Saw this in my inbox and honestly felt like a sign from the universe because the timing was perfect. I really needed to read this. Beautifully written and deeply grounding. Thank you 🙌🏻
as a physician, i used to see addiction as a "broken mechanism" in the brain. now i see it’s usually just a desperate attempt to treat a spiritual wound. we don't get addicted to the substance; we get addicted to the relief it promises.
"The ultimate liberation, however, lies in breaking a most insidious chain- the addiction to feeling good."
Years ago, I read a story about a basketball player who had incredible talent. A reporter asked an NBA coach about this player and the coach said "he'll never be great". The reporter was stunned and pointed out the player's speed, coordination, jumping ability, and beautiful jump shot. He asked why the coach had a negative opinion. The coach simply replied "he's not comfortable being uncomfortable."
Something about this doesn't click for me. If this player was fast, coordinated, a good jumper, a great shot...he must've gotten in a lot of deliberate practice already. If we use 10,000 hours as an (extremely rough) rule-of-thumb, this guy probably had ~2,000 already to be considered "good." That's the equivalent of a year of full-time work. You can be born better suited to a task than other people, but deliberate practice is way more important than "talent."
Is the coach implying that this player only became decent because there's someone behind him cracking the whip and forcing him to do uncomfortable things? And that as soon as the someone (probably the coach) stops, the player would regress back to his old ways: getting soft and lazy on the couch?
Your point is valid for "normal" situations. But to go from NBA benchwarmer, to NBA starter, to NBA star, to one of the greatest of all-time requires both immense talent and incredible drive. My understanding of the anecdote was the reporter was saying the player could be somewhere in the NBA star/all-time great based on talent and the coach was indicating he'd be somewhere in the NBA starter range based on a lack of desire to train harder. At the very highest levels, you need both talent and drive.
What comforts you can also enslave you. The Stoics warned that pleasure becomes dangerous the moment it is no longer chosen, but obeyed. Silence feels frightening only because it reveals who is in control.
True freedom is not feeling good all the time, but acting well despite discomfort. When you stop living for comfort, you begin living for what endures.
I do wonder when compulsion and repetition becomes addiction.
Labour is arguably addictive, the overworked become celebrated until they burnout, or die, sometimes both.
This piece was a fantastic read, I just can’t help but always be suspicious of whether we metaphorise addiction because we wish to demonise the outcomes, and not the pathological or compulsive drive itself.
It becomes addictive when the harm outweighs the benefits. Naturally, not everyone will agree on the threshold. That's why so many addicts say "I can quit anytime I want" when their family knows they crossed the line into addiction long ago.
Are people addicted to overwork for overwork's sake? Or are they driven by
• The social status boost of wearing "productivity" as a badge? (common in "hustle culture")
• Fear of being fired, and all that brings: shame, identity crisis (if they're a breadwinner), hunger
• Competitive spirit, combined with an inability to see the world as anything other than a zero-sum game?
• Peer pressure, because everyone else seems to be doing it? Just as you wear similar clothes to other people in the office to conform, so do you copy the behavior of the herd.
I'd say they're addicted to some of these more fundamental drivers, with overwork being the visible manifestation.
Mmm, nicely written and straightforward explanation of what I imagine stoicism is all about. I particularly liked this phrase: "you’re quite capable of wondrous deeds- born dangerous to your own demons, and alive to the truth." I found myself imagining sitting in silence this evening instead of watching Netflix and I thought Wow! 😮 I'd be a different person. I could relax, read - there are oh, so many books 📚 all waiting ! The things I could do to prepare tomorrow would have space to come up into my brain and imagination. What a rich life that would be. Am I ready to take this turn... 🤔 I feel an article coming on! So rich and inviting is this idea! Will I do it? If only for an hour ... maybe start there, baby steps... I will try! 🫡✊
The Stoic perspective is genuinely functional; it places addiction accurately on the axis of comfort and freedom and makes the question of control visible. In that sense, it does important work. But reading it also reveals its limit: this framing remains at the level of outcomes. It tells us what happens, not fully how it is produced.
