"Be Cool, Bro." Stoicism Offers More Than Life Hacks.
Thoughts for dark times.
Picture this: The richest, most powerful dude in the world walks up and says hi. He says he's heard good things about you.
He wants to do you a favor.
You can have anything you want, he says. Just name it. You're not impressed. You don't just turn him down. You throw him a little shade. "Sure, you can do me a favor. You can get out of my face." So the richest, most powerful man in the world walks off, telling his friends that if he wasn't already so rich and powerful, he would want to be just like you, because that's how cool you sound.
Something like that actually happened about two thousand years ago, when Alexander the Great met the legendary philosopher Diogenes of Sinope. Diogenes was a cynic. He rejected material possessions along with almost every other cultural convention and form of authority.
Alexander had to build an empire.
Diogenes didn't need one.
Cynicism eventually gave birth to Stoicism, an arguably more "civilized" philosophy. Over the last decade, Stoicism has go…