Geeky Stoics Stephen Kent

Yesterday I revisited a Robin Williams classic, the Dead Poets Society. This movie likely inspired a generation of English teachers, based on how many times this movie was shown to me in school by a teacher with a twinkle in their eye. Everyone fancies themselves the Williams character, Mr. Keating, who teaches his students about language, romanticism, and “carpe diem”.  It’s a great movie and aged well. In a sense, Dead Poets is standard fare for the inspirational drama genre. Its main beats include a spunky teacher instilling nonconformity in his prep school students, overbearing parents who won’t accept their children’s passion for art, an authoritarian headmaster, and a bunch of messy boys searching for their identity in a school that takes no interest in the individual.
The movie is pure romanticism, all the way from its high points like the O’ Captain My Captain ending to the low points like the tragic suicide of a main character, taken by despair about his future. 
When you’re young, you see yourself in the boys.
Their hopelessness about meeting parental expectations hits hard.
You love the teacher who sees them for who they truly are. Robin Williams captures the kind of mentor we all wanted at that age. I hope you had someone in your life that was like Keating. 
Dead Poets is chock full of memorable takeaways and bumper sticker wisdom.
"No matter what anybody tells you, words and ideas can change the world.”
“There is a time for daring, and there is a time for caution. And a wise man understands which is called for.”
“Poetry, beauty, romance, love… these are what we stay alive for.”
“Carpe diem. Seize the day, boys. Make your lives extraordinary.”
But what about this one from Mr. Keating’s lessons…..

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One afternoon, Keating jumps up on his desk and proclaims the necessity of seeing things from a different perspective. Have an open mind. Walk in another man’s shoes. Stand on the teacher’s desk where you can look out at the class. The kids and their desks would seem small.
It’s a little goofy and not that transcendent of a lesson compared to some other observations by Keating about life and love. It even feels a bit elementary. 
“After an orange cloud — formed as a result of a dust storm over the Sahara and caught up by air currents — reached the Philippines and settled there with rain, I understood that we are all sailing in the same boat.”
- Vladimir Kovalenok, on seeing the Earth from space

But now as a parent of a 13-year-old, watching Dead Poets as a family last night, I took a new interest in elements of the movie I hadn’t cared about before. It’s like the old saying, “You never stand in the same river twice.” Since the water is always in motion, the river is new every single day. This is the case for rereading books you love and watching old movies again. You’re different today than you were yesterday or a decade ago. 
I was standing on the desk. Seeing the movie as an adult. Seeing the kids not as my peers, but as kids.
“We must constantly look at things in a different way,” says Mr. Keating as the boys climb up on the desk to see the classroom from above.
I felt the pain of the parents who lost their son to suicide. Though their overbearing expectations are what pushed the child to end his life, I actually noticed the offhand detail about the family being lower-middle class and less wealthy than everyone else at the prep school. The parents also felt pressure, and their desire to improve their economic position in society overwhelmed their son. They weren’t bad people. They had developed tunnel vision, and I’ve been there before.
There’s a teacher (Mr. Nolan) early in the movie who questions Keating’s unorthodox methods in the classroom. He’s a bit of a totalitarian himself, and he debates

