Dr. Shadi Bartsch on Eastern vs. Western Philosophy
Ryan speaks with Dr. Shadi Bartsch about her new book Plato Goes to China: The Greek Classics and Chinese Nationalism, the controversial role that Greek classics are taking in China, the surprising si...
8 Maalis 20231h 4min
To Find Pleasure, Look for Purpose
It might seem like the Stoics didn’t have fun, didn’t experience pleasure. They did write, after all, quite a bit about the emptiness of chasing sex or money or fine wines. But just because they scorn...
8 Maalis 20232min
Marcus Had A Dream | The Most Life Changing Marcus Aurelius Quotes
It was last night 1,862 years ago that Marcus Aurelius had a dream.A few years earlier, when Marcus received the news of Hadrian’s plans to have Antoninus Pius adopt him and place him next in line for...
7 Maalis 202310min
How To Find Treasure | What Expensive Things Cost
The reason we don’t get what we want is because we want it too much. We reach for it with too much force. We lack the patience, we lack the poise. In Buddhism, they speak of willful will. More often t...
6 Maalis 20238min
The Escalation of the Rivalry that Destroyed Rome
Ryan presents the second of four excerpts from Josiah Osgood’s Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato’s Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic. Here, in Chapter Two, we witness the parallel paths th...
5 Maalis 202344min
Rick Rubin on The Creative Act Part Two
In the second of a two-part interview, Ryan speaks with Rick Rubin about his new book The Creative Act: A Way of Being, respecting everyone’s unique approach to the creative process during collaborati...
4 Maalis 202350min
You Deserve Moments Like This | (Dis)integration
We are so busy. We think we’re supposed to be. We think that’s how we get better. We think that moving is the only way to move forward.You might think that Marcus Aurelius could relate. Yet when he sp...
3 Maalis 202312min
This Is A Good Moment | Ask DS
It’s hard not to look at the lives of Marcus Aurelius and Seneca and Epictetus and Cato and Zeno and not see what seems like one trauma after another. The loss of young children. Civil wars. Betrayals...
2 Maalis 202318min
