- Once upon a time, I went through a very nasty breakup and my mental health really suffered. I was in a bad place until I went to see a therapist who knew a lot about stoic philosophy. Stoicism is an ancient philosophy and it's having a bit of a moment. The Daily Stoic has over two million followers on Instagram. There's an international stoic convention called Stoicon and a New York Times bestselling book about stoicism called "Discipline Is Destiny" a great title for a club night. YouTube tells me what my subscribers have been searching for on the internet and as a group, your number one most searched term is stoicism. Number three was Marcus Aurelius, the stoic philosopher who wrote the "Meditations. " This philosophy is a movement and I have a philosophy degree, so let's do it. In this video, I'm gonna tell you what stoicism is, how it helped me, and where it might be leading you astray. So please, make yourself comfortable, lie down on the couch and tell me about your mommy. [music like oooohh yeah Philosophy Tube! ! ! ] Meet the Stoics [Speaking Latin] English! Let us begin with Marcus Aurelius since he's probably a lot of people's intro to stoicism. Marcus was an ancient Roman. He was born in 121 AD and he was Emperor of Rome from 161 until his death in 180. By all accounts, he was a pretty decent guy. The bar for Roman emperors was low. As long as you don't murder your mum and shag your sister you can't go far wrong, and he's one of our major sources for stoic philosophy. Marcus did not invent stoicism. It actually comes from ancient Greek philosophers like of Zeno of Citium, Aristo of Chios, Cleanthes of Assos, and other minor characters from "House of the Dragon. " But we don't have anything written by the OGs, original Greeks. One of the only things we know about Cleanthes of Assos, is that he was really jacked, somebody wrote that down and it's survived, but not a lot else. Everything we know about stoicism comes filtered through the Romans and they may not be reliable. For example, one of our other sources is the Roman politician Cicero, and he tells us a lot about stoicism, but he was arguing against it, so he might not be portraying it accurately. Cicero also wrote his philosophy as dialogue between characters, which is just really pretentious. I mean, who the heck does that? Imagine if 2000 years from now, the work of every philosopher ever had been lost and future scholars had to reconstruct their ideas based solely on this show. That's kind of analogous to the situation we're in here. They'd be going, well, is she portraying them accurately? Why is she dressed like that? Where's the guy who used to present it? Was that her brother? A lack of reliable sources is one of the drawbacks to doing ancient philosophy. But on the other hand, I really love it because this stuff was written almost 2000 years ago in another country, in another language by people who lived unimaginably different lives, but it's still capable of making me go, oh yeah, I get what you mean. It genuinely gives me a really beautiful sense of the oneness of humanity. It's like getting a high five across time, I love it. The "Meditations" isn't really a philosophy book per se, it doesn't build to a conclusion or argue for a specific point, it's just a collection of notes that Marcus wrote to himself that he probably didn't expect anyone else to ever read. That's because in the ancient world, philosophy wasn't a university course, the way we might think of it now, it was more like self-help, it was supposed to improve your life. - [Voice of LowSpec Alex] Philosophy was not merely a subject to write or argue about, but one that was expected to provide a design for living, a set of rules to live one's life by. This was a need not met by ancient religion, which privileged ritual over doctrine and provided little in the way of moral and ethical guidelines, nor did anyone expected to. That was what philosophy was for. - So I'm gonna skim through Marcus here, I'm gonna pull out some key stoic concepts and teach them to you. And of course I have compiled them into an internet friendly numbered list. Number one, the dichotomy of control. This one's pretty simple. Control the things you can control, don't worry about the things that you can't. If you're an addict or you know an addict, you might recognize this idea from the Serenity Prayer popularised by Alcoholics Anonymous. God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, the courage to change the things I can and the wisdom to know the difference. The key for stoics is there's only one thing you can really control, and that is your judgments about the world. For example, Marcus says, imagine somebody insults you and you get really angry, take a step back. Have you really been hurt by what they said? No. What's happened is, they've insulted you and you've made a judgment, something like, and you've reacted to that, not the insult itself. You can change