{"id":174088,"date":"2023-10-13T03:30:06","date_gmt":"2023-10-13T08:30:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/stoicism-and-longevity-research"},"modified":"2023-10-13T03:30:06","modified_gmt":"2023-10-13T08:30:06","slug":"stoicism-and-longevity-research","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/2023\/10\/stoicism-and-longevity-research","title":{"rendered":"Stoicism and Longevity Research"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a class=\"aligncenter blog-photo\" href=\"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog.images\/stoicism-and-longevity-research2.jpg\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Of the three great Stoics, Seneca always interested me the least. A playwright and professional philosopher, he seemed unlikely to be acquainted with the more mundane forms of suffering that beset humanity. This made him seem unfit to propound upon a philosophy concerned with right conduct under challenging circumstances.<\/p>\n<p>Marcus Aurelius, ruler of an enormous empire, spent most of his reign embroiled in wars he had no desire to fight. Epictetus, a Greek who endured the hardships of slavery, also embodied the Stoic ideal. Cries of \u201c<em class=\"\">ad hominem!\u201d <\/em>aside, it is hard to dispute that our experiences shape our outlooks on living. Biographical criticisms can be flimsy, but the central argument in <em class=\"\">De Brevitate Vitae <\/em>\u2014 an otherwise inspirational classic \u2014 was exceptionally naive for the 1st century.<\/p>\n<p>Although Seneca understood intrigue and exile firsthand, he was not privy to the time-sapping vicissitudes of householding or holding down a job.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Of the three great Stoics, Seneca always interested me the least. A playwright and professional philosopher, he seemed unlikely to be acquainted with the more mundane forms of suffering that beset humanity. This made him seem unfit to propound upon a philosophy concerned with right conduct under challenging circumstances. Marcus Aurelius, ruler of an enormous [\u2026]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":662,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[269],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-174088","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life-extension"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174088","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/662"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=174088"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/174088\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=174088"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=174088"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lifeboat.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=174088"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}