Why You Should Do Your Own Writing

<p>There is something strange you find when you study the early Stoics. Not <a href='https://dailystoic.com/marcus-aurelius/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=your-own-writing'>Marcus Aurelius</a> and <a href='https://dailystoic.com/seneca/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=your-own-writing'>Seneca</a> and <a href='https://dailystoic.com/epictetus/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=your-own-writing'>Epictetus</a>, but the Stoics who influenced them. The names you don’t hear much: Cleanthes. Posidonius. Panaetius. Aristo. Antipater. Chrysippus. What you find—beside the fact that these were living, breathing, human beings with all sorts of interesting experiences—is that you start to notice just how big a role they played in the shaping of the classic Stoic texts we know and love.</p><p>For instance, the interesting analogy about how a philosopher should be like a wrestler—a fighter dug in for sudden attacks—that Marcus Aurelius famously makes <a href='https://dailystoic.com/meditations-marcus-aurelius/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=your-own-writing'>in <em>Meditations</em></a>? That actually originates from Panaetius, a Stoic philosopher from the 2nd century BCE that Marcus studied. There are allusions to the insights of Aristo and Antipater and Chryssippus in Seneca. A deep dive into Epictetus shows not only how he was <a href='https://dailystoic.com/zeno/?utm_source=convertkit&amp;utm_medium=convertkit&amp;utm_campaign=your-own-writing'>influenced by Zeno</a>, but reveals how many unattributed quotations of Epictetus appear in Marcus Aurelius!</p><p>So what is this philosophy then? Just a bunch of people repeating the same old insights? Hardly. Remember, Stoicism is a <em>practice</em>, not merely a set of principles. The act of sitting down and journaling—writing and rewriting—about ideas from the earlier Stoics is a kind of meditative experience. It’s almost like a prayer. It’s what t