Jaakko do you follow stoicism did Zen practice lead to your thoughts about
detachment in ego so I can ask these questions the other day on Twitter and
as you know when I'm answering Twitter I'm doing pretty terse answers because
I'm answering a lot of different questions when enters short-sword
so this one I particularly our that answer someone said do you follow so
stoicism and I wrote back no no don't and in a while later I get you know the
thread back and the guy come back and said something along the lines of like
you know I don't know what it is you don't agree with with stoicism it's very
similar to what you believe or something like that
it wasn't being a jerk he was just like you know I you know what's what's wrong
with you I don't you practice stoicism and here's the deal you know I'd love to
come back here and tell people how learn it I am and how well-read I am about the
philosophies and the ancient cultures and the Eastern religions and all
matters in the world philosophical but the fact is I'm not I'm not and actually
when I was a kid and by the way kid for me last a long
time I mean kid for me goes pretty reason you know I maybe 6 months ago I
kind of consider myself yet yeah but when I was a kid the teachings of
philosophers and of the ancients those that information was transmitted by
academics right by teachers or by professors professors and to be blunt
and frank when I was a kid there was a lot of people in that realm in the
academic realm that didn't exactly command my respect now they were people
that went to college I wanted to learn from people that went to war that's what
I wanted hmm now the part that I missed was that many of the ancients were
warriors and their teachings were important and through my own arrogance
looking at these professors and these teachers I don't know he need to learn
anything from that person I'm gonna go in the military mm-hmm well I learned
from a gunnery sergeant the Marine Corps that's what I was thinking but the fact
is the reading and the studying and the schooling did not really lead me to any
of my beliefs or values it was life it was the things I experienced that
brought me to this place where I am right now not the books that I read not
the classes that I attended and like I said of course part of this a big part
of this was just my own ignorance and ego me saying what can these professors
teach me mm-hmm and and that's why footnote right now caveat or or
secondary thought everyone out there when you have the opportunity to learn
just take full advantage of it and I know now again I know now that you can
learn from anybody hmm you can learn from anybody everybody's got something
to teach you so open up your mind and that being said
since I was too stupid and arrogant to learn oftentimes to learn from books and
teachers I had to learn from life and as I look now yeah I see similarities
between you know I use the word beliefs but I think that's a strong word but I
see similarities between what I think and the other philosophical thoughts
throughout the ages and I think that's partially I think that's actually not
even partially I think that's because there are really are some universal
truths for Humanity and for people and I think that if you
walk the path of life and you pay attention to what's happening around you
and you're exposed to joy and you're exposed to suffering and you're exposed
to love and to hate into war and to peace I think if you have led down that
path and you have followed down that path I think that all the paths they
kind of arrive at someplace that's fairly similar in the term that they
kind of use is this this term of enlightenment and again I think that's
definitely too strong forward for what I'm trying to say but that's sort of a
broad term that captures it but I think these paths they all lead to a similar
form of enlightenment and I don't think it really matters what terrain you went
through or what specific path you took I think that we see that the path looks
very similar and it says the same things when you get to the end it says to be
disciplined it says to keep your ego in check it says to keep things simple and
work hard and tell the truth and believe in what you say and what you do and
treat other people with respect and when you start getting overwhelmed with
emotions you got to detach from those and I think that there's things like
those that are just universal truths and I think you can find them in what the
Buddha said or what Marcus Aurelius said or what the Bible says or what any
number of religious or philosophical teachers I think they're all pretty
similar and I think you can learn them from those ancients or I think you can
find him yourself
and unless you're of course too stubborn and arrogant to listen to hear the
lessons of the past but if you're not I think you can get there and that's sort
of how I arrived at again the this the word is too strong but the way I think
I'll put it to you that way the way I think it's where I ended up hmm and I
didn't get too much direction along the way and now it's really obvious I mean
when you look at and I'm sure we'll do Marcus Aurelius at some point you know
because his you know stoic sayings are awesome and they totally match and I
wish I would have I wish what I would have learned about Marcus Aurelius and
its sophomore year in high school I said wow this guy's got it together I'm gonna
listen to him he was a warrior but I didn't do that Hawaii because the guy
