A transcript of author Phil Van Treuren discussing the common misconception that Stoicism teaches people how to be “emotionless.”
Now, there are a lot of misconceptions about Stoic philosophy . . . Stoic philosophy is actually more popular right now, and is studied by more people now, than it ever has been in the history of humanity. Which is weird . . . you might think, “well didn’t they study it more back when they actually had schools of Stoic philosophy?”
No . . . because we have, number one, so many more people in the world. Number two, such a higher literacy rate. Number three, we have the Internet and direct mail where people can order these books. We have email newsletters, all that kind of stuff. So actually, millions more people at this moment are learning about Stoic philosophy than ever in the history of mankind.
Misconceptions, there are a lot! Number one: Stoicism is not about learning to be emotionless. It’s not.
It teaches us how to experience more positive emotions like love and joy and gratitude. And how to overcome negative emotions like fear, anger, guilt, envy, that kind of thing. So it’s not about being emotionless, it’s about having more positive emotions.
We’re never going to have full control of our initial reactions or our first impressions. It’s not possible. We’re human beings. Regardless of what anybody says or acts like, we can’t train ourselves to just be this completely calm monk who doesn’t have a reaction when someone slaps them in the face or insults them, or when a plane is crashing that they’re in. It doesn’t happen.
But we can identify faulty thinking a little bit faster, and recover from it faster. And that’s what Stoic thinking helps us do.