I will and perhaps you will read some of Cobb in retrospective mode. This post is to disambiguate my own journey to Stoicism from that which I just discovered today is the calling card of various hacks and hawkers, namely Ryan Holiday and Tim Ferriss. Before this morning, I had never heard of either of them. My own path was lit partially through Philosophy Meetups several years ago, and the influence of Taleb.
The other thing is that I note that I have changed the subtitle of Cobb to 'stoic observations' several years from 'curious, skeptical, analytical'. I will now try to identify that date. So I'm guessing right about now that I first mentioned it in July of 2013 in my post Bastards of Westeros:
What I find most appealing about Game of Thrones aside from its own technical excellence is that it exemplifies something of what we humans face in the lack of a perfected civilization. I have, since the economic collapse of '07 and the election of Obama in '08, begun thinking about how to survive the downside. It has lead me from neoconservatism to Stoicism, and it may ultimately lead me back to the Catholic Church. My basic assumption is this. Man's nature is feudal, and we have only recently in our history invented such institutions capable of approximating Lordship. When these institutions fail, demos will fail, and hierarchies demanding fealty will rise. I think many people will be caught in the cold who don't recognize the failure of those institutions through which now they secure the blessings of liberty. Those who take their liberty for granted will lose it most swiftly and what is important today is understanding of who creates and who destroys liberty. Game of Thrones reminds us that freedom is given by both good-hearted and by evil men. It should remind us to look closer. We pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America, and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, under God, indivisible with liberty and justice for all. What breaks? Can you feel it breaking? Is Winter coming? Is our courage at the ready, are our skills up to par, is our loyalty properly aligned? Everything breaks. Only the alert will see ahead. Winter always comes.
But I would think that I probably first got some steam under that general direction from reading fiction of the sort with Lovecraftian heros, starting with Harry Dresden and then Bob Howard. That kicked off in September of 2012.
OK That's all for now. I'll finish reading this, which promises to be a good read.
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