Every Monday I send out an illustrated Stoic breakdown from an important ancient Stoicism text, currently I’m working my way through Epictetus’ Enchiridion.
On Thursdays, you get a Stoic contemplation—a meditation or short talk for you to ponder until the next post.
At the end of every month, I send out a roundup of all pieces of content, nicely summarised to maximise quick comprehension.
In this guided Stoic contemplation, you will explore your fear and expectations around death.
If you want to be a practicing Stoic, you must learn to think clearly and reasonably about all aspects of the human experience.
Death is an inevitable, natural event that is neither intrinsically good nor bad. But many of us carry around a judgement about this event that causes us great anxiety.
If you can train your mind to become accepting of death, you can live life with more urgency, focus only on what is essential, and all other “smaller” anxieties will fall away opening up space for joy, compassion, and awareness.
As Sam Harris said:
“Consider it: every person you have ever met, every person will suffer the loss of his friends and family. All are going to lose everything they love in this world. Why would one want to be anything but kind to them in the meantime?”
The key is to truly grasp the implications of this statement on an emotional level.
Practice this contemplation regularly—for as long as there is strong death anxiety, there is work to be done.
Meditation: The Complete Stoic Death Contemplation