The Stoic Reminders Hiding All Over Rome

0:00Welcome to the Daily Stoic podcast designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues courage discipline justice and wisdom into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoic podcast. I am very much delayed in recording this. So some of my recall may be less than perfect, but last year we went to Greece for a chunk of the summer. My kids had gotten obsessed with Greek history. They love the creaking out podcasts. They love the Odyssey. And so we sort of planned this trip. We went to Athens. We went to Sparta. We went to Olympia. We went to Delphi. We went to Ithaca. We did all the big stuff. It went great. My sort of theory is like a good trip is do you want to do another one after? And on the sort of last couple days, my wife was like, I think we should do Italy next year. And I've looked at my kids. I was like, do you guys know what a big win that is for you that at the end of this month long trip.

1:02Your mom wants to do something again with you at this level that she's not like never again, which was moments that we felt during the trip. So we decided to do Rome and then maybe some some of the coasts there in Italy. So we flew to Rome. It's 10 days in Rome. I committed to doing something crazy. When we're in Greece, I did the original marathon from marathon to Athens. Got heat stroke was a bit nuts, but certainly bucket list, life changing experience. And so I wanted to do something bigger. And I decided I would do a 50 K. I'd make up a course by do a 50 K and Rome. Mostly on the Appian way, which I'd biked and run on on a previous trip and found to be very beautiful. But we took off from Austin had a layover in Detroit. Immediate travel delays. 3, 4 or 5 hours. I think we spent in in Detroit. But they had this cool like red mixer or gate. They had this like another store where you could like play old school video games. So my kids and I played Street Fighter on Super Nintendo for an hour or two. That was pretty fun actually.

2:03So we spent a lot of time just killing time in this airport lounge. My kids were going a little crazy, right? Their kids are crazy. They're excited about this trip. They're hurry up and wait. And what were they doing? They grabbed bananas from the fruit thing and the lounge. And they were acting out gun fights like from the old West like they were you know, paste and go draw and shoot each other. I think they started with reenacting the Hamilton duel and then they were reenacting the gun fighter scenes. And this lady comes over and says, why are your kids yelling? She's yelling at these kids. It's like Italian lady. Why do you have to be screaming? And they weren't screaming. They were just being kids in an airport lounge. And anyways, we de-escalated the situation and we handled it pretty well. And then it's like guys like, look, if you you mess around, not everyone's going to appreciate it. The later moment I do. And later as we were finally heading down to go to the flight this lady runs up to us. A different lady. She goes, Hey, I think what your kids are doing was totally fine. And to see you know that lady that yelled them.

3:07She was sitting over by me and she was listening to an audiobook without headphones. My kids just thought that was absolutely hilarious. They're like, oh, she's a hypocrite. I go, this is life, right? We fly to Rome. We land were exhausted. Airbnb was nice enough to sponsor us. That was fun. We stayed in this crazy Palazzo in Rome. The apartment we were staying in was twice as old as America. Like had a fresco on the ceiling. It was 500 years old. And just amazing. And then inside it had all these funerary stones or monuments like this one from the first century AD. This one from the second century AD. Just like that's just the thing about like this is an old by Rome standards and it's twice as old as America. Beautiful apartment. Did some great writing working on the stock doughbook while I was there. wrote some some daily stoic emails that have been trickling out. You might have noticed them being a little Rome themed over the last couple of months. The first day we were there. We got one of those audiences with the Pope that the general audience, not the private private audience. But you're sitting there and then Bob from Chicago gets out.

4:20Well, first off, he zips around in his G wagon, Pope, mobile. And then he gets up there and he talks. It was surreal and beautiful. You know, pontifex maximus. The Pope of Rome, Catholic Pope has the same job title as Marcus, really. There is in Hadrian's tomb, which is where Marcus is also buried. There's this big sort of freeze of Marcus, the stone carving of Marcus in front of the temple of Jupiter. I essentially doing the exact same thing the Pope is doing, waving his hands initiating the ceremony. It's just I don't know the full circleness of that in Rome is was was surreal to me for sure. And then I read his in cyclical his thing on AI. I thought it was incredible, by the way. I talked about this actually when I was on carousel spot. Let me run you this clip of it. You read the Pope's thing on AI has his I did I didn't show on it. I did. Yeah. Yeah. What did you think of that? Magnificent humanity. I thought it was so fascinating because, you know, for the last for for my whole life, but but I think for a generation or so now we've been looking at this technology and then asking ourselves is it economically good or bad?

