Author: seanv2

  • Week in Review: Ending 5/13/2012

    Scheduling.  It always comes down to scheduling.  I work fifty to sixty hours a week, I’m married, I have a social life, where does study and working out fit in? Sometimes it isn’t easy, lately it has been downright impossible.  Another week of not meeting my goals, but this coming week is another chance to…

  • Seventies Hero: Bill Rodgers

    I am fascinated by the seventies.  Perhaps that is because I just missed it.  Being born in 1975 I saw the decade in reflection from the much less interesting eighties.  I am fascinated by the music, the art, the fashion and the rebirth of recreational fitness culture in America.  The seventies was when everything we…

  • Your Occasional Stoic Avoiding the Taste for Rhetoric

    From Rusticus: to grasp the idea of wanting correction and treatment for my character; not to be diverted into a taste for rhetoric, so not writing up my own speculations, delivering my own little moral sermons, or presenting a glorified picture of the ascetic or the philanthropist; to keep clear of speechifying, versifying, and pretentious…

  • Your Occasional Stoic: The Camp Bed, the Hide Blanket

    From Diognetus: to avoid empty enthusiasm; to disbelieve all that is talked by miracle-mongers and quacks about incantations, exorcism of demons, and the like; not to hold quail-fights or be excited by such sports; to tolerate plain speaking; to have an affinity for philosophy, and to attend the lectures first of Baccheius, then of Tandasis…

  • Recap: Week Ending 5.5.2012

    Ugh, not a good week at the gym, but a good week with the books. You win some, you lose some. Body Looking back – Work was out of control busy much of the week and time for the gym  disappeared.  I did make it twice, both times for relatively big sessions, including the start…

  • Learning Hebrew

    Generally, a classical education in the western sense begins with Latin.  The languages use of roman characters, status as the grandfather of the romance languages,  and deep influence on English all make it much easier to lean than, say, Greek.  My father knows Latin; my wife studied it and can still conjugate the occasional verb,…

  • For the occasional person who stumles on this blog, I am writing about the experience of learning Hebrew over at: www.miloandthecalf.com  Come for the Hebrew, stay for the weight lifting.

  • Your Occasional Stoic – the Distractions of Fandom

    From my tutor: not to become a Green or Blue supporter at the races, or side with the Lights or Heavies in the amphitheater; to tolerate pain and feel few needs; to work with my own hands and mind my own business; to be deaf to malicious gossip.  Meditations 1:5 We do not know who Marcus’s…

  • Running again

    I ran for the first time in over two months last night. It was only three miles on the treadmill, but it felt wonderful. OK, actually, it hurt, but not that bad! And that is a huge improvement over where I’ve been the last couple of times I have tried to run. This has been…

  • Your Occasional Stoic: Marcus on His Mom and Staying Clear of the Habits of the Rich

    From my mother: piety, generosity, the avoidance of wrong-doing and even the thought of it; also simplicity of living, well clear of the habits of the rich. – Meditations 1:3 After 1:2’s foray into “manliness” its nice to see Marcus honor his mother, though much of these attributes are stereotypically feminine, its good to see Marcus wanted to…