Stoicism
Many years ago I read “A Guide to the Good Life: The Ancient Art of Stoic Joy” by William Irvine. The book and stoicism appealed to me, and caused me to read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, usually described at the most famous stoic. Reading back a summary of stoicism doesn’t immedeately appeal to me however. I couldn’t tell you why this interests me. Probably the quality that sets oneself a little outside of events such that adversity may be survived and put in perspective.
However, a comment puts stoicism in a better context. Placing oneself outside of events is a slippery slope: how far outside, will you place others outside of reality as well, and how do you then make use of this dehumanizing? Are you making sure to come back to events at some point? We may manage to see a bigger picture, but this should not be used to forget about the many smaller pictures, and any individual and very real negatives.
The idea that Meditations was basically a rant is an interesting perspective and puts the document itself in perspective: it may not at all be how Aurelius thought, but basically have been his Twitter; a black hole in which to send the stress of the day.