5:34Is it unavoidable or not? And what's so interesting about that work is is you have him looking at it from a moral perspective like is this right and wrong? Is this the direction we want to go as a society? How will this change our obligations to each other? What are our obligations to each other? So I do think it goes to that idea of like what? Like we just live in this unfortunately, I think like a fundamentally a moral society where we have stripped out the ability to even ask those questions about like is this right or wrong? Should I be doing this or not? It's just like, hey, can this get funding or not? Will this go viral or not? And I think the Pope is is sparking something there, which I think great philosophers and spiritual leaders are supposed to spark, which is go like, hey, that's all well and good, but there are some other questions to consider here and these are in fact the most essential questions to consider. It's also not anti tech actually if you read it carefully, if you read everywhere, because and that's what I thought he did and really I wonder if the Pope is a stoic he feels a little bit.

6:41You know, I was just in Rome and we went and saw a blessing of the Pope and you see him going around in the little Pope mobile and it was funny, you know, they'd be like, oh, you're American, you're like Bob from Chicago, like the idea of the of the Pope being a human being that's accessible to Americans is interesting. I like to point out that that Marcus really is in the Pope have have the same title pontifex maximus that Rome as the Catholic Rome absorbs so much of the conography and the names and the words and the titles of the Romans and then the still ex this sort of continuity is interesting to me. So if you haven't read that, you should it's very good. It was funny to hear referred to as Bob from Chicago by by many, many people while we're there. You know, we had a couple tours planned we did tour the Coliseum and the forum. We did a tour of the Vatican, which was incredible. We did all that I would say honestly it was so hot it was literally the hottest that it has ever been there.

7:42And because of all the marble and the stone, it would just it never cool and it was like radiating off. So we took a complete beating and my kids were were total troopers about it. Did they want to go to McDonald's a lot more than I would have liked. Yes. And there was the American part of me that was totally ashamed. Here we are in this other country. This wonderful part of the world, all these things and experience and they all they want to do is go to McDonald's. The other American part of me was like, do their bathrooms are the best. Their AC is the best. It's the cleanest and also their French rice are very good. So yes, we went to McDonald's an embarrassing amount of time. But I took that as a small compromise getting these kids to walk miles and miles and miles every day, which we did. But while we were in St. Peter's our tickets allowed us to go up in the dome and the kids were exhausted. We're like, we're not going to make you climb all the way to the tippy tippy tippy top. And then they were like, oh, thank God. And then we got close to it. And then we're like, you know what? We want to do it. Race up there. And it is a lot more stairs than I thought. And every time you thought you're getting to the top, you weren't. And you finally get up there. It's so hot.

8:52I mean, you're just baking in this dome. And then you get up there and the wind. It's beautiful. Do you've ever talked to your bank or cell phone company or insurance or whatever, you know, customer service where you're talking to robots and you get an endless loop. It's not fun for you and either customers. It's also not great for the company, right? They know they're not serving their customers well. When a person has to intervene. That person is dealing with someone who's mad at them. It's a whole system that I think is due for a rethink. And that's where 11 agents come in. 11 agents is a platform for AI voice and chat agents that can actually listen, understand and resolve customer issues. Look up your account that can process requests. And then they handed off to a person when needed. It's made by 11 labs. The AI research and product company known for their realistic voice and audio models in over 70 languages. If you've heard AI voices that actually sound natural. It was probably 11 labs. I actually was shocked. It was listening to this audio book. I found out it was produced by 11 labs.