that was teaching me I'll say now what this guy doesn't know he's talking about
it's got some teacher right yeah there's a reason they're called teacher so they
can teach you but you got to be willing to listen and learn so you know I always
trying I've talked about this and we talked about the the Jocko Academy right
having a school I always talked about tying this thread between all this
history in the world so you saw that people so the kids can understand what
it means and where it came from and I think that that's something that I never
made those connections I mean when I was a kid I never made those connections in
high school you know do you when I was going to college I went to college I was
pretty old when I went to college for a college student I think I was 27
right so also mature allegedly but sure I wasn't mature I you know I was trying
to do when I went to college get good grades the teacher it was me against the
teacher the the the contest was great I'm gonna beat you I wasn't saying you
know what this guy really has a lot to show me this guy really can learn a lot
from this I can apply this in my life no I wasn't saying that I was too stupid I
was too arrogant to say that so what did I do
studied hard memorized what they told me to memorize that's what I did I wasn't I
was focused on the grade not on the learning now I'll tell you that's not an
excuse for oh I'm not gonna worry about the
grade I'm just gonna alert no wrong answer I'm saying this specifically for
my kids that are probably listening to this and they'll say like well dad you
know I'm focused on the learning yea- you focus on the learning good you
still get your a you get you still win so that's I guess you know again I'm
sorry and I think sometimes people get caught up in like it's a you ever heard
me say talk about when when we got back for when I got back for my first
deployment to Iraq and we actually when I was in t bruiser with Lafe we had a
saying it was a joke it was a we weep which stood for when I was in Baghdad
right when I was in Baghdad cuz a lot of people now everyone had done one
deployment to Baghdad and so anytime they were having any kind of a
conversation they'd say well when I was in Baghdad and we go we weep so he get
some guy some instructor or some cadre from the training from the training
attachment that'd be like when I was in Baghdad we did this every time and it's
okay so we weep right mm because it's a way of saying oh look - I this is this
is confirmed in the past and therefore it's correct right and I was it man you
can't say that you can't say we weep right you can't say when I was in back
you can't say this is the way this is I learned what you say should be able to
stand on its own two feet that's my point so I think a lot of times people
say oh well Marcus Aurelius said this or the Buddha says this and therefore it's
it's it's correct yeah they very well might be correct but
let's get the argument not to not to use their quotes why don't you come up with
something to stand on your own two feet yeah again nothing wrong with using the
guidance of the ancients right there's nothing wrong with that that's brilliant
from all these books the Bible's got all kinds of things in
it that are very impactful great great proverbs to live by but you know what
where'd they come from and why not figure out how to use them or how to
make them stand on their own two feet were you not just pointing to you know
well it says this there it's the book says this marks really said that Buddha
said this other thing no no let's let's develop our not
develop our own but let's make sure we test what we're saying we don't even
what we're saying that's how I ended up where I'm at so you know kind of a rough
path to take some things in life you gotta learn on your own yeah yeah a lot
more definitely yeah unfortunately a lot of things you gotta learn only through
experience we weep weep when I was in Baghdad II just just like ranked just
like I can't say like echo I'll rank you there for you we'll do it this way yeah
just like that I also can't say echo I did it this way in the past therefore
it's the correct way to do it those are equally bad arguments yeah don't do them
yeah I hear that a lot that when you know especially when when I first got
into reading I well-muscled they'd hear it I'd kind of think about that where I
could be like hey you know if I come across a situation where I'm gonna apply
some knowledge that I learned and if I'm in a situation where I got a convey the
the merits of that knowledge you know it does feel weird to be like hey the book
said it this way I'm more like you're just this like blind for like you don't
really understand the value of what you learn you just oh it said to do it you
know if you have to if you have to refer to the source without if I just say oh
echo we need you this way cuz the book said this right no that's not a good
answer what you should be saying is you know I read this and here's what I see
it apply and here's what this book says but this is where I think it you know
you can use it maybe to help your your arguments but don't let your argument
rest on this thing mmm yeah that's my opinion
know yourself I'm gonna go ahead and 100% agree with you and I was gonna say
unless that book is about putting together your computer then you just
follow the book but when you really think about it still it still holds up
you should understand the computer and how it works yeah I'm not gonna get into
that game