that judgment if you want to and you can let that anger go. - [Voice of Mike Rugnetta] If you are pained by any external thing, it is not the thing that disturbs you but your own judgment about it. And it is in your power to wipe out this judgment now. - That's not easy thing to do, which is why you have to work at it. This is something that other Romans poetics like Seneca and Epictetus said too. You've gotta train yourself to take that step back and examine your feelings every time you experience a strong emotion. It's worth mentioning, in the 21st century, we are very used to thinking that feelings and judgements are separate things. You've got your feelings, those are your moods, emotions, desires, your vibes, they're all over here in a pink heart shape, those are for girls and they are gay because over here in a blue brain shape, that's where you got your facts, judgments, reasoning, beliefs Jordan Peterson big mind activity, that is for men and it is not gay. Ancient stoics didn't think like that. For them, feelings have a judgment inside like the stone inside a peach. In technical philosophy language, we say that emotions have cognitive content. And stoic said, you have to make sure the judgments inside your feelings are true. For example, a while ago I had a big audition for a TV series and I was really anxious, so I took Marcus' advice and had a step back and realized that inside my anxiety was a judgment, and that isn't true. If I don't get this part, there'll be other auditions. I can let that judgment go, and immediately I felt less anxious, which is great. But from the stoic point of view, the more important thing, is that I've brought my judgments into line with reality. I'm facing things as they are, not as I imagine them to be, and so I have become more rational. Concept number two, virtue is the only good. For stoics, being rational, having accurate judgements about the world is the only thing you need to have a good life. So follow this example with me. Imagine my agent calls me up tomorrow and says, you got the part and I think fantastic, I'm so great. And I get really arrogant. I'm reacting to that judgment, but it's not true. So that good news has been turned into a bad thing. For stoics, if I don't have accurate judgments about the world, it doesn't matter if I get good news or fame or wealth or opportunity, they won't do me any good. The only thing that really matters is virtue, which is to say, having correct judgments about the world. - [Voice of Mike Rugnetta] The happiness of your life depends upon the quality of your thoughts, therefore, guard accordingly and take care that you entertain no notions unsuitable to virtue and reasonable nature. This idea overlaps with concept number three, living in accordance with nature. There's two sides to this. The first is what we just talked about, making sure that your judgements align with reality. The second is living in accordance with human nature. The stoic said that humans are social creatures. It's in our nature to live in communities and be good to each other. They're regarded mankind as one brotherhood, in which every man possesses a spark of the divine. [Voice of Mike Rugnetta] Each one of us is a part of this universe from which it is a natural consequence that we should prefer the common advantage to our own. For just as the laws set the safety of all above the safety of individuals, so a good wise and law abiding man, conscious of his duty to the state studies the advantage of all more than that of himself or of any single individual. - The fourth and final stoic concept I wanna pull out here is the sage. The sage is a stoic master. Sometimes they mean a literal person like Socrates, and they say he's a sage. Sometimes it's more of an ideal to strive for. The sage lives perfectly in accordance with nature. They have no false judgments about anything, they are never overwhelmed by strong emotions because they've trained themselves to step back every single time, even when times are tough, even if their agent calls and says, you didn't get the part. The sage doesn't multiply their suffering by adding false judgments like, 'It's over for me. ' Instead, they face reality as it is, and so they are able to cope with adversity. So those are the major concepts in stoic philosophy. If you skim through Marcus Aurelius or you watch videos like these on YouTube, those are the notes that you're gonna hit and that is all cushty. But this is Philosophy Tube. I want you to watch this video and then go and sign up to my Patreon so that I can make more of them. And I know that you're not gonna do that unless I earn it. You don't sign up to my Patreon because you wanna hear me summarise Wikipedia; you sign up to my Patreon because I go the extra mile in extra style. Stoicism is supposed to be a guide for living a better life, which prompts the obvious question, does it actually work? But before we get into that, I wanna talk