now one of the biggest ideas in philosophy and ancient Greek philosophy the philosophy that we care about the philosophy that tells us how to live how to live a good life how to live a full life the one that is actually practically applicable to our daily lives and our happiness and tranquility and not just a theorizing of paradoxes or mind-boggling ideas in that philosophy one of the biggest ideas is is choice and you might have heard before someone telling you that you should just not care that if you hear an insult or someone yells at
you they're angry at you that you should just not care um that you don't need to feel this way and that you can decide to Simply disregard that and as many things in this kind of philosophy that's easier said than done um this is the same as saying telling someone who's never driven a car before to Simply decide to go drive a car you cannot just drive a car when you've never done it before you cannot just go and play tennis if you've never done it before it needs practice it needs exercise and that's unfortunately
the extent of that kind of advice that you'd get it's just the mention of it it's not the exercise of it this kind of work needs daily practice just like tennis just like driving a car you can't just go and drive a car when you've never done it before but you certainly have the ability to learn how to drive a car and this is however does not mean that they're not right you can just decide to not be hurt by an insult you can just decide to ignore something and to be happy and to be
unaffected by that you truly can and you might still think that that's not possible but um you could think of it this way let me give you a little thought experiment just to Showcase to you possibly at least the potential that this might be true if you've ever been if anyone ever came up to you and maybe thought you were a different nationality than you really are and started speaking to you in their own language and you didn't understand the word how did you feel them it could be it could have been anything that that's
been said to you I mean that person could could have come up to you and said the most vile insulting heinous things and you would not have known you might have been confused but you would have been just as confused as if they had said the most beautiful complimentary things about you so imagine someone coming up to you and in Japanese for example saying um very hurtful things very insulting things to you you would you would be unaffected you would not know it would make no difference to you and this is exactly what demonstrates to
us that they're clearly is no direct connection from what someone says from their intention from the mission that their words have to the actual effect to the actual desired effect clearly there's no direct connection there's a link in between that your mind Bridges it receives those words it receives those ideas it receives those impulses and it connects them to how you feel and this is what we mean by choice it is a choice to receive those Impressions and to guide them what they mean to go they don't have to go there it is our choice
that takes them there they come all the way up to us most of the way and then they completely rely on our Express approval to let them in now why do you not why does this not take effect why does this not happen when someone speaks to you in Japanese assuming you don't know Japanese it's because you're ignorant of Japanese right because you don't care about Japanese because you're not from there you've never had a reason to learn Japanese so you've never learned Japanese in in one way or another it's fair to say that you
don't care about it and language is just as much as a learned thing as being insulted the idea that someone else's opinion articulated through language can actually penetrate into your mind and cause real harm real damage there is a learned idea that is not an innate genetic trait it's not it's a learned idea so what if we could be ignorant not only of Japanese or the insults and abusive words that exist within Japanese but those kind of words in any language what if we could become ignorant of them and that's exactly what philosophy helps us
to do Marcus Aurelius says remove the idea that you've been hurt and the harm goes away remove the idea of pain and pain goes away and this is true it's a real concept it just like everything else it needs training and the insult thing is is just an entry level so to speak because there are worse things than being insulted right but in stoicism you actually take this idea even further it applies to any kind of so-called harm bodily harm any kind of physical harm and also like we said mental harm because just like you
can learn not to care about opinions and just like you can stop words from having an effect on your mind you can stop the hurt that your body feels from affecting you negatively that doesn't mean that the pain will disappear that's your body there are functions in your body that you cannot stop but the interpretation that bodily pain is a negative thing that is hurtful that it's damaging that is an idea that is an opinion that is your mind giving access to Itself by an outside force to an outside force pain is simply the notification
system of your body to tell you to pay attention to a certain body part because there might be potential or real danger there if you put your hand on something hot you without pain you would never know that you're doing it and that you're um damaging your hand it's just a notification system and that notification system can be um seen But ignored it can be appreciated but not further interpreted I picked you this says something like um someone bringing him talks about someone bringing him the news and saying so and so has said this about
you anything more nothing more so and so has died anything else no nothing else it is us who add anything so when we get the news so and so has died we add a further interpretation of oh my God that is terrible that's a bad thing that's horrible what are we going to do now how are we going to live without this person all these things are added to what has really happened the objective truth of things its attitude by your mind same with insults so and so I said this about you okay anything else
no I mean that's what they did that's what happened okay fine all we need to care about when we hear news like that let's say someone has accused you of lying have you actually lied no okay well then you have done nothing wrong have you actually lied yes then still it's not the news that someone has said this about you that you should care about that but that you've lied which is something that you should care about anyway so this is why we say no one can harm another no one can really insult another no
one can damage another person no one can hurt another person because they can only try they can only launch those things at you but whether they're they find their target whether they hit their target or not really truly is up to you an insult does not have to work slander does not have to work something to irritate you does not have to work something to make you angry does not have to actually achieve its goal it's your mind that connects it to its Target if he chooses to do so and we don't think about these
things enough so we automatically assume that there is a link and because our mind obeys that and something hurtful actually something intended to be hurtful actually does hurt us emotionally we assume that there must be this connection not realizing that we're bridging that Gap that last bit that matters we let it in through the door it knocks on the door and we just assume it can just come through anyway but no if you don't open the door it cannot come through and this is heavily tied in with freedom imagine a world which most of us
do live in in which every single person can push our buttons every single person can decide to do or say this or that and actually achieve their end that's like slavery that's they have complete control over us in that way if every single person you're going to meet in your entire life over your entire life just did one thing to insult you to hurt you to irritate you and actually achieve their end you would barely have any days where you're not insulted where you're not hurt by something you'd barely have a day left in your
life but realizing that you're the one bringing that insult home that you're the one who's letting those attacks achieve their end and their goal once you realize that it's you you must also realize that you can stop this and imagine a life in which you don't get insulted in what you are in control of what other people's actions whatever their their intentions may be are not decided by them the effects of them are not decided by them but by you and that's exactly the idea of choice that's what Marcus Aurelius means when he says remove
the idea the opinion that you've been hurt and you remove harm remove the idea of pain and you remove pain it's in choice that Freedom lies in and that's why we also say everything that is truly good and truly bad meaning everything that is morally good and morally bad is within your reach nothing about your morals is up to anyone else no one else can make you a liar only you can lie no one else can make you a cheater only you can cheat no one else can make you violent only you can with your
own body enact violence only you can do that and as long as you're morally good that's all you need to do no one else can make you better or worse and also no one else can redeem you only you can do that realize that actions and words and opinions are within the realm of choice they're not outside they don't have to happen they're not external they're in eternal leave wrong done to the Doer don't participate in it don't let it achieve its end and it won't apply this first to small things in philosophy like we
said this this idea is taken to its full extent to to death and bodily injury and and all that let's start with something small start with opinions realize that when they're in a different language you don't even understand them you're not even affected by them only if it's in a language that you have been taught that you know the vocabulary of can these ideas even at all come to your door and as has been proven to you by a failed attempt at insulting you with a language that you don't know they don't have to achieve
their end in fact they cannot achieve their end without your explicit consent approval and allowance there is no other way
