AI Can’t Make This Human Skill Obsolete

• A Timeless Skill for The AI Age

Virtue, Ethics, and Living the Good Life

• The Only Game Worth Playing

• How Virtue Makes Us Happy

• Not Pretty: When Modern Slaves Win At Life

• Just Do the Opposite For A Great Life

• Satire: The Five Commandments of Misery

• Satire: The Final Commandments of Misery

• How Marcus Aurelius Balanced Justice and Sanity

• What No One Will Say About the Gaza Conflict

The Body:

• I Was Obese: Here’s The Good Advice That Keeps Me Sane

• How Wise People Stay Fit In A Foolish World

The Science of Philosophy and Psychology:

• The Science of Anchoring & How I Almost Lost My Girlfriend

• The Science of Journaling Like a Philosopher

• Does Stoicism Make Conservatives Think Like Liberals?

• Socrates Was Right: We Need Friends To Think Clearly

• We’re All Cognitively Impaired Now (Power of Walking For Creativity)

Powerful Reframings:

• How to Stop Feeling Bad When You Go Home

• Wherever You Wash Ashore, Start From There

• Socrates and the Stoics Want Us to Be Like This AI

• How to Protect Yourself From Manipulation

• How the Powerless Change the World

• What Sir Michael Cane Learned From A Chair

• How To Rescue Yourself

• How To Shift Your Perspective

• How To Carry Everything Your Need

• Don’t Be A Consistent Hobgoblin

• How to Rid Yourself of Life’s Bullshit

• Did You Remember To Be Lucky Today?

• Why We Overcomplicate Things

• Why Your Numbers Keep Losing Fights

• If You’re Not Laughing, You’re Probably Doing Stoicism wrong

• What Protestors Won’t Tell You About Improving Our World

• Why “I’m Spiritual, not Religious People Flounder.”

• What I Learned Not Eating For 26 Days

• Six Ways Stoicism Improved My Life

• How To Have Worthwhile Opinions In A Confusing World

• How To Thrive During Stressful Days

• How The Wise Will Use This New Day

• How Stoics will vote in this election.

• Why You Should Try Hypocrisy

• How Transformations Actually Happen

• Find This Before It Disappears Forever

• The Hustle Culture Killer Starter Pack

• How To Win Reputational Victories

• What My Dog Taught Me About Life & Philosophy

• Three Stoic Ideas For This Insane Moment

• How They Took Our Automatic Wins

Tools & Models For Understanding The World

Economic:

• We can’t understand the world without these tools (Incentives, 2nd Order Effects, Sunk Cost Fallacies).

• Net Profit Margin (Understand If You’re Being Ripped Off).

• Concentrated Benefits, Dispersed Costs.

• Why Substack Sucks Less

Paradox, Epigrams, Maxims

• Marcus Aurelius’s Powerful Paradoxes

• Why Kindness is Invincible

• Buddha vs Marcus Aurelius

Introductory Articles:

• Remember These Three Truths for a Great Life

• Introduction to Seneca

• Seneca’s Trojan Horse

Rewiring Your Brain:

• How the Stoics Enjoyed Doing Hard Things

• Fate is Real. Here’s How We Overcome It

• Why No One Expects Killer Toads

• How To be Happy When Life Sucks

• Self Love Ends Here

• How To Stop Making Emotional Decisions

• How to Make Pain Your Ally

• Marcus Aurelius’s Four Strategies for Better Thinking.

• Four Habits of Wise People In Foolish Countries

• We’re All David After Dentist

Ask a Stoic:

• Dealing with a Polyamorous Partner’s Bad Behavior

• How to Deal with Stupid People?

• How do I bring justice back to my city?

• Angry People Can’t Do This

• My Job Kills People. Should I Quit?

• How to Thrive While Climate Change Destroys Our World.

Interviews:

• Donald Robertson on Big Stoic Mistakes and Discovering Your Values

  • Part I, Part II

• Donald Robertson on his book, “Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor.”

Reviews and Book Suggestions:

• The Best Books for New Stoics and the Stoa-Curious

• Review of Marcus Aurelius: The Stoic Emperor by Donald Robertson.

• The Best Translation of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations

• Epictetus’s Handbook

• The Books That Made Me

Spirituality/Religion

• Love and Physics: What the Universe Wants

• Why “I’m Spiritual, Not Religious” People Flounder

Utopian Thinking, Preferred Indifferents, Other

• The Surprising Philanthropy of Rome’s 1%

• The Other Way To Bleed The Rich: Best Practices From Ancient Rome

• Stoics and Epicureans Have Returned: So Where Are The Cynics?

• Can We Create A Wise and Enlightened Citizenry?

• Why We’re Marooned In the Present

• How Rome Built A Psychologically Resilient Culture.

• How To Manipulate Voters

The Pressure Cooker Series

• Why America Chose Self-Destruction

• Some Historical Perspective Before We Tear This Nation Apart

• The Least Worst Way to End America’s Polarized Conflict

• How To Stop American From Tearing Itself Apart

Digital Sanity:

• How To Take Your Nights Back

Paid Subscriber Benefits

• Memento Mori Calendar

• Schedule a free chat

Memorize For Meaning

• Memorize For Meaning Index

• The Link Method of Immortal Memories

• Can We Talk About Your Slaves?

• Stoicism’s Leaky Memory Problem

• How To Easily Memorize All of Stoicism

One-Minute Philosophy Bites:

• Feeling Stuck? Check your Labels.

• Taking a Stand Without Labels

• Some Labels Make You Stronger

• Where We Draw the Line

• Three Quotes on Becoming Mentally Nimble

• Why Philosophy Makes us Wince

• This is Better than Happiness

• How to Find Truth Where it Isn’t

• The Forgotten Third Rule of Ancient Greek Philosophy

• This is Better Than Being Intelligent

• The Five Words That Sum Up Stoicism

• Why The Best Life Hacks are Subtractions

• What Astronauts and Philosophers Know About Happiness 

• Why Ignorance Isn’t That Bad (This is Worse).

• Why I’m Counting Down The Weeks To My Death

• Why We Should Pity Lucky People

• Why Stoics Make Things Political

• What Navy Seals and Philosophers Know About Anger

• Why So Many People Are Fragile

• How Stoics Solved the Grass is Always Greener Problem

• How Stoics Find Ideal Mentors

• How Stoics Beat Negative Emotion

• The Stoic Trick to Stop Wanting Things

• How Stoics Start Their Mornings

• How Stoics Spend Each Day

• How Stoics End Each Night

• How to Win A Debate by Losing

• Inexperience Isn’t a Selling Point

• How the Rich Janitor Gave Back

• It’s What You Do After the Jump That Counts

• How to Be Ready For Anything

• How to Dance to The Music Only You Hear

• The Trick to Being Relaxed and Dedicated

• Marcus Aurelius on Being Reborn

• Marcus Aurelius’s Journal Secret

• What Philosophy Is Designed To Do

• The Stoic Trick to Stay Present

• Why You’re Still Not Happy

• How to Pity the Morally Disabled

• What Stoicism Protects Us From

• Why We Can’t Give Hitler Nice Things

• Feeling Down? You’re Probably Verbing Your Nouns

Letter Exchanges

Letters to Sara Ness:

• Restoring Community is Like Nuclear Disarmament