A couple ideas came up in the discussions this week that I've been thinking about a lot. They relate to gratitude and community.

Gratitude came up in a discussion about benefits. You can't be caught up in desire, or be lost in future or the past, and grateful at the same time. A gratitude practice is a great way to bring yourself back to the present moment, which I usually do now by remembering that I'm going to die. It might be nice to work some gratitude into my routine. I used to do a practice called called "Mental Subtraction of Positive Events," which I'm going to try doing again.

The second point came in reference to this quote from Seneca in Letter 95.

"Amid this upset condition of morals, something stronger than usual is needed — something which will shake off these chronic ills; in order to root out a deep-seated belief in wrong ideas, conduct must be regulated by doctrines. It is only when we add precepts, consolation, and encouragement to these, that they can prevail; by themselves they are ineffective."

I've mostly been focusing on doctrines and precepts - the deep conceptual idea, like how to "live according to Nature," or how the pursuit of virtue alone leads to tranquility of mind, and the practices we do daily to work these ideas into ourselves, like negative visualization or voluntary self-denial.

But what about consolation and encouragement? Practicing Stoicism is hard and the crowd doesn't understand what we are trying to do. They might admire our efforts, but they are just as likely to think we're weird or even demonize us when we act wisely. As we make progress, it's as natural that some would come to resent us as it is that some would want to mimic us. It would be so nice to have a place where people understood the path we're on, and could provide some consolation and encouragement in the right ways and for the right things.

Community building is really tricky, and the Stoics didn't leave us any direct instructions, but hopeful we can figure it out.