9:55If you run a business or handle customer service operations, you can start with a demo at 11 labs.io slash dough and see how 11 agents can fit into your workflows and help build experiences that your customers and employees will actually love 11 labs. I'm doing a bunch of dates for this daily stoic live tour. Maybe you came and saw me on one of the previous ones. Chance Zarr is probably wearing something from today's sponsor. Quince, they make great sweaters, they make great t-shirts, they make great button ups, great pants, just a great company. They're closer built to last made with premium materials. Another kind of stuff you reach for every day. Quince specializes in everyday staples that work harder. Ultra software, organic cotton tees, Mongolian cashmere sweaters, everything in between. Everything that Quince has is priced 50 to 80% less than what you'd find from similar brands. Quince works directly with ethical factories, cuts out the middleman so you're getting premium materials without the markup.

11:03If you're still hanging on to the same worn out basics, Quince makes it easy to upgrade. Find your next fall favorites at Quince download the Quince app for app exclusive offers or go to quince.com slash dough. You can get free shipping on your order and 365 day returns now available in Canada and the UK to QU I NCE dot com slash stoic. So probably our favorite tour was this one we did of this crypt right outside the city and all of a sudden you started going this little building and then all of a sudden your one story down. There's a church and then your two stories down and you're underground and just hundreds and hundreds thousands ultimately of Romans were buried here particularly Christians I guess and they just sort of carved these little tombs out of the wall. But the incredible thing was was just that it was an escape from the heat the coolness of it was probably the coolest we were the entire trip even when we had air conditioning and we're sort of going through these alleys.

12:15You're like in an underground city, but for the dead and she's showing us this one and it's talking and then my simplest is that a skull. And she goes yeah that's a skull and then she's like wow that's amazing and they both likes or light up about it and she was like I know it's there I just didn't want to tell them because they're kids and I didn't know if it would freak them out and they're like no this is the best part. So the the momentum or a lesson is is not verboten in our family and the kids thought it was the coolest thing it actually reminded me what I was in Ireland. 10 11 years ago you could go in this church that had a crypt and they had these bodies one from the crusade that had mummified they were there they weren't buried or a coffin or their mummies. And the first time I went they let you touch it you could rub the finger of this man who died in the crusades I remember who's so tall they had to break his legs to put him in this little area when I gave a talk in Ireland two years ago I brought my kids and I was going to show them.

13:27And it was close I couldn't figure out why a Google that some crazy person had gone in there and thrown lighter fluid on them and lit them on fire so you know one of the reasons to go on these trips to go to these places to do these things is you think they've been there forever and in some cases they have but they might not be there forever or in other cases right my wife and I went and and toward the forum and stuff when we were there 10. Plus years ago and then we went with our kids and there was new stuff like Rome this ruin had been there for 2000 years and in the last 10 years of second in you know the span of Rome it's now open there was new stuff of Palantin hill that was open there was new stuff in the palace that was open there was just stuff that wasn't available before sure reminds me of something I talked about on the podcast. Recently with Peter Santanello that traveling is like reading you go once and you read it once it's great right there's all this stuff out there that you should read there's all these places you should go.

14:38But then there's something about going somewhere again right this is the stoke idea if you never step in the same way tries and you actually had a really good answer about that which I want to play for you. Travel is a little bit like reading in that there's all the places you want to go just like there's all the books you want to read and the problem is some places traveling to once or reading once is not enough right like it's hard to justify rereading when there's all these books that you haven't read right but there's something about traveling to the same plate like I we were just in Rome and it was maybe my fourth time and it was crazy to think I'm walking around on the floor. I could afford this time to hire this really good guy and she's showing this stuff and I'm like I don't remember seeing this and she's like oh this just opened and I'm like it's been here for 2000 years and I was here 10 years ago and I couldn't see this like they just excavated so like 10 years is that in Roman history but it fundamentally changed the experience that I was able so it's hard for someone to afford to go to Europe once it's hard to do a family road trip.

15:48So a family road trip across the United States once but actually have to do it like three or four or five or ten times to actually get it and so this tension between reading and rereading traveling and coming back is like that's the tricky part. That's a great comparison. Yeah that one I mean it's a good problem to have firstly but I understand what you're saying like I'm not trying to chew my horn I've been 85 countries I could have been all of them but I went back to this symbol 20 times. I lived in Ukraine wanted to go to some more warm in the winter two hours. Yeah cool and I love that city. It's fantastic. In Italy how is it it's really hard not to go back to Italy. Sure. So I get you and the older I get now it's I don't need as much adventurous stuff. Don't need to go to Pakistan again. Iran I don't really think that would go so well these days. Right but going back to some more stable and I'd say easier travel places as you get older makes sense. It's like are you going to understand a handful of places really really deeply.

