[@ChrisWillx] Stoicism’s Lessons on Becoming Wise - Ryan Holiday

Link: https://youtu.be/VKJNwcLKsl8

Short Summary

The speaker discusses the challenges and lessons learned from navigating unexpected obstacles in live speaking engagements, emphasizing the importance of adaptability and resilience. He also reflects on the nature of wisdom, its connection to humility and continuous learning, and the common pitfalls that prevent intelligent individuals from attaining it. The conversation explores strategies for cultivating wisdom and balancing its benefits with potential drawbacks like self-consciousness and cynicism.

Key Quotes

Here are 4 direct quotes from the transcript that I consider valuable insights or strong opinions:

1. "It's good to pick arbitrary challenges and take something that you're good at that you've done a lot of times and just figure out a way to do it the hard way."
2. "If you need it to go a certain way, you're very vulnerable. If you're good with it going effectively anyway, then you'll be all right."
3. "The more you learn, not just are you humbled, uh, in that most, you know, really smart people are actually quite humble. Um, but but the more you learn, the more you learn about all the things that you still want to learn about."
4. "There's a big difference between appearing wise and being wise."

Detailed Summary

Okay, here is a detailed summary of the YouTube video transcript provided, using bullet points and highlighting key topics, arguments, and information:

Key Topics & Arguments:

• Artificial Challenges & Growth: The video starts with a discussion on the value of setting arbitrary challenges. By forcing oneself to do something in an uncomfortable way, one can learn and grow. This is compared to practicing a skill with a non-dominant hand.

• Preparedness vs. Adaptability: The speakers discuss the importance of being adaptable to unexpected situations, as life doesn't always go according to plan. They illustrate this with an anecdote about a talk the speaker was supposed to give in Kentucky.

• The Kentucky Talk Anecdote:

  • Speaker's flight was delayed, making him late.
  • He was assured slides would be available but weren't when he arrived.
  • He had to deliver a 45-minute talk with no slides and adjust the content accordingly.
  • The experience highlighted the value of being able to adjust to unexpected circumstances, and that this is a common part of life.
  • Speaker learned that things don't need to go a certain way and that the thing you were worried about is not always that bad, and could actually be better.

• The Naval Academy Speech Incident & Book Banning:

  • Speaker was invited to speak at the Naval Academy's Pleb Summer (incoming class).
  • Prior to the talk, the Academy requested he avoid discussing the recent removal of several hundred books from the Naval Academy library.
  • The speaker declined, citing the importance of engaging with diverse ideas, even those one disagrees with, and the importance of courage and doing the right thing.

• The Importance of Engaging with Ideas and Freedom of Speech: Speaker explained the removal of the books went against the tenants he was teaching the students about.

• The Tom Hanks Incident: A separate example of West Point revoking an invitation to Tom Hanks was discussed, as it seems to be an opposite problem, as far as political views go.

• The Importance of Not Being Afraid of Being Affected By an Idea: It was stated that they should be read in order to discover if they are able to be affected by them.

• Wisdom & Its Elusiveness: The speakers transition into a discussion about wisdom, with the speaker saying it is the most elusive of the virtues.

• Defining Wisdom:

  • Wisdom is a combination of experience, knowledge, intelligence, creativity, insight, and perspective.
  • It's a humbling pursuit, as the more one learns, the more one realizes how much is left to know.

• Learning, Applying, Repeating: Wisdom is an iterative process of learning, applying knowledge, and repeating. It requires both theoretical knowledge and practical experience.

• Learning from Others' Experiences: It's foolish to try to learn everything oneself when others have already been through similar situations.

• The Importance of Humility: Humility is key to wisdom because it keeps one hungry to learn and prevents overconfidence.

• Unteachable Lessons: The concept of unteachable lessons is explored – lessons that everyone seems to learn individually, despite warnings and stories.

  • Examples include: Money won't make you happy, fame is empty, and you should see your parents more.

• The Value of Classic Myths & Stories: Classical literature contains the sum total of human wisdom and contains these untreatable lessons.