about why the original stoics believed this stuff. This is the extra material, the deep law that podcasts and articles don't usually talk about. Stoic physics. [Music like oooo mystical, ancient chill vibes] Stoic Physics The people of the ancient world didn't have particle accelerators and radio telescopes and all the things that we have to make sense of the universe, but they were curious and clever. They had some theories about what's going on here, and the stoics were no exception. The stoics said there's two kinds of things in the universe. There's matter which is passive, and then there's this other active principle called the Logos. And the Logos is kind of like the Force: it's an energy field found in all living things. It surrounds us, penetrates us, binds the galaxy together. It's the rational principle which orders the universe. The logos is made of a special physical substance called πνεῦμα The Greek word for 'breath. ' πνεῦμα is a combination of air and fire, two of the four fundamental elements, and it's blended through everything. Objects have it, an axe has πνεῦμα that gives it the power to cut. Plants have πνεῦμα that makes them grow and reproduce, animals too, πνεῦμα gives them movement and perception, and we have πνεῦμα in us. It makes your blood warm because it's fire, it makes your heartbeat, it lets you think and be rational. It's what your soul is made of. And when you die, the πνεῦμα leaves you. You get cold, you can't move or think anymore. The πνεῦμα in you is dispersed back into the cosmos. Because the πνεῦμα is blended through the universe the same way it is in us, the universe itself is alive, and not only is it alive, the stoics believed the universe is intelligent and it's happy, which I think is just a really sweet idea. The universe is thriving, she's smiling, she's happy to see you, she's moisturised, she's four and a half billion years old but she still looks great. If you read stoic philosophy, including Marcus Aurelius, you'll notice that they use a lot of very big words interchangeably like God, fate, the world, the universe, Zeus, the gods, the cosmos. The reason they do that is because in stoic physics, those are all the same thing. And if I could briefly turn this show into Bible Studies Tube, any Christians in the audience might be thinking, this sounds awfully familiar. The gospel according to John opens with the phrase, "In the beginning was the Word and the word was God, "and the Word was with God. " In the original ancient Greek that's [speaking Ancient Greek] Logos is the Greek for 'Word. ' John is saying that this stoic idea, the force that orders the universe is the same thing as the Christian God. If you translate that phrase into Latin, you get [Speaking Latin] which you can find carved on statues and churches around the world and written above the gate of the school where I studied theology. By the way, if anyone in the audience is upset at my ancient language pronunciation, then I would simply remind you that [tells a joke in Ancient Greek] Now, all of that physics is bollocks. There is no such thing as πνεῦμα, the universe is getting less ordered over time, there are many more elements than four, your blood is warm because of chemical reactions in your body and your heart beats because of electrical activity in your sinoatrial node. But the point is twofold. Firstly, stoic philosophy was based on the latest science of the day. The science was wrong, but they weren't mystics or fools. The people of the ancient world were intelligent just as much as me and you. High five! The second point is that stoic physics informs stoic ethics. When they said that your judgements need to align with reality, they mean the things that happen to you literally impact your soul, and you need to literally move your soul in such a way that it aligns with the world. When Marcus Aurelius said there is a share of the divine in all of us he means it literally. These days a lot of people would probably interpret that stuff as metaphor. I would hazard a guess that people getting into stoicism now probably aren't engaging with the deep physics. They're using it as self-help because stoicism is supposed to make your life better, which brings us back to the obvious question, does it? The Feels, Part A Being stoic is sometimes associated with toxic emotional repression, men having no feelings, never asking for help, becoming the perfect warrior, cold and ruthless, living by your strength alone, uninhibited by foolish emotions. That's Dragonball Z. Masculinity is a subject about which I know more than I should, but less than some of you might think. I studied it for a number of years, but I never quite had the natural talent and I wanna reach out to young men, help deradicalise them, offer a positive role model. . . We're doing LeftTube again! Remember that from like five years ago? Well we're bringing it back. Somebody call Hbomberguy, what's he up to these days? - What