Documentary style read on stoicism
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the Roman emperor, Marcus Aurelius. Antonia's was the last famous, stoic philosopher of antiquity. During the last 14 years of his life, he faced one of the worst plagues in European history. The Antonin plague, named after him was probably caused by a strain of the smallpox virus. It's estimated to have killed up to five million people, possibly including Marcus himself, from a D 1 66 to around 81 80. Repeated outbreaks occurred throughout the known world. Roman historians described the legions being devastated. An entire towns and villages being depopulated and going to ruin Rome itself was particularly badly affected carts leaving the city each day piled high with dead bodies. In the middle of this plague, Marcus wrote a book known as The Meditations, which records the moral and psychological advice he gave himself A. This time, he frequently applies stoic philosophy to the challenges of coping with pain, illness, anxiety and loss. It's no stretch of the imagination to view the meditations as a manual for developing precisely the mental resilience skills required to cope with a pandemic. First of all, because Stoics believed that are true, good resides in our character and actions they would frequently remind themselves to distinguish between what's up to us and what is it. Much if not all, of our thinking is also up to us. Hence, it's not events that upset us, but rather our opinions about them. More specifically, our judgment that something is really bad, awful or even catastrophic causes our distress.