Practice like a Stoic: 20, Speak little but well

What do you talk about with your friends?

Don’t talk of gladiators or similar things… Image from deviantart.com/grandegentleman, CC license.

[This series of posts is based on A Handbook for New Stoics—How to Thrive in a World out of Your Control, co-authored by yours truly and Greg Lopez. It is a collection of 52 exercises, which we propose reader try out one per week during a whole year, to actually live like a Stoic. In Europe/UK the book is published by Rider under the title Live Like A Stoic. Below is this week’s prompt and a brief explanation of the pertinent philosophical background. Check the book for details on how to practice the exercise, download the exercise forms from The Experiment’s website, and comment below on how things are going. Greg and/or I will try our best to help out! This week’s exercise is found at pp. 131-132 of the paperback edition.]

“Be silent for the most part, or, if you speak, say only what is necessary and in a few words. Talk, but rarely, if occasion calls you, but do not talk of ordinary things, of gladiators, or horseraces, or athletes, or of meats or drinks—these are topics that arise everywhere—but above all do not talk about men in blame or compliment or comparison.” (Epictetus, Enchiridion, 33.2)

We may not have much occasion to talk about gladiators these days, but we sure are obsessed with athletes nonetheless . . . and with actors, and singers, and royal weddings. It’s more evidence that people haven’t changed much in two millennia! And of course we talk about the latest trendy restaurant we visited with its stupefying cocktail menu, as if these were really consequential matters.

We don’t have to take Epictetus’s list of “ordinary things” as a literal prohibition. Social interactions are also made of small talk. Though perhaps we should take seriously the suggestion to ratchet up the level of our conversation, both for ourselves and for our friends. There are so many important issues to talk about, so much conversation that would improve us as people, increasing our awareness of what’s going on in the world and what we can do about it. It’s a shame that we, instead, indulge in trivialities for so much of our social life.

Similarly, we don’t need to interpret literally the injunction to be mostly silent. We have a duty to do our part in social discourse. At the least, some of us could use the advice of speaking less and listening more. It will help improve ourselves—hey, we might learn something, if we just stopped pontificating all the time—and others as conversations become more lively and interesting when different voices participate, particularly when there are people of different genders, ethnicities, or cultures in our company.

Notice especially the last bit of Epictetus’s advice: to avoid what we would call gossip—blaming, comparing, or even praising people. Most of the time we simply don’t know enough about others to arrive at judgments about their character or actions. And even if we did, what others do is their business, not ours. We should be focused on improving ourselves, because that’s the locus of our control.

All of the above is just as valid for online interactions as for in-person ones, and perhaps even more so. When interacting online, we not only replicate all the questionable behaviors that Epictetus criticizes, but we do so while our presence is amplified to what we think is a much larger audience. Our conversations could be far more interesting and edifying if we paid more attention to what we say. If we don’t pay more attention, the internet—with its potential to become a global village in which everyone has a voice—risks descending into a cacophony of irrelevancies.