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People / 39m
Stoicism and Loneliness
A Practical Guide to Loneliness, Friendship, Purpose, and Learning to Be Good Company to Yourself
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People / 39m
A Practical Guide to Loneliness, Friendship, Purpose, and Learning to Be Good Company to Yourself
The house is quiet. The phone does not ring. A whole day can pass without speaking to anyone.
Sometimes loneliness comes after loss. Sometimes after retirement, moving city, working from home, drifting from old friends, or simply waking up one day and realizing your world has become smaller.
Stoicism and Loneliness applies the ideas of Epictetus, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Musonius Rufus, and Hierocles to isolation, grief, friendship, purpose, and the challenge of rebuilding connection.
The audiobook begins with the quiet reality of loneliness: days blurring together, checking an empty phone, and realizing you have barely spoken aloud in more than a day.
You’ll discover:
Stoicism does not ask you to need nobody. It asks you to become steady enough to reach toward people without desperation, and comfortable enough in yourself that an empty room does not automatically become a verdict.
We'll email you the first chapter of Stoicism and Loneliness after you confirm your address.
It is a Tuesday. Or it might be a Wednesday. Lately the days have started to blur. You wake up at the same time you always did, because your body has not caught up with the fact that there is nowhere to be. You make tea. One cup. You stand at the kitchen window while the kettle cools and watch the neighbour's car pull out of the drive. The radio is on, mostly for the voices. You check your phone. Nothing since yesterday, apart from a delivery notice and a reminder about a dental appointment. By the afternoon, you notice that you have not spoken out loud in a day and a half. When you finally do, to the man at the till in the supermarket, your voice comes out rusty, as if it belongs to someone else. If any of that sounds familiar, this book is for you. And you are in far bigger company than you think. Loneliness is one of the quiet problems of our time. It hits the widower in the silent house. It hits the young man in a new city with a laptop, a rented flat and nobody to ring on a Friday night. This is a book in a series called Ancient Advice for Modern Problems. And loneliness might seem like a strangely modern thing to bring to the ancient world. They had no video calls and no families scattered across continents. But they knew exile, bereavement and old age. And the Stoics, the philosophers of Greece and Rome who taught that a good life is built from what is in your own power, had some of the wisest things ever said about being alone.
How to Stop Hiding, Face Social Fear Gradually, and Stay When You Want to Run
Stoic Tools for Credit Stealers, Chronic Complainers, Passive-Aggressive Emails, and Workplace Conflict
How to Have Difficult Conversations with Clarity, Courage, Calm, and Respect
How to Stop Caring So Much What Other People Think and Build Your Life from the Inside Out