The deeper issue is not weakness or moral failure, but the mind’s own operating mechanism. Under uncertainty or discomfort, the brain prioritizes rapid relief. When a relief pattern repeats, it becomes automated. Addiction is often not a pursuit of pleasure, but the byproduct of a system optimized for short-term stabilization. Stoic discipline helps restrain the loop, but restraint alone is not resolution. Seeing the mechanics that generate the loop is what makes real transformation possible.
Small, here and now anecdotes of Stoic reminders to live a better life is so important in today's times. I am new to stacks and your writing is one of my favorites. Thanks for sharing the Stoic wisdom and knowledge with us all.
"If you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures."
Likewise, the pain/discomfort you're currently experiencing and hoping the pleasure will distract you from also passes quickly.
So often, we experience pain and our brain lies to us that "you will feel this forever unless you give in". In reality, most of these urges pass within 10 minutes or less.
However, this is one of those truths you can only learn through repeated experience. Sometimes I remember to "wait it out" and eventually (as always) the urge passes. Sometimes I forget this entirely. But the repetition is what strengthens the memory.
>Are you the slave of these comforts, or are they the master of you?
>There’s a terrifying difference between choosing a pleasure and being summoned by it.
There's more to this than just comforts, pleasure, and addictions. You can generalize this to anything that Aurelius called (paraphrased): "a passion of the flesh." We can be a slave to *any* emotion or feeling:
• We can be a slave to anger, using it to feel self-righteous. Or we can summon it to push through the final lap or the final rep.
• We can be swept up in fear, or intentionally use it to spur change in ourselves and others (never let a good crisis go to waste).
• We can give in to our greed for power, control, and money and become micromanagers and tyrants and thieves, or we can wield our power/control/money judiciously in a way that begets more while benefiting others.
A capuchin monkey can indulge the "passions of its flesh" and thus become a slave to addiction, anger, and fear. It's up to us to do better than the beasts that we look down upon.
Saw this in my inbox and honestly felt like a sign from the universe because the timing was perfect. I really needed to read this. Beautifully written and deeply grounding. Thank you 🙌🏻
as a physician, i used to see addiction as a "broken mechanism" in the brain. now i see it’s usually just a desperate attempt to treat a spiritual wound. we don't get addicted to the substance; we get addicted to the relief it promises.
"The ultimate liberation, however, lies in breaking a most insidious chain- the addiction to feeling good."
Years ago, I read a story about a basketball player who had incredible talent. A reporter asked an NBA coach about this player and the coach said "he'll never be great". The reporter was stunned and pointed out the player's speed, coordination, jumping ability, and beautiful jump shot. He asked why the coach had a negative opinion. The coach simply replied "he's not comfortable being uncomfortable."
Such an interesting annecdote. Thanks for sharing.
Something about this doesn't click for me. If this player was fast, coordinated, a good jumper, a great shot...he must've gotten in a lot of deliberate practice already. If we use 10,000 hours as an (extremely rough) rule-of-thumb, this guy probably had ~2,000 already to be considered "good." That's the equivalent of a year of full-time work. You can be born better suited to a task than other people, but deliberate practice is way more important than "talent."
Is the coach implying that this player only became decent because there's someone behind him cracking the whip and forcing him to do uncomfortable things? And that as soon as the someone (probably the coach) stops, the player would regress back to his old ways: getting soft and lazy on the couch?
Your point is valid for "normal" situations. But to go from NBA benchwarmer, to NBA starter, to NBA star, to one of the greatest of all-time requires both immense talent and incredible drive. My understanding of the anecdote was the reporter was saying the player could be somewhere in the NBA star/all-time great based on talent and the coach was indicating he'd be somewhere in the NBA starter range based on a lack of desire to train harder. At the very highest levels, you need both talent and drive.
What comforts you can also enslave you. The Stoics warned that pleasure becomes dangerous the moment it is no longer chosen, but obeyed. Silence feels frightening only because it reveals who is in control.
True freedom is not feeling good all the time, but acting well despite discomfort. When you stop living for comfort, you begin living for what endures.
I do wonder when compulsion and repetition becomes addiction.
Labour is arguably addictive, the overworked become celebrated until they burnout, or die, sometimes both.
