Posted on January 22, 2022

"Each of these schools was “eudaimonic”—that is, their objective was to figure out the best way of living a human life. Some emphasized virtue (the Peripatetics, the Cynics, and the Stoics), and others pleasure (the Epicureans, the Cyrenaics) while still others were more interested in metaphysics (the Academics) or in the limits of human knowledge (the Skeptics). All, however, aimed at the same goal: a flourishing existence."

—Massimo Pigliucci, How to Be a Stoic

I find it incredible that these were real issues of the past: for centuries people gathered in public places quite often for the simple purpose of debating and teaching “how to live a human life”. This seems like another universe compared to nowadays. Society has evolved into a mass of individuals that go through life with little or no introspection of how to actually live it. For most, life happens to them and not the other way around. Sure, there is probably nothing wrong with this approach, but I still think it shouldn’t be default implicitly learned behavior.

For me, it took me a while to start immersing myself in this. For years I’ve been fascinated by the idea of starting studying philosophy. However, the way to jump into it I had in mind was not the best for me. Instead of starting with some classic readings like Plato’s Republic, or Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics—which just the fear of not having the capacity to understand them was enough to make me postpone starting altogether—, I finally opted to read a modern book which explained one of these schools of thought, which was a nice and subtle way to start this journey. Nonetheless, and even though I feel very related to Stoicism, I know I have lots to learn from the other schools, so I shall keep on reading about them, because I want to, and because I can.