That's so kind! Thank you ☺️

No worries at all! (As we say in Australia) It's a pleasure sharing the Stoics' wisdom with the Stoic community 😊

Thank you for all the time and love you have put into your podcast. It's such a great and approachable resource for Stoicism. Our community is so lucky to have such hard working and intelligent people within in.

He would have loved the 60s 😌

Exactly! Those who think Stoicism preaches what the modern English definition of the word means are sadly mistaken. Stoicism is a nuanced, intelligent, & rational philosophy that embraces the healthy processing of emotions. Rationality is sacred in Stoicism. Processing emotions = rational = sacred!♥️

7. I also think belief in Providence is a crucial step in achieving tranquility of mind. We have to trust that the Nature from which we came also has the best interests of Nature at heart. And we have to be humble in understanding that our non-virtuous desires do not factor into this nature.

6. And once we come to understand it, (which takes a lot of time and is an never ending process of deepening of understanding), the things that happen to us can be astutely discerned as neither good or bad, and our belief system internalises this fact. Then, your mind can rarely be disturbed.

5. It's essentially the scientific understanding of cause and effect. The difference, however, is that the cause is not random, but rather a perfect expression of Nature's inherent and perfect intelligence. We share a spark of this perfect intelligence & as such we have the ability to understand it.

4. I also don't think Providence is counter to a modern understanding of physics. Providence is the interweaving of the divine will of Nature and our free will to respond to Providence however we choose. Our response in turn influences the next materialisations of Providence.

3. I have come to believe that Providence must be the correct reality of our universe. It was a gradual shift in my belief system, not a sudden epiphany. And at the end of the day, living in accordance with a Providence benefits the world much more than living in accordance with atoms. So why not?

2. Originally I was a total scientific materialist thinking the universe must just be a happy accident and that life was also an accident. However, life seems to perfect, too profound to have just been an accident. Marcus Aurelius says you either believe in Providence or in atoms (soulless universe)

Providence was the hardest thing for me to get my head around too. The more I looked at the complexity of the world around me, the more I felt there must be some self organising principle to the cosmos. A principle that works against the thermodynamic principle of entropy.