This piece was a fantastic read, I just can’t help but always be suspicious of whether we metaphorise addiction because we wish to demonise the outcomes, and not the pathological or compulsive drive itself.
It becomes addictive when the harm outweighs the benefits. Naturally, not everyone will agree on the threshold. That's why so many addicts say "I can quit anytime I want" when their family knows they crossed the line into addiction long ago.
Are people addicted to overwork for overwork's sake? Or are they driven by
• The social status boost of wearing "productivity" as a badge? (common in "hustle culture")
• Fear of being fired, and all that brings: shame, identity crisis (if they're a breadwinner), hunger
• Competitive spirit, combined with an inability to see the world as anything other than a zero-sum game?
• Peer pressure, because everyone else seems to be doing it? Just as you wear similar clothes to other people in the office to conform, so do you copy the behavior of the herd.
I'd say they're addicted to some of these more fundamental drivers, with overwork being the visible manifestation.
Mmm, nicely written and straightforward explanation of what I imagine stoicism is all about. I particularly liked this phrase: "you’re quite capable of wondrous deeds- born dangerous to your own demons, and alive to the truth." I found myself imagining sitting in silence this evening instead of watching Netflix and I thought Wow! 😮 I'd be a different person. I could relax, read - there are oh, so many books 📚 all waiting ! The things I could do to prepare tomorrow would have space to come up into my brain and imagination. What a rich life that would be. Am I ready to take this turn... 🤔 I feel an article coming on! So rich and inviting is this idea! Will I do it? If only for an hour ... maybe start there, baby steps... I will try! 🫡✊
The Stoic perspective is genuinely functional; it places addiction accurately on the axis of comfort and freedom and makes the question of control visible. In that sense, it does important work. But reading it also reveals its limit: this framing remains at the level of outcomes. It tells us what happens, not fully how it is produced.
The deeper issue is not weakness or moral failure, but the mind’s own operating mechanism. Under uncertainty or discomfort, the brain prioritizes rapid relief. When a relief pattern repeats, it becomes automated. Addiction is often not a pursuit of pleasure, but the byproduct of a system optimized for short-term stabilization. Stoic discipline helps restrain the loop, but restraint alone is not resolution. Seeing the mechanics that generate the loop is what makes real transformation possible.
Small, here and now anecdotes of Stoic reminders to live a better life is so important in today's times. I am new to stacks and your writing is one of my favorites. Thanks for sharing the Stoic wisdom and knowledge with us all.
This names something real. In my experience, freedom doesn’t always come from despising pleasure, but from learning how to stay present when it fades.
Reverse the causality people....you'll see the folly in your ways and angst...
"If you do something shameful in pursuit of pleasure, the pleasure passes quickly, but the shame endures."
Likewise, the pain/discomfort you're currently experiencing and hoping the pleasure will distract you from also passes quickly.
So often, we experience pain and our brain lies to us that "you will feel this forever unless you give in". In reality, most of these urges pass within 10 minutes or less.
However, this is one of those truths you can only learn through repeated experience. Sometimes I remember to "wait it out" and eventually (as always) the urge passes. Sometimes I forget this entirely. But the repetition is what strengthens the memory.
Sometimes the chaos is addicting because it’s all we’ve known. And silence feels wrong.
>Are you the slave of these comforts, or are they the master of you?
>There’s a terrifying difference between choosing a pleasure and being summoned by it.
There's more to this than just comforts, pleasure, and addictions. You can generalize this to anything that Aurelius called (paraphrased): "a passion of the flesh." We can be a slave to *any* emotion or feeling:
• We can be a slave to anger, using it to feel self-righteous. Or we can summon it to push through the final lap or the final rep.
• We can be swept up in fear, or intentionally use it to spur change in ourselves and others (never let a good crisis go to waste).
• We can give in to our greed for power, control, and money and become micromanagers and tyrants and thieves, or we can wield our power/control/money judiciously in a way that begets more while benefiting others.
A capuchin monkey can indulge the "passions of its flesh" and thus become a slave to addiction, anger, and fear. It's up to us to do better than the beasts that we look down upon.