Stoicism

There is a version of MacKenzie Scott’s life that reads like a fable about the wrong kind of ambition. She studied creative writing at Princeton under Toni Morrison, who called her “one of the best students I’ve ever had in my creative writing classes.”1 She spent ten years writing her first novel while helping her husband build a company that would become the most valuable retailer on earth. The novel, The Testing of Luther Albright, won an American Book Award. Morrison reviewed it as “a rarity: a sophisticated novel that breaks and swells the heart.”2 And almost nobody read it. By NPD BookScan’s count, her books sold modestly.3 ...

“First say to yourself what you would be; and then do what you have to do.” — Epictetus, Discourses, 3.23 Net interest on the federal debt is set to cross $1 trillion this fiscal year, more than the Pentagon’s entire budget, and it holds there every year through 2035 on the Congressional Budget Office’s own numbers (CBO, 2025). On the CBO’s calm, no-crisis baseline, debt held by the public breaks the record set finishing World War II by fiscal year 2030 (CBO, 2026). That’s about four years out. Treasury’s response this month was to double its debt buyback program, a move I wrote about this week in Treasury Buybacks: A Colossal Failure in the Making: a few billion dollars a month against a $32 trillion market, a rounding error dressed up as a fix. ...

“Treat it as your own only while it is given to you, as travelers treat an inn.” — Epictetus, Enchiridion, XI On October 20, 2025, demolition crews began tearing down the White House East Wing, the 1902 addition that had housed the East Garden Room, the Family Theater, and generations of First Ladies’ offices. (NPR) It was coming down to make room for a 90,000-square-foot state ballroom, which the White House said in July 2025 would cost about $200 million, fully covered by Trump himself and other “patriot donors,” at no cost to taxpayers. (PBS) By December the estimate had climbed to $400 million. This week, CNBC reported the figure has reached roughly $900 million, and that it will now be “covered primarily by taxpayers.” (CNBC) ...

Steven Miller, I’m writing to you as a Stoic, an atheist, and a progressive: not to convert you, but to challenge you. I don’t share your faith, but I do share your humanity, and it’s on that common ground that I want to speak. My goal isn’t to mock or dismiss you, but to ask you to consider the consequences of your words and actions, and to reflect on whether they align with the values you claim to uphold. ...

“It is your business to act well the part that is given you; but to select the part belongs to another.” — Epictetus, Enchiridion, XVII Early this morning, the Senate confirmed Todd Blanche as Attorney General of the United States, 50 to 49. Every Democrat voted no. So did two Republicans, Susan Collins and Lisa Murkowski. (NPR) Blanche spent most of his career on the advocate’s side of a courtroom: a decade as a federal prosecutor in New York’s violent crimes unit, then years defending white-collar clients in private practice. In 2023 he took on a single, high-profile assignment: representing Donald Trump personally, in the hush money trial, the classified documents case, and the election obstruction case. (Wikipedia) That’s not a dishonorable job on its own. The system depends on lawyers willing to argue a client’s case as hard as it can honestly be argued, whether the client is popular or not, guilty or not. ...

I have spent years writing about honor as if it were an antique: a virtue our ancestors practiced and we merely study. Stoic biographies, civics essays, a shelf of books about how a person builds a defensible inner life. I used to think the point of that work was personal: how do I hold myself together when nobody’s watching? Lately I’ve had to sit with a second, less comfortable question underneath it. What happens to a country when the people running it stop asking that question at all? ...

Stoic Saturday: When the Law Becomes a Suggestion Think clearly. Live intentionally. Love deeply. The Rule of Law Isn’t a Spectator Sport Marcus Aurelius wrote that “the best revenge is not to be like your enemy.” Today, that enemy isn’t just a person—it’s the slow rot of a system that once held power in check. The rule of law isn’t a given. It’s a daily practice, like flossing or not eating the entire pizza in one sitting. And right now, it’s being treated like a suggestion rather than a rule. ...

“Some things are up to us, and some are not.” — Epictetus, Enchiridion I’ve been following the campaign around Crimea closely these past few weeks, and something about the shape of it has stuck with me — not the politics of it, which I’ll leave to people better qualified than a Stoicism newsletter, but the strategy. For a long time, the instinct — mine included — was to imagine this kind of war ending the way wars end in movies: one decisive battle, a line on a map that moves all at once, a single dramatic turn. That’s not what’s happening. What’s happening, by most independent accounts, is slower and less cinematic than that. Ukraine appears to have shifted its approach around Crimea from scattered strikes to something more sustained and methodical — degrading fuel depots, air defense, bridges, and rail lines, and increasingly, ships. Reporting from the Crimea Platform and United24 put the numbers in the range of ninety to over a hundred Russian vessels struck in single-week windows in early-to-mid July, Kerch Strait ferry capacity down as much as 75%, and passage through the Don-Azov Canal temporarily suspended. Officials in the Ukrainian defense establishment reportedly describe the goal plainly: make Crimea an island. Not take it back in an afternoon. Isolate it, patiently, until what’s left is unsustainable. ...

The Architecture of Autonomy: A Stoic Synthesis of the Montessori Method Abstract This essay examines the philosophical convergence between the Montessori method of education and the ethical framework of Stoicism. It argues that Maria Montessori’s emphasis on the “prepared environment” and the “absorbent mind” represents a practical application of the Stoic concept of prohairesis (volition) and askēsis (disciplined training). By analyzing the role of agency in early childhood development, this paper posits that the Montessori method does not merely facilitate learning but serves as a pedagogical vehicle for the cultivation of a Stoic-aligned internal locus of control. This synthesis provides a robust theoretical foundation for neurodivergence-affirming education, framing autonomy not as a result of maturity, but as a primary catalyst for it. ...

On Proportion The Discipline of Matching Response to Scale Executive Summary On Proportion examines the lost discipline of matching response to scale: knowing when a situation demands attention and when it demands inattention, when intervention is warranted and when silence is the better instrument. It treats proportion not as moderation but as judgment—the capacity to sense the true size of an event and to resist the distortions of urgency, outrage, and habit. The core message: the right-sized response is not a compromise. It is a precision. ...