  • These lessons are learned by reading the classics.

• Plutarch: He says the differences between biographies and lives is that lives contain anecdotes.

• Portable Stories: Impressions need that one thing to unlock it, and that is the thing that unlocks the story.

• Catillus: A Roman general who resigned his dictatorship is used as an example.

• Alexander the Great: He gets all the way to the end of the world and he dies in a brutal painful death.

• Gordian Knot: Untying is a lesson that Alexander came across.

• History & the Importance of Moral Lessons: The importance of understanding moral lessons from history.

• The Story of Cincinnatus: There is almost no factual basis to this story.

• Useful, Not True: The discussion shifts towards stories that may not be literally true but are valuable in conveying lessons. The concept of something being "figuratively true, literally false" and vice versa is introduced. Traditions are solutions to problems that have been forgotten about.

• Modernity vs. Antiquity: Holding modern stories to the standards of objective rationality is less important than antiquity for that sole fact.

• Tradition & Chesterton's Fence: Traditions are often solutions to problems that we've forgotten about. There should be care for what we remove.

• Humble Compartment: This comes with wisdom and humility.

• EQ: You get into fewer arguments, have core values and you understand why they think what they think.

• "Hit rock bottom while you still have two cars in the garage."

• Shortcuts & the Value of Hard Work: The speakers discuss shortcuts in life, like wisdom and that there aren't really any

• The Senecca Story: The story about the wealthy Roman who had his slaves whisper what he needed to know so he would be known as smart.

• How to Convince People Wisdom Is Worth a Long Uncomfortable Path: The thing is at some point in your life, you're going to need it,

• Equanimity: Having wisdom to draw on will be too late in the moment to be obtained.

• Intelligence Equanimity Overrated: Intelligence paired with equinimity is a very powerful thing. People think stoicism is the eradication of emotions. It is the regulation of the emotions

• Children Can't Be Regulated If You Aren't: They respond to your energy, is why equeine therapy is used.

• Open Loops: What is an open loop vs. Closed Loop? Deciding on what not to think about.

• Wisdom is not inherent.

• The ability to learn how to get out of quicksand: You can only spend time looking for your health so long.

• What Are the Mistakes that Otherwise Smart People Make Most Often that Stops Them from Becoming Wise: They think ego makes people dumb, and bad information makes smart people stupid. Ceasing to learn also is an obstacle.

• Offer a Guarantee: "You think you know how it's going to be you think you know how it should be this is often exactly what precedes like the biggest blunders of history."

• "Know Thyself": That's what Socrates believes in, you should remove things like ego and bad information.

• Never Multiply by Zero: Avoid the major stupid things.

• "The Divorce Paradox": Is when people are so friendly on social media but then end up in bad divorces because they don't handle the bad times well.

• Deal With Your Childhood Trauma It can make you make rash decisions, a midlife crisis.

• Mind Altering Drugs Don't use them so much.

• Make a contrarian bet that you turn out to be massively right about can be a brain destroying experience.

• "Run It Back": You should think about why you may have turned out to be right and the accidental reasons that were there for you at the time.

• Highs and Lows: It can be easy to get used to having the highs, so try to make use of the lows.

• What are the Prices that a Wise Person Pays that an Unwise Person Doesn't It's about not being paralyzed, like you may start thinking too much about things.

• Don't Deprive Yourself: Should not be deprived of purpose, but means you should work for them in new ways.

• Self-consciousness can be tricky.

• Ryan Holiday's upcoming book: It will be about James Stockdale.

James Stockdale:

• Shot down over North Vietnam.

• Spends 7 years being tortured.

• Was on the Gulf Of Tonken Incident.

• Was the man that didn't allow himself to be filmed He beat his own face up so that he could not be used by his captors in propaganda.

Overall Message:

The video emphasizes the importance of cultivating wisdom through a combination of learning, experience, humility, and adaptability. It stresses the necessity of understanding one's own limitations and biases, as well as the importance of engaging with diverse perspectives.