16:49Yeah or you're going to have been like you know you hear they're like we're going on this cruise and we're going to stop in 16 cities. Yeah. You're like okay you got two hours here one hour I mean it's better than nothing but like you skimmed the surface. It's go everywhere see nothing. Yeah. And so that's a tough balance and that's tough to sell to someone who gets two weeks. Like if you're working the average job in the United States what are you getting two weeks maybe right and so Christmas family Thanksgiving family you're lucky if you're going overseas. And so you got six days in Italy. Yeah. Do you want to just want to stay in Rome and just see Rome where you're like I got to see all these things that was dreamed of going to. So then we did all the stuff basically the rhythm of the trip is I would get up really early and go for a long run. I was running along the type of river by the way and I see this little thing swimming and I go. Is that a fucking capybara am I looking at a capybara I had to stop take a video of it. I uploaded it in a chat Gbtm like is this could this possibly be a capybara swimming in the type of river turns out no there's actually a fair old

17:52nutrient population in Rome just like there is in New Orleans but there we go saw that my kids are excited about that so anyways I would get up go early I'd run up along the river I to get in trouble one day I was leaving the the Airbnb and I took my shirt off of so hot this police woman stopped you can't do that in Rome. I go okay sorry I'll turn around but she didn't know it's direction I was coming from so I just I finished the run I went on the run because I just started but I wasn't going to go back into the the place and wake everyone up you know sneaking out it was like Catherine Zeta Jones and that one movie just to leave this big enormous creaking wooden door to get out of the department not wanting to wake them up so I did break that law but no I would run every morning you pass by because it's two in one direction or these great bridges or you know sites of naval battles or you know and in another direction it was just I loved it every morning I go for these I couldn't go for this long runs I wanted

18:52because I was training for the 50k but the training by myself in the morning just having Rome like totally to myself was just a wonderful experience I recorded something while I was there about this. If you want to feel amazing if you want to feel like a king all you got to do is get up early it could be in New York it could be Rome where I am and you have the whole city to yourself you rule the streets got up early a walk down this hallway that was built 500 years ago then I run through these city streets that are literally thousands of years old I push myself physically I challenge myself and then I get to go have an amazing day if you want to start your day off right you got to win the morning get up early get up after it it's like that long fellow poem about how great heights were reached by sudden flight but while the other select they toiled through the night but it doesn't just have to be the night it can be up early in the morning what everyone else is sleeping you get up and you get after it.

19:52Come back and then we usually they'd still be asleep and then I'd go sometimes record little videos that have been trickling out like here's when I recorded on the forum one morning while they were sleeping. That's the Roman forum down there. Santa could have walked through here on his way to try cases on his way to sit in the Senate on his way to advise Nero he said that he pitties people who hadn't gone through adversity he says they don't know what they're capable of and I think that's what doing hard things is about putting yourself in situations where you get a sense okay here's what I can do here's here's where I'm bumping up against my limits here's what I have to add to my game to be able to deal with situational situations like this and there's no question set of was was stretched to his capacities having to have him to try to contain and control Nero a deranged unstable unsuitable leader if there ever was one.

20:54And so we challenge ourselves we put ourselves in situations because life is going to do that to us and that's what it's all about. And then here's one I recorded at the great marks really so question statue while they were sleeping reminded me of my favorite essays is essay by Joseph Brodsky about that marks really so question statue that I just adore. So the great line about this statue from the Soviet dissident Joseph Brodsky he walked up here one early morning it was quiet not like this. All right it was quiet not unlike this. And he said if Marcus are really his antiquity it is we who are the ruins. I think he's just sort of marveling at this great man who 2000 years ago in the pages of his journal he was writing notes to himself about controlling his temper about getting up early about quenching his desires his urges about being calm.

