The short answer is - so I can spend more money on this project while maintaining tranquility of mind.
Right now, everything costs about $250/month, which is as much as I can budget for it as a hobby. That’s with 6 meetup groups in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Chicago, Austin, and Houston, plus Zoom and a few other costs. Each group is $35/month. I’d like to expand to fill out the rest of the Eastern and Central time zones, as well as making groups in the Pacific and Mountain time zones. I think it would be great to have people from every part of the country in our discussions. My rough estimate of the cost to cover the whole country and get the best online meeting tools is $1000-$1200/month.
I think Meetup is the best way to promote the project. Social media is free but too tricky to deal with safely. For paid advertising, Meetup is very cost-effective compared to Google or Meta ads, and it's all real people. They primarily advertise to people within 100 miles of the location of the group, which is why they suggest creating multiple groups in different cities.
Also, I think the next few years are going to be especially difficult and complicated, and that people are going to really need Stoicism, so I want to proceed with as much urgency as is reasonable. Right now, I have the time and energy to do this most nights of the week, so I want to capitalize on that opportunity.
All that being said, in Letter 52, Seneca closes by advising that:
"There can be no doubt that philosophy has suffered a loss, now that she has exposed her charms for sale. But she can still be viewed in her sanctuary, if her exhibitor is a priest and not a pedlar."
I'm going to stop using this site and switch over to a more interactive version at community.stoalogos.com. Please use the link below to join!
Join us this Sunday, December 29th for the forty-sixth Sunday Stoa!
We'll kick things off at 4pm EST with 10 minutes of guided meditation, followed by 15 minutes of reflection journaling or doing a Stoic writing practice. If you'd like to skip the meditation and journaling, please join us at 4:30pm. After that, we'll use a combination of break out groups and larger group discussion to go deeper into a specific topic.
This weeks theme is progress: we'll be listening to Letter 32 from Seneca's Letters from a Stoic, and Book 1, Chapter 4 of the Discourses of Epictetus, and then discussing the ideas they puts forth.
Here's the and text if you want to check it out before Sunday:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_32
Click here to join the event:
If you're all caught up on your meditation and journaling ...
Join us this Sunday, December 22nd for the forty-fifth Sunday Stoa!
We'll kick things off at 4pm EST with 10 minutes of guided meditation, followed by 15 minutes of reflection journaling or doing a Stoic writing practice. If you'd like to skip the meditation and journaling, please join us at 4:30pm. After that, we'll use a combination of break out groups and larger group discussion to go deeper into a specific topic.
This week, we'll be listening to Letter 18 from Seneca's Letters from a Stoic, On Festivals and Fasting, and then discussing the ideas it puts forth.
Here's the video and text if you want to check it out before Sunday:
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius/Letter_18
Click here to join the event:
If you're all caught up on your meditation and journaling and want to skip right to the discussion, please join at 4:30pm
