Deep Something

How to Begin the Stoic Practices

December 3, 2025 B. John 127 Views 0 Comments Stoic practices, sympatheia, morning reflection, voluntary discomfort, daily habits, evening contemplation, Memento Mori, Journaling

This entry is part 1 of 15 in the series Stoicism Practices

This entry is part 52 of 53 in the series Journey Through Stoicism

Most people imagine Stoic practice as a long list of habits they should somehow manage to fit into an already crowded day. The truth is simpler. Most practices don’t begin with a grand plan. They begin the way mine did. A quiet morning walk becomes a morning reflection. A hard season pulls you into sympatheia. Three lines in a notebook settle into evening contemplation. The practices grow inside an ordinary life. They do not sit on top of it.

This closing essay is an invitation to begin without pressure. You don’t need every practice. You don’t need hours of silence. You only need one small place to start. A moment of attention in a day that is already unfolding. If you want to build a steadier inner life without turning Stoicism into homework, this is the place to step in.

Featured Society Stoicism

Sympatheia — The Web of Our Shared Humanity

September 3, 2025November 30, 2025 B. John 2677 Views 1 Comment Pope Leo XIV, compassion, interdependence, Social Justice, mortality, interconnectedness, Stoicism, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, sympatheia

This entry is part 13 of 15 in the series Stoicism Practices

This entry is part 32 of 53 in the series Journey Through Stoicism

There are moments when the illusion of standing alone falls away. Sitting at my mother’s bedside, I watched nurses adjust her blanket, a caregiver whisper encouragement, and my sister lean in to hold her hand. In that small room I saw a truth that philosophy and faith have long tried to teach. Our lives are braided together. The Stoics had a name for this: sympatheia, the recognition that we are bound together in a single web.

Marcus Aurelius urged himself to “meditate often on the interconnectedness and mutual interdependence of all things in the universe.” To him, nothing existed by itself. A hand could not live apart from the body, nor could a person live apart from others. Epictetus called it being a “citizen of the universe.” To forget this bond was to forget who we are.

In our own time, Pope Leo XIV put it this way: “The earth will rest, justice will prevail, the poor will rejoice, and peace will return, once we no longer act as predators but as pilgrims. No longer each of us for ourselves but walking alongside one another.” The Pope’s words echo the Stoics, calling us to remember that the fate of one is tied to the fate of all.