Stoicism is not a recipe for Greatness
The type of person who Stoically accepts whatever the world throws at him will never be the person who will change that world.
For a long time I was a devout Stoic. Marcus Aurelius was the home screen on my iPhone, and I would think about him (and through him the Roman Empire) multiple times a day. Meditations helped me get through a tough breakup, and I would beam with inner pride at how hard it was to make me upset.
For the uninitiated, ChatGPT says, “Stoicism is an ancient philosophy advocating for self-control, virtue, and acceptance of the inevitable, emphasizing that peace comes from distinguishing between what we can and cannot control.” Some core tenets include tempering your own passions/emotions/desires as well as accepting what life throws at you.
This was a great system for me growing up and I credit it with my development into a reasonably well-adjusted, level-headed person with a very minimal temper. But over the past year, my estimation of Stoicism has dropped precipitously. The more time I spend in Silicon Valley, the more I see the relationship between feeling extreme emotions and creating extreme outcomes (for both yourself and society). Elon once famously said on SNL, “I reinvented electric cars and I'm sending people to Mars on a rocket ship. Did you think I was going to be a chill, normal dude?”
The Elon quote rings true. Many incredible things are produced out of deep neuroticism. My friend Abhay has said similar: “I can guarantee you that a Buddhist or Stoic who negates all of his desires is never inventing AGI, Space Exploration Technologies, or Nuclear Fusion.”
The type of person who Stoically accepts whatever the world throws at him will never be the person who will change that world. These are diametrically opposed mindsets. There’s an oft-repeated Stoic Mantra, “I can’t control what happens to me but I can control how I react to it.” It’s very unlikely that someone with this mindset will have what it takes to bend the world to his will, which is an entirely necessary condition to do anything truly great. In a re-interpretation of Thucydides – the Stoic suffers what he must while the Passionate Man does what they are neurotically fixated on.
It’s the fiery passions, the deep insecurities, the intense desires for vengeance or glory that have driven people to create a lot of value in the world. Look at the stories of people like Elon Musk, Steve Jobs, and you’ll see this time and time again. Or looking even further back, Alexander, Caesar, Napoleon… these were all people driven by almost neurotic desires and passions – they were not Stoics.
Nice piece. I’ve had this thought when debating certain people when it comes to having bold vision. Talk to someone who works in oil and gas or the government, and the idea of a future with free, limitless power where we no longer consider energy scarce (e.g. line bandwidth today) is inconceivable to them. To create, you must first believe that a better future is possible. I see too many people these days affected by a certain negativism or disillusionment with reality, whereas I feel that we are truly in the valley of culture and possibility before the next great transition.
Ultimately it boils down to whether you’re a glass half full, or glass half empty kind of person.
But it’s an infection to believe that “this is how things are and how they will be.” Nobody got to the moon either that kind of thinking.
Thanks for sharing this Mike, very interesting!