have I become? This stoicism for bros - Broicism, if you will - is based on a misunderstanding of what stoics actually said. You can't get rid of all your feelings. For example, when I go too hard on a night out I often get depressed the next day and you can't philosophise your way out of a hangover. There are some emotions which are, for want of a better word, physiological, and a sage would still have those. It's not about having no feelings, it's about having feelings that align with reality. So the wise sage might say, "I feel really depressed today, but I know that's just because I had a big night on Molly down at the Dalston Superstore, this too shall pass. " Still the stoics described the sage as somebody who was never overwhelmed by strong emotions. Epictetus advised his followers to become so detached that they could treat the death of a child like the breaking of a cup. And you might think, ooo that doesn't sound like a particularly nice way to live. We can call this the romantic objection. Isn't it good sometimes to get carried away by passion? When the blood runs *** and the champagne is cold and you're alone in a hotel room with somebody who you probably shouldn't kiss, but you both feel like you just kinda have to. The romantic objection is that overwhelming passion is needed for a good life, and if you follow stoicism, you'd be missing out on that. The stoic response here is to pretty much bite the bullet and just say no, a good human life does not include moments of overwhelming passion because if they're based on incorrect perceptions, they will lead you into trouble. You might feel as if, but you won't literally explode. You'll be sad, but you can probably live with that. When you have virtuous emotions, there's no overwhelming romance, but there's also no overwhelming grief or anxiety. Virtuous emotions are aligned with the real world, which is the best and indeed only place that human beings can live. If you're very clever, you'll already have noticed that there's a lot of overlap between stoicism and CBT, that's cognitive behavioral therapy, not the other kind of CBT. CBT is a talk therapy invented in the 20th century, inspired by stoicism. Patients are encouraged to identify underlying beliefs which might be affecting them and substitute those beliefs for something else. So just like stoicism, it focuses on the cognitive element of emotion. CBT is what I was sent for when I went through that breakup. I was very depressed and my therapist encouraged me to find the belief underneath that depression. Eventually, we wrote it down and I thought, that isn't true. So what if we substitute that for something else? At one point I asked her, but why do I feel this way? And she said, well, does it really matter? We could spend years psychoanalysing your dreams or your childhood, and eventually we'll come up with something like, oh, your mother didn't breastfeed you enough as a child or whatever, but you're still gonna be left with the same question, which brought you to therapy in the first place, namely, what are you gonna do now? Are you gonna accept the real world or not? And this leads us to a criticism of both CBT and stoicism. Is there a danger that we're encouraging people to accept things that they really shouldn't have to? Intermezzo: Kelly Slaughter Rides Again Hi, I'm Kelly Slaughter, the founder and CEO of Siopi. I'm an entrepreneur, but I'm also a mom, and I know that juggling all those responsibilities can cause stress. Stress is the number one cause of employee sick leave in America. So what if there is a way to hack your stress response, reducing employee stress whilst keeping them in work? Introducing Siopi, a solution for your business, whether you're a multinational conglomerate or a mom and pop store. Our story began when I was running my previous company, Exprs. We were making facial recognition software for law enforcement, and a number of employees came to see me in my office and said they were experiencing stress. They didn't agree with the work we were doing, they wanted to change their conditions. They even threatened me. . . with unionization. And at the time, I wasalso experiencing stress because I was in the process of buying a third home so I was really able to sympathize. I started reading about the scientific causes of stress, and I learned that stress is caused when an individual reacts negatively to challenges. And I thought, what if there was a way to reduce employee stress without compromising productivity? That's when I had the idea for Siopi. Siopi uses artificial intelligence to bring the practice of cognitive behavioral therapy to your workplace. When faced with a problem of employee stress, a lot of founders use these patronizing solutions like putting a ping pong table in the office or letting employees pet a dog. Those solutions don't work. Cognitive behavioral therapy is where scientific study meets ancient wisdom, a solution