The Enchiridion by Epictetus

Was in one of those chain book stores recently and decided to stop by the philosophy section. It was tiny, only taking up part of a single shelf in a huge store. I was surprised to find about half of the titles were on Stoicism and closely-related topics. There were many pop-psych texts about applying Stoicism to modern life. I guess it's been having a moment? Interestingly, it was right next to the massive self-help section.

I have a notion that both the ancient West and East experienced a chance to align with systems of thought that reject desire, either in part or whole. In the East, that was more successful and stuck around longer. Unfortunately for us, it remained a fringe notion (think how we would react to a modern Diogenes). However, we never completely forgot, flirting with similar ideas from the direction of Christian piety, the synthesis of Eastern thought that occurred in the counter-culture era, and the psychoanalytic frameworks of Lacan, Deleuze+Guattari, and others. Now that our desires are being exploited against us by the tech that mediates our very existence, it makes sense we would seek defense mechanisms. There's trillions of dollars of economic force out there creating, curating, and capturing desire. It's probably worth stepping back and asking how being embedded in that structure is actually affecting us and the degree it's aligned with our innate interests.

An "enchiridion" is a manual or primer. Interestingly, in both ancient and modern Greek, ἐγχειρίδιον / εγχειρίδιο also means "dagger." Because both a small manual and a dagger were things that could fit comfortably in (εγχ / εν) your hand (χείρ / χέρι).

Not all that relevant to Epictetus, just wanted to add a little linguistic note.

Absolutely love this book. The discourses are great reads as well.

It's wild how the human psyche barely changed since the time of Epictetus.

P.S. If you're a follower of Stoicism, I've been working on a community platform/forum: https://stoacentral.com (there's still a lot of work to be done, but I've been pushing along).

I made a website for comparing the translations: https://enchiridion.tasuki.org/

Standard Ebooks version:

https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/epictetus/short-works/geor...

The Perseus Project has a more advanced presentation of the text (including the Teubner edtion), for those interested: https://scaife.perseus.org/library/urn:cts:greekLit:tlg0557....

I have read this and love it. Besides being good practical advice, it's fun to read just how sassy Epictetus could be with his students. He doesn't hesitate to call people fools when they deserve it, and it makes him seem a lot more human and relatable as a result.

I enjoyed this book greatly, I do not enjoy how Stoicism has become the basic meaning of philosophy.

Meditations is also a decent read.

My favorite book.

Related: Sorry, but as an AT fan I couldn't resist: https://adventuretime.fandom.com/wiki/The_Enchiridion_(book)

I am actually exited to read this.

bm3719's observation about Stoicism as a defense mechanism resonates with me. I've found it genuinely useful, not as self-help packaged for tech bros, but as practical mental infrastructure.

The core idea is simple. You separate what you can control from what you can't. Then you stop burning energy on the second category. Easier said than done, but the framework helps.

I keep coming back to "How to Think Like a Roman Emperor" as a practical companion to the original texts. It's Marcus Aurelius filtered through modern psychology, with concrete exercises instead of just principles.

The danger is treating Stoicism as emotional suppression. It's not. It's about choosing where to direct your attention and energy. That's genuinely useful when you're surrounded by systems designed to capture both.

I read this in my early 20's and it had such a profound effect on me. It's so hard to truly put it all into practice though.