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Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. On Thursdays, we do double duty, not just reading our daily meditation,

but also reading a passage from the book, The Daily Stoke,

365 meditations on wisdom, perseverance, and the art of living, which I wrote with my wonderful co-author and collaborator, Steven Hanselman.

And so today, we'll give you a quick meditation from one of the Stoics, from Epititus Markis Relius,

Seneca, then some analysis for me, and then we send you out into the world to do your best to turn these words into works.

The present is all there is. There's a constant internal tension within meditations between urgency and patience, contemplation and action, focusing in and zooming out.

Markis Relius tells us to forget the future on the one hand, then on another to contemplate infinite time. At first glance, it can feel like there's some dissonance there, a contradiction even.

But the purpose of these seemingly divergent exercises is the same, presence and the present.

Frank McLean writes in his biography of Marcus Relius, that Marcus plainly preaches that the present is all there is.

It was a struggle for him, of course, just as it is a struggle for us, which is why Marcus reminds himself as we must at every moment,

not to live as if you had endless years ahead of you, death overshadows you, while you're alive and able. Be good.

We are struggling with similar tensions right now. We have just been reminded of our mortality during the pandemic, yet we've been wasting days just waiting for things to get back to normal.

We're confined, yet we're restless. We've never had so much time on our hands, yet we have no idea what to do with this time. And there's nothing new in that, Marcus would say.

During wartime or a plague as the emperor or a popper in good health or old age, the present is the same for everyone. The loss is the same for everyone.

So stay present in the present. It's all that there is.

The truly educated aren't quarrelsome. This is the June 24th entry of the Daily Stoic, 366 meditations on wisdom, perseverance and the art of living.

You can get a sign copy of the Daily Stoke, storing it a leather bound edition in the Daily Stoke Store as well, or pick up audio, digital, physical, anywhere books are sold.

Today's quote comes to us from Epic Titus, discourses 4.5, the beautiful and good person neither fights with anyone nor as much as they are able permits others to fight.

This is the meaning of getting an education, learning what is your own affair and what is not. If a person carries themselves so, where is there any room for fighting?

Socrates famously traveled around Athens approaching the people he disagreed with most and engaging them in long discussions.

In these discussions or whatever record we have of them, there are many examples of his conversation mates getting exasperated, upset and aggravated by his many questions.

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