that works. When your business signs up to Siopi, you'll gain access to our suite of software apps including our artificially intelligent therapist. Employees can schedule regular sessions to hack their stress, and our AI therapist offers genuine solutions. Employees can stay in work while they stresshack. You can also set measurable goals for them to work towards, and Siopi will monitor their progress outside of sessions. Siopi is proven to minimize employee absence due to sickness and helps create a healthier, happier working environment. As a mom, it's my belief that you can't put a price on health. Siopi starts at $12,997 a month per employee. So don't delay, use Siopi for your business today. [Horrible corporate music] The Feels, Part B The British philosopher Mark Fisher said it's no surprise that people feel anxious, angry and stressed when capitalism works us and the planet to death, just so the five guys who own everything can make 0. 3% more profit this quarter. We all pretend that feeling bad means you have some kind of brain problem. And Fisher says, that's like living next to a smoke stack and saying, 'Here's five ways you can cough more quietly at work! ' It fundamentally misunderstands the problem. People are angry, lonely, depressed, anxious, and they're right to feel that way. Not because they're broken humans, but because their situation is inhumane. The solution isn't therapy, it's politics, not the cigar of Sigmund Freud, the cigar of Fidel Castro! - [Voice of Lowspec Alex] Capital makes the workers ill. And then multinational pharmaceutical companies, sell them drugs to make them better. The social and political causation of distress is neatly sidestepped at the same time as discontent is individualized and interiorized. What we urgently need is a new politics of mental health organized around the problem of public space. - This is a version of what philosophers call the passivity problem. Stoicism says you can only control your own internal judgments, but there is a world out there and it needs us. Would a sage ignore climate change, for instance, or systemic racism because they can only control their own internal states? Doesn't accepting things as they are serve the needs of the powerful? Now there is a possible response that stoics could make here. They could say that when it comes to climate change, for instance, not taking action would be contrary to our nature as creatures who live on Planet Earth. So you could make a stoic argument for sustainability. They might also say that Marcus Aurelius was emperor of Rome for 19 years, and that's not really a job that you can do if you never take action. You can be a stoic and still stand up to injustice. Can you though? Can you really? 'Cause there's one section of the population who might have something to say about that. Women & Slaves The ancient stoics' attitude towards women is a subject of some debate. On the one hand, there is some relatively progressive stuff. The Roman philosopher Musonius Rufus said that marriage is a partnership built on longing rather than just pumping out babies. He says that women should be educated and that we should be allowed to study philosophy. Like a lot of ancient writers, he also said that men and women have the same genitals, just in different arrangements. Oh Musonius, you were wiser than you knew. On the other hand, all the stoic philosophers were men. There were women in the ancient world who were renowned for behaving stoically, but all the sources we have were written by men, they only quote men and they're addressed to men as well, often young men who are seeking wives. There's even a funny bit in Musonius where a student comes to him and says, Musonius, why should I get married? Wouldn't a wife get in the way of me studying philosophy? And Musonius essentially says, "Shut up nerd! Why don't you go and philosophise some pussy? " And if we read on a bit in "Musonius," a bit of a theme starts to emerge. - [Voice of Mike Rugnetta] A woman must be a good household manager and a careful accountant of what is advantageous to the household and a director of the household staff. I claim that these qualities are especially likely to belong to a woman who pursues philosophy. - He also says Stoicism's emphasis on resilience and self-development will help us when it comes to. . . - Voice of Mike Rugnetta] Nursing her children from her own breast and serving her husband with her own hands and to do without shrinking, things that many think suited to slaves. Would such a woman not be a great help to the man who married her, an adornment to her relatives, a good example to all those who know her? - So women should be educated not because it empowers us, but because it enables us to better serve our husbands. We can be virtuous, but the proper manifestation of female virtue takes place inside the home. You too can take the tradwife movement to its logical conclusion by installing a