Up@dawn 2.0

Monday, March 2, 2020

Crazy stoic? Or qualified therapist?

Stoic hangs out a shingle





This post was inspired by a colleague's receipt of a gratifying note from a former student:
 I ride the bus back and forth to my law office job everyday. And you see interesting things on the bus, even in Nashville. The other day I met a girl who lives in a halfway house and she told me that, if not for Plato, she would have killed herself. I though that was interesting. I thought about the person who knew Plato well enough, and cared about this halfway house girl enough, to give her what he could not have known at the time was a lifeline. I don't know if it will work for her, and I know even less about Plato.

But I just kept thinking, what a noble and selfless thing to give someone. You do that. 

3 comments:

  1. "A controversial new talk therapy, philosophical counseling takes the premise that many of our problems stem from uncertainties about the meaning of life and from faulty logic." Sounds very Epicurean. I like it!

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    1. Epicurean and Stoic, indeed. Lou Marinoff, though, despite his nod to Plato, seems to root his own version of therapy in eastern sources like the I Ching. Whatever works, say we pragmatists, but I'm a little leery of The Book of Changes. Stoic/Epicurean Pragmatism works pretty well for me.

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    2. Hmm. I Ching, you say? Had to look that one up. What's the matter with The Book of Changes?

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