21:59And he says fight to be the person that philosophy tried to make you. He didn't want to be imperialized he didn't want to be stained purple by all the accoutrements of power the sycophants around him people worshipping him as a god wanted to be good he wanted to be decent which is ultimately like the hardest thing to do in the world. When you are the most powerful person in the world I love I love the statue it's worth a run anytime you're in room you come up these big gradual steps and then suddenly you're at the top there's also a quirk the statue that's not the original the originals inside the capital on museum right there but it's a quirk of history that it even survived the Christians who had good reason not to like Marcus really. But it was they would have destroyed this that they know they thought it was constant in the first Christian emperor so they didn't destroy it so they kept it so there was something like 25 the question statues and antiquity that we know of all of them are gone except for this one this one in doors.

23:10And it's totally by accident. And then we go do you know our one or two activities for the day and then we just relax and eat have fun we were having dinner one night at this little restaurant in Piazza Navano I think which is an old circular chariot racing track and you know we sat down asked for water as for water with ice you know one that is a American and you know they could be like five ice cubes which isn't nearly enough but in between like ordering and the food arriving as I hate the team asked me to record this like quick video some stoke rules I'm going to walk right over there set the camera here and record it and I did you know took three or four minutes like it's edited down to being like a two minute clip. And then you know all the stuff goes on a memory card it goes back to the daily stoke team they edited they move it out I don't control like you know all the editing decisions I don't control when things go up that's the wonderful daily stoke team that does that. And Anna on the team cuts that on a post it far away the most popular thing we have ever done on daily stoke I think just on one channel it did six million views which is just absolutely incredible like I'm going to say paid for the whole trip you don't get paid for the stuff on social media but like if you told me like hey you got to fly the family to Rome.

24:29But you're going to do this clip but the clips going to do six million views I'd be like oh that's probably worth it right that's probably I probably just defies it and you know it just absolutely crushed that was really cool actually a bunch of the stuffs done really well I recorded something else while we were walking through the forum you go up to Palantine Hill where the emperors lived the most haunting thing is just walking up the emperors ramp which is just like all the way up to the top of the wall. Which is just like private corridor that marks really sort of walked many many times from the palace to the forum or from the form to the palace. Walking up there you see his private walking track I wrote it to do so you know I think about both of those about the walking track like much for this is life so we couldn't go on walks you had to worry about being killed or harass like you have a private walking track and so you think like being the emperor be great but it was this kind of killed prison like he is walking a track. Like a prisoner in a prison would walk pace around the prison yard I just found that so fascinating I wrote an email about the emperors walk his little corridor but I did something there up about like living in that palace like how surreal it would have been to live in that palace let me play that real fast.

25:48This is where Marcus are really is live the imperial palace on Palantine Hill ancient Rome and he said that of this enormous palace all these rooms all these luxuries all of it just for him for exclusively his use he said you know it's possible to live well even in the palace. What he meant is that living in a palace isn't good for you. Senna would say that luxury resides under marble and gold he saw all this as oppressive he saw all this as corruptive he saw all of it as fundamentally not normal which it isn't and so in meditations which he's writing here in this very building he's trying to stay humble he's trying to remind himself what's actually important he's trying to avoid being stained he says died purple by the cloak of the emperor but also the trappings of the palace and we should remember this wherever we live however nice our dwellings are. That it's possible to live well anywhere it's possible to be good anywhere decent anywhere value the right things anywhere in fact it is sometimes in the most luxurious and exciting and beautiful of places that that job is actually even harder.

26:51And then you know the run day was quickly approaching did I did I sometimes hope maybe I'd get injured and not have to do it or that it would be literally too hot to not have to do it yeah yeah I did. I was dreading it to be perfectly honest but I was also excited and I set out on a left around 515 in the morning I think and the photographer the videographer met me he was going to zip around on a scooter we have these sort of set meeting points and then I started on them on the run I went to all the snow excites that I've been seeing on the trip anyway but but just seeing him alone in the morning was just. Marcus realysis column the question statue the tomb the Colosseum forum the baths honestly the thing that was throwing me the most on the run wasn't the heat I knew that was approaching but was like stopping to do the parts of the video that we're doing was screwing with my time I would pause it but I knew I could see the time tick ticking away one point my wife was tracking my location goes.