vomitorium. Musonius is relying on a trick here that some people still use today, separate spheres of excellence. Men are good at some things and women are good at other things, and there's nothing wrong with admitting that, is there? You're not one of those weirdos who thinks that we shouldn't tell the truth about ***, are you? So no, we're not misogynists, we don't hate women; we love women! Women are strong, women are nurturing, we're the best. . . at being wives and mothers. The trick is one of those spheres is politically subordinate to the other. The male sphere contains all the levers that control society, the female sphere is stuck at home with the kids and nota bene, men decide what those spheres are. Lest I be accused of cherry picking, it's not just Musonius, Seneca and Epictetus said that women lack self-control. Zeno of Citium said that we should be held in common and wise men should try to father children with us whenever they chose. If any wise men would like to give it a go, feel free to call me, but in the meantime, nota bene secondo, Zeno assumes that men choose women not the other way around, But so what? We all understand that nowadays you have to take the good bits from ancient philosophy and leave the other stuff behind, like with the physics. So when it says 'mankind,' read in 'humankind. ' And yes, okay. But having to do that presents an extra barrier for women who want to get into stoicism now. The modern stoic movement welcomes women and has prominent women in it, but it still recruits mainly men. Author and philosopher Sharon Lebell says that might be because we have to do the extra work of adapting it for us. - [Voice of Jessie Gender] In order to belong to the world, females must cherry pick and adapt texts, discussions and thought systems to include and apply to us. A female ontological perspective is one that can easily embrace the values of passion, emotion, and intuition. We need, I believe, to integrate these into our modern stoicism while being true to the spirit of stoicism's essential worldview. Otherwise, for lack of a better way to say it, modern stoicism will be too unilaterally stoic. - There's another group of people who might like to be included as well. Slaves! The ancient Greeks and Romans regularly enslaved people. And again, the stoic sources have a bit of a mixed view on this. On the one hand, they believed in a brotherhood of man or. . . community of humanity. They did reject the idea that some people are born naturally suited for slavery, which is better than some ancient authors, looking at you Aristotle! On the other hand, they never opposed slavery per se. Like, Seneca said you shouldn't beat your slaves, which, yes true, you shouldn't beat your slaves, but I feel like it would be better to not enslave them in the first place! Seneca also argues this in quite a strange way. He says, well, everybody's a slave if you think about it, some people are slaves to lust or greed or ambition, aren't we all slaves on the inside? And yes, that's very poetic Seneca, but some people are also literally slaves in the sense that you forced them to work for you and you never paid them! Seneca also said that you shouldn't force your slave to shave his beard and then dress him like a maid and have him serve you at the dinner table and then have *** with him! Which. . . weirdly specific example Seneca? I mean like. . . yeah don't do forcefemme maidplay with your femboy slaves but again, I feel like the bad bit of that is the slavery? The rest sounds great! The passivity problem kind of comes back here in a broader sense. A feminist philosopher might say that it's hard to develop your rational soul unless you are guaranteed some external goods like political liberty, goods that can only be had in a society which rejects gendered hierarchy and slavery. It's pretty hard to cultivate reason and virtue if you're treated like a second class citizen. All of this stuff is meant to help people live good human lives, but if you're a slave or a subjugated woman, you kind of can't live a good life. But once again, the most powerful stoic response is just to go, nope! It's all well and good for Mark Fisher to talk about freedom or feminists to talk about liberty, but those things won't do you any good if you don't have the virtue of reason. You could have political liberty and be in mental chains because your judgments about that liberty are false. By the same token, you could be in literal chains and be the freest person in the world if you are a sage. And if that sounds counterintuitive, well, if it was easy, everybody would do it. We're starting to get down here to fundamental questions about what a good human life looks like, which is of course what this is all about. That's the question I had, when I first went to that therapist all those years ago, To Live Well [Gentle music like oh, sad times now :'( ] Despite my therapist telling me it wasn't important, I did wonder