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Sometimes The Obstacle Isn’t The Way
You don’t have to accept it.
The Roman emperor Augustus had a slave for everything. He even had a slave to fan him while he slept at night. If you were a Roman citizen, your life was pretty great. If you were a slave, it wasn’t.
I’ve always had a little bit of a problem with stoicism.
That problem is history.
Sure, the Romans gave us philosophy. They also kind of stole it from Greece, like they appropriated most of Greek culture after conquering them and completely destroying the city of Corinth (as an example) in 146 B.C. As my historian friends remind me:
Be careful when you borrow ideas from the Romans.
They’re not your friends.
If you ever traveled back in time to meet a real Roman, they would’ve considered you subhuman, inferior.
The Romans conquered a huge part of the world and enslaved its population. Centuries later, Europe paid it forward by doing exactly the same thing to virtually every other civilization. So if we’re going to give them credit for stoicism and aqueducts, let’s not forget the imperialism we also inherited. They taught us that, too.
I’ve always been conflicted about books like Ryan Holiday’s The Obstacle Is The Way, which has inspired hundreds (maybe…