27:56You're only like 10 miles in you've been doing this for two hours what's going on I said you're right I got it I just got to keep going to put there was something magnificent and very moving to me about stopping and. I had water in the backpack of the videographer but like there's just all these public fountains in in Rome and they're just bubbling up you know and you're just drinking water. From these aqueducts basically that the Romans bill you're just drinking this water reminds me of that that passage remarks really about how you know the good is in us it's just always bubbling up he says it's like an underground spring it doesn't matter what you throw on top of it it'll keep bubbling up. You think about all the centuries that have come since all the terrible things humanity has done in this water just keeps bubbling up as it always has and hopefully. Always will just struck so many times on the run like running along the Appian way running on these stones and there's just grew from wagons hundreds hundreds thousands of years.

28:58Could have been marks really says wagons I mean in one point you passed the tomb that that they think is where Santa is buried. I just found it just moving in one of the pieces of advice I talked to somebody said you know just you're not actually doing a race so he was saying like slow down and enjoy it you know appreciate how surreal and crazy the surroundings are so if you need to stop and walk and take it in do it. I never ended up having to walk but I did I did just take it in and one point I passed a place where Samantha and I basically first talked about getting married on bikes right after the obstacles we came out of right as I was working on the obstacles we actually recorded something there. So we're around here I have a big sense memory of it was writing my bike with my wife long the Appian way pulled over on the side I hadn't planned it we're just hanging out been together a long time and I just said hey we should get married at some point this isn't a formal task but are you seeing this go the same direction I am and she said yes we've been married 11 years now you know when we talk about doing hard things when we talk about courage it's not just physical stuff there's physical courage there's physical discipline but also the moral courage put yourself out there most of the things you want in life most of the good things you're like the best things in your life on the other side of some little bit of moral courage like that movie where Matt Damon says all it takes is 20 seconds of courage 20 seconds of insane bravery to change the course of your life you know it's the

30:20decision to walk across the room and say hi to someone it's the decision to raise your hand and volunteer for something it's a decision to hit publish on something it's a decision to go out for something to ask for that promotion to put your hat in the ring file those election papers it's a decision to tell someone that you love them that you want to be with them it's the decision also the day to dayness of sticking with it even when it's hard even when you go what am I doing even when it's not totally what you imagine right there's the doing the hard things there's the 20 seconds of insane bravery and commitment the leap then there's also the day to dayness of it I do think that's why exercise and physical challenges and doing big scary things is a great metaphor it's the leap of faith sure but then it's the not quitting it's the not giving up it's the staying at it it's the getting through to the other side getting through the valleys that it's all about it and it's funny to think you know she's back at the place we booked on Airbnb comfortable cool hanging out with the kids it's not all these issues holding on the fort I should put up with a lot of long training runs but me being gone being a running widow I guess but it's a full circle moment to be back right here where that happened anyways I made it back it was all well until basically the last mile there's something crazy I think about like when you're watch goes oh you just finished a marathon you're like that's the further set of ever running my life and like but I still have six miles left to go 50 days about 31 miles and you know I got this not so bad I'm going to be real wrap this up and then somehow it's always the last mile that hits you that's where I hit the wall in the Greek one and it's where I hit the wall in this one

31:47I literally had to stop at a restaurant and order water and sit at a table and drink it I was that that beat and you know I ended up finishing my son found me sort of towards the end with my wife and he ran the last few feet and finished that that was great and then that was basically our last day that the next day we got up and we went on to pompe and you know what I'll do I'll do the rest of the trip in a part two of this episode here shortly just because I'm going to be in the next day here shortly just because well if you really want to know I've been recording this for a while and I asked my wife to watch the kids here pack now I have to go finish recording some of the audio book for the new 10 year anniversary of daily stoic which is in the works I'll be announcing that here very shortly and I want to use that recording time for this so I'll record part two at a different time but in the meantime I'm going to go report that I hope you're liking this and I'll talk again very soon