We Should All be Stoics Now – by Pepe Escobar

You are sailing in the Gulf of Morbihan (“Little Sea”, in Breton language) in Bretagne, France, NATOstan, occasionally negotiating the second most powerful marine currents in Europe. Water circulates in a giant labyrinth of creeks, rocks and islands. Fishermen and oyster catchers are in heaven.

And then there are the powerful winds. And you start thinking about Plato. You may even picture him, by the sea, watching the wind puffing the sails of a boat. And he thought about pneuma: “vital breath”. Plato had already had the intuition that the soul is eternal – and in transmigration, incorporates several bodies. Hence the soul may be defined as the idea of vital breath (pneumatos) diffused in every direction. The soul, for Plato, is composed of three parts: rational (logistikon), with its HQ in our head; passional, with its HQ in our heart; and appetitive, in our navel and liver.

And yet this vital breath is not conducted by bodies. And that bring us to the Stoics. (cont. ) https://xenagoguevicene.wordpress.com/2024/05/14/we-should-all-be-stoics-now-by-pepe-escobar-12-may-2024/