Once there was a Gnat who flew over the meadow with much buzzing for so small a creature and he settled on the tip of one of the horns of a Bull. After he had rested a short time, the Gnat made ready to fly away. But before he left he begged the Bull's pardon for having used his horn for a resting place.
"You must be very glad to have me go now," said the Gnat
"It's all the same to me," replied the Bull. "I did not even know you were there."
Ouch! This is one of my favorite of Aesop’s Fables. Like the other stories in this fantastical collection from Ancient Greece, “The Gnat & the Bull” is a reminder to think a little less of yourself. It’s nearly impossible to not think of yourself as the main character of your own story, but trying is a worthwhile exercise.
There’s this great scene in AMC’s classic series, Mad Men, where the advertising executive and playboy Don Draper (played by Jon Hamm) has just hurt the pride of one of his employees, Michael Ginsberg. This young man is a starving artist type. He’s brilliant, but a tad tortured inside. His creative work matters a lot to him. In a pitch meeting for a client, Ginsberg’s idea was supposed to be front and center. Last minute, Don Draper changes things up and pitches his own idea instead.
This is what happens…..it’s 50 seconds and worth watching.
So often we are of greater importance in our own eyes than in the eyes of our neighbor…..
This fable and the scene from Mad Men are instructive in a few ways. First, as I said above, Michael Ginsberg has never considered that his hot-shot boss gives zero thought to his existence. As a great artist with a wild mind, Ginsberg is very pleased with himself and his creations for the ad firm. He is watching others very closely, studying rivals, and thinking about how other people carry themselves. He’s more empathic in that way. But the problem with empaths (I am one) is that we also start to think everyone else is like this.
“I’m constantly wondering what this person is up to…..I bet they're thinking about me and my struggles…”
Do you see how this is both a gift and a curse? This kind of mind is hyper-aware, but one step away from being self-centered at all times.
Don Draper is not a nice guy. He’s got a huge ego. He’s the Bull, a heavyweight in his field, and a very self-centered man.
But….as a boss in a big office, Draper is 100% correct that in this dynamic….Michael Ginsberg works for him. Ginseberg’s ideas are his ideas in a pitch meeting. If you have a boss, you work for their glory. Your job is to support them, help them succeed, and see them recognized. This means doing your job diligently and adopting a service mindset. Of course, this has limits. A good boss who keeps employees around knows that glory and recognition have to be shared, and underlings have to be given opportunities to rise in the company based on their performance.
Don is not great with this. However, every time he says to Ginsberg, “I don’t think about you at all” I want to break into applause for Don here, even though he’s not a great guy.
Two things are true here in the case of the Gnat and the Bull, AKA Ginsberg and Draper.
One: Draper does in fact think about Ginsberg, a lot. His career is sputtering and he feels very much that his position in the company is threatened. He’s lost a little of his creative edge. Ginsberg has it. He sees it. He wants it and also wants to snuff it out. Draper will not be eclipsed by a young upstart. So what is doing isn’t fully sincere.
Two: Don simply wants to deny him the satisfaction when Ginsberg says, “I feel sorry for you.” He shuts it down with disinterest and walks off. He won that standoff. Ginsberg is convinced, and frankly, he kind of needed it. His boss has a life and big problems, Ginsberg should think that Draper isn’t thinking about him that much. There’s ego going both ways here that need to be put in check.
The people you are trying to k

Nothing is worse than losing your sense of who you are. That’s what Riley wrote about for Geeky Stoics just a few days ago. C.S. Lewis worried about this too. He had this sense that Satan himself would love nothing more than to alienate the individual from the person in the mirror. That horrible, empty feeling when you look at yourself and don’t like what you see. The hatred of your own unique voice or reflection.
That’s part of what we discussed in today’s Geeky Stoics Book Club!
C.S. Lewis writes from the perspective of a demonic force preying on human beings…
“You should always try to make the patient (human) abandon the people or food or books he really likes in favour of the “best” people, the “right” food,” the “important” books.”
This letter from C.S. Lewis was about more than just liking what you like, but also dealt with liking things for the sake of gaining attention, glory, or appeasing vanity.
We struggle with this at Geeky Stoics, because in essence, Lewis’ idea is to NOT read great books and then share their insights for the purpose of impressing friends or sounding smart in a newsletter……(uh oh)
We do a lot of reading and synthesizing here, but the goal of Riley and myself is you make it all for your benefit.
C.S. Lewis wants you to know the person in the mirror and guard that person’s heart and mind with prejudice. Don’t lose yourself.
In the video ABOVE, we and some supporters of Geeky Stoics share our simple loves….things we enjoy for the sake of enjoying them, and nothing more. We hope it brings you some joy! Leave your simple pleasures in the comments section.
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In the video BELOW, which is premiering on YouTube right this very moment, Riley continues his series on how “focus determines reality”.


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The problems on Naboo were deeper than a droid army invasion in Star Wars: Episode I: The Phantom Menace. Their planet was divided. One culture and species above the water, another pushed below. The Gungans are sort of a George Lucas stand-in for an indigenous people, while the human beings of Naboo are like colonial settlers. “The Naboo” came from off-world and ran the Gungans off their land. That’s hundreds of years of galactic history.
By time we get to The Phantom Menace, the Gungans loathe the Naboo and the Naboo mostly just don’t understand the Gungans. It was their ancestors who had conflict with the weird-looking fish people associated with Jar Jar Binks. “Why do they hate us?”
Episode I gives us clues. When the Gungan Leader, Boss Nass, hears the Naboo have been conquered, he snarls. “We don’t care about the Naboo. They think they’re so smart. They think their brains so big.”
It pains me how much I hear this kind of resentment in the real world. I participate in it often, and I have to hold myself accountable when I slip into it. You know what I’m talking about….another group of people who you hold in contempt because you assume they don’t like you or look down on you..


