Author: Stephen James

It’s good to be delving into Stoicism more deeply again.

There are some aspects which I don’t have a good grasp of, and others the logic of which makes a lot of sense.

One question that has been going round in my mind is if my actions are characterised as either virtue or vice, to use the Stoic nomenclature, do I also view other people’s behaviour as virtue and vice? If so, how to square that with the concept of externals or indifferents?

I was talking with someone about travel writers today. I was going to mention Jonathan Raban, one of my favourite authors within the genre, but the conversation moved on.

I haven’t thought about him in quite a long time, so it was quite the coincidence, and obviously sad, to see just now that he has died this week at 80.

Passage to Juneau is particularly good. One of those books that stays with you for an age.

A change in the weather today to cold and dry. Just perceptable that its light a little earlier and a little later. All enough to lift my mood from the dogged and make me feel like I have more energy.

Somewhere along the way I stopped using Literal to log my reading. I didn’t look at it that much and it’s a tad clunky.

Going to try doing it here instead. Creating a tag for books will help.

Listening to Philosophy as a Way of Life, a quote from Meditations really stuck with me.

‘Do not make more of things than your senses report. For instance, you are told that such an one has spoken ill of you. Right; but that you are really the worse for it is no part of the news.’ 8:49

This idea is reiterated throughout Meditations but somehow this particular version presents the idea more clearly.

I like the prompt to look at things just as they are, not to add a narrative on top, particularly one of ‘I am harmed’.

Having mentioned the BBC radio production of The Dark is Rising, I completely failed to listen to it as it was broadcast, each episode playing on the same date as the events in the book.

I often have great plans for all the things I will do over my time off during the winter, forgetting that often I just need to stop and rest. Usually I give myself a hard time about this, but somehow managed to be a lot more forgiving toward myself and accepting of the fact that a break, particularly at this time of year, is just that.

And as the series is available as a podcast or on BBC Sounds I can listen to it anytime I like.

I’ve been converting tracks in Apple Music on my Mac to MP3 files that can then be exported and saved elsewhere. This can’t be done with some. I remember reading somewhere that tracks bought before a specific date can’t be converted. A DRM issue if I recall correctly.

While using the old PC for ripping CDs I discovered that in fact most, if not all, those older purchases are in iTunes on this machine. And are in an exportable format. Along with many albums from CDs which I had evidently copied to ITunes back in the day. This is going to save me a lot of work.

I fired up my 15yr old Windows Vista pc today. The only thing it has on any of the other machines dotted around the house is a CD drive, and as such, it will be the means whereby I digitise our music CDs.

With some brighter weather and the need for fresh air, I ended up spending a bit of time in the garden today. Actually got around to cleaning out the nest boxes, so much earlier than usual. Which is good as I often almost leave too late.

I’ve already been hearing great tits singing so they’ll likely be checking out potential nesting sites soon.