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You Are the Project
Epictetus was a slave when he wrote about focusing on what is within your power. He was not speaking from comfort. He was speaking from the widest gap there is between control and circumstance.
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REAL GOOD IS SIMPLE
Marcus Aurelius is making a precise argument about virtue that is easy to miss. The cardinal virtues do not depreciate, do not run out, and cannot be taken from you.
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NO HARM NO FOUL
One of the harder Stoic positions to sit with honestly. Marcus is not arguing against naming real harm — he is arguing against the reflexive narrative that turns every difficult event into a wound.
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Spend Thrifts of Time
Seneca wrote *On the Brevity of Life* two thousand years ago and it reads like an observation about the current week. We protect money. We give time away.
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The Business of Busyness
A man can spend a whole life moving and never go anywhere. Thoreau works the same territory Marcus and Seneca worked — and a paper mill manager named Dave taught the same lesson in plain English.
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WASHING AWAY THE DUST OF LIFE
Marcus Aurelius is being practical, not poetic, when he prescribes contemplating the stars. The dust does not disappear. But it settles when you remember what scale you are actually living at.
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What Makes a Happy Life
The *Meditations* is not a book of advice. It is a journal. The most powerful man in the world reminded himself at night that none of what he had was what made a life.