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Life is comfortable in the ivory tower. You can look down on the rest of the world from the observatory window, seated next to your collection of books chock full of ancient wisdom and quips. The Jedi Order was trapped in this state during the years leading up to the Star Wars prequel trilogy (Episodes I, II, III). The Jedi Council literally sat around at the top of an ivory-looking tower on Coruscant, projecting outward their enlightenment and supernatural power as they looked out on Coruscant from the council chamber. How nice.
Yes, there were Jedi of action. If you weren’t on the Council, you were doing missions more regularly and seeing the real state of the galaxy. But if you moved up the Council, your world would be books, meditation, politics, and endless discussion. This is famously why Qui-Gon Jinn rejected an offer to join the Jedi Council when a seat opened up. During the Clone Wars period, Jedi Council members experienced more regular deployment into the field, leading many to die in battle. But again, it was not the historical norm.
Why am I going on about this?
Philosophy is for living and leading
I too like my books. I like my office. I like sitting in it, with my books, reading, highlighting, and writing about what I absorb. It’s nice and very cozy.
Over the last week though, I’ve been faced with a call to leave the coziness of my office and enter a different space, one I’d say is a bit more uncomfortable and perilous. I didn’t want to answer that call, which I’d received from a number of people in my community, asking me to consider running for City Council in Manassas, Virginia. A lane was open and no one was stepping in to fill it. That means the city gets more of the same in terms of leadership.
I thought of Geeky Stoics, my writing, and my time to be alone and think about philosophy, and I didn’t like the idea at all.
Then I remembered something.
The Stoics were (mostly) doers. Many of the Roman Stoics at their peak were ivory tower types in that they were privileged and powerful, but they were “in the arena” as it were, and engaged in public life. Seneca, advisor to the emperor, a masterful politician, and a former senator. Marcus Aurelius, emperor of Rome, not by blood but by merit. He didn’t want the purple robe of the emperorship, and he feared it greatly. Thomas Jefferson famously passed away with a copy of Seneca by his bedside. John Adams wrote with great knowledge and appreciation of Epictetus and Aurelius, and George Washington also kept the words of Seneca close as he rose into leadership roles in the Continental Army. To say nothing of President Teddy Roosevelt adventuring through the Amazon with Meditations in his backpack…..
Rolling back the clock a bit to Greece, the Stoic known as Cleanthes was known to haul water buckets around on a pole to water the gardens of wealthy homeowners in Athens. He was mocked relentlessly for working to make a living for himself.
Cleanthes was also a boxer for most of his life, before becoming the head of the Stoic school in ancient Greece. He succeeded its founder, a man known as Zeno, and was known for doing things with his hands as a means to strengthen his mind.
“Be a boxer, not a gladiator, in the way you act on your principles. The gladiator takes up his sword only to put it down again, but the boxer is never without his fist and has only to clench it.”
- Marcus Aurelius, Meditations

That’s why Marcus Aurelius wrote fondly of Cleanthes in Meditations, saying one should be a boxer, not a gladiator….because a boxer never lays down his weapon. He carries it with him wherever he goes.
Stoic philosophy was for people “in the field” of life. Not their home office.
Isolated on an island with a library
I’m reminded of Luke Skywalker as seen in Episode VIII: The Last Jedi, where he’s mostly given up on life and the fight against darkness. He is holed up on the island of Ahch-To, hoarding ancient Jedi texts in a l

May the Fourth be with you!
What better way to celebrate than to watch a very special, video edition of the Geeky Stoics podcast.
In this episode, and get into it! It is a Star Wars philosophical battle royale (ok, maybe thoughtful discussion) on the ever-controversial concept of "balance” of the Force. Balance is a big deal in Star Wars - it's basically the main job description of the Chosen One. But leave it to a couple of philosophy nerds like us to find 7 ways to interpret exactly what that means.
Stephen kicks things off by critiquing showrunner Leslye Headland’s comments about her vision of balance in the context of the Acolyte series. This sparks a debate on George Lucas's original intent, Jungian psychology, the “gray Jedi,” “shadow self,” and whether darkness can truly co-exist with light.
We always try to approach these discussions from multiple viewpoints while staying true to the philosophical “blender” that is Star Wars storytelling.
May the Force Fourth be with you, friends.
-Riley


This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.geekystoics.com/subscribe