where I acquired this belief. I asked myself, if I picture somebody telling me this out loud, who do I picture? And I realised with a bit of a shock that the reason the breakup had affected me so much was because the relationship had been very abusive. It took me quite a bit of effort to really accept that. It's not an easy thing to face, the idea that someone you loved has done something terrible and even violent. There's an incentive on the personal and on the global level to just ignore big problems because it's depressing to think about them. Stoicism offers one potential way to confront problems and maybe not feel as bad about some of them. My story took place many years ago. I don't even really think about it all that much anymore because now, I live in the real world. During that very difficult period of my life, making this show was a real lifeline for me. My abuser hated Philosophy Tube, so it is with some pride that I note, this month, Philosophy Tube is 10 years old. I started a decade ago in my parents' bedroom just trying to give away my philosophy degree for free. And now so many of you supported me that there's a set and there's a crew, and so much more. And thanks to this show, I am now an award-winning actor and playwright. Like I wrote a play called "The Prince" and we put it on in London with like fight choreographers and musicians and actors and directors, the whole nine yards. The reason I got to do that, was because I went to the producers and I said, hey, the Philosophy Tube audience, they're nice enough people, they're gonna turn out and support this and you did. Making "The Prince" was an incredible journey, and I got to do that because all of you supported me. So if you would like to see what you made possible, you can watch the show itself and the behind the scenes documentary about how we made it and a Q and A about the writing with Jessie Gender at go. nebula. tv/thePrince. If you use that link and get a year long membership of Nebula, you get a 40% discount, which works out at about $2. 50 a month, ridiculously *****. A slice of that comes back to this show, so you'll be helping me make more stuff. And if enough people sign up and this proves to be a viable strategy, then maybe we'll get to do it again! [Awesome country music by Luke Levenson! ] [Whew, this one was a tricky edit! Came together all right though. ] [Hey, got something exciting for you! ] [There are new Philosophy Tube shirts on my Nebula merch store! ] [People have been asking me about them for AGES. I finally got some in. ] [My agent is on me like 'Abi we need to sell these shirts lol' so if you want one you should pick one up! ] [I've been kindof shy about plugging them. I feel a bit iffy about plugging stuff like the patreon and the merch and Nebula, but we do need the money to keep the show going] [The finances are holding steady at the moment, but costs are going up. Venues are getting more expensive to hire; some of the crew recently needed a raise so they could cope with the cost of living] [Also I have to move flats cause my landlord's kicking me out. Moving flats is so expensive? ! I forgot how expensive it is! Like even though the rent is going to be the same in my new place, I have to pay for a moving van and also to have this place cleaned. It's like an extra month's rent on top! ] [So yeah, things are a little tighter finally speaking at the moment than I'd like. Every now and then I see people on Twitter say that YouTubers are secret millionaires and I'm like, well, one or two are! But not this one lol] [But hey, listen to me whine! I have a roof over my head and I can still afford food. That's a lot better than a lot of folks in my country. ] [Been getting some good acting auditions lately, that's fun! ] [If you're on tumblr you might already have seen I got through to the final round for a big Netflix show recently, that was awesome! Got another final round audition for a really big show coming up this week. Exciting! ] [Did you like the bit about the Bible Studies stuff by the way? I thought about cutting it, but it's just so interesting! Helping people understand the ideas that shaped the world around them, right? ] [Like how many times have you walked past a church that said 'In principio erat Verbum'? Now you know what that's all about! ] [So much of this stuff - old culture and art I mean - is overlooked because people think, "That's not for me," but why shouldn't it be for you? The cultural legacy of humanity is for ALL OF US. ] [The little details like that were always what I enjoyed about my high school philosophy lessons too] [Anyway, cross your fingers for this audition on Thursday! Buy a shirt if you want one lol] This is the extra material, the deep lore that articles and podcasts don't often talk about - Stoic Physics! WOO! Haha! - [Nicki] Oh no! - Woo! I've got pins and needles in my leg! I'm fine, I'm fine, I'm fine. I just was like, AAH! Let's try that again.