Why I named myself Stoic.

While the stoics carried many believes that today have been proven false, I believe that they, presented with the evidence we have today would have adopted their theory in accordance with their value of reason. To me it is more a word that describes my character best: I am always calm and collected, even under severe pressure and I value thinking and living according to reason strongly above feeling.

To give an example: when I saw my mother angrily talking to my dad on the phone about how the curtains they ordered hadn't been delivered in time, despite the business having promised they would, I would sort of just not understand why that would be something to become angry about. It reminded me of my dog who barked against some birds in our backyard, thinking how that reaction of barking is somewhat automatic in his nature and any person would agree that it is stupid to become that invested* and subsequently angry with nobody being in his backyard in the first place. Stoics seek to attain apatheia, or a positive indifference to things where you take nothing personal. If someone becomes angry or emotional with me I would completely ignore that anger and respond with reason. If I am in a debate with someone I admit when I am wrong, or when the reason for the debate going shitty is the other person being too stupid, I wouldn't really have a problem to calmfully explain that I want to stop the debate because they are too stupid. Normally when you call something stupid there is an emotional charge behind it, where you say it out of spite or because you think yourself superior, but if I ever were to do it (haven't done so yet) I would do it out of reason and gain as little satisfaction from it as possible.

This is an example of stoicism: http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-mi...et-himself-on-fire-to-inspire-social-justice/, where I totally understood his reasoning of being almost 80 anyway, so he might as well set himself on fire to do some good and have a legacy instead of degenerating his last couple of years.

*This is important, because many people take stoicism to mean that you should hold back emotions or not show them, when instead it means that you should minimize your investment in things you could get unnecessarily emotional about. When you realize that we are in a mechanical universe it becomes hard to takes thing personal when for example calls you a moron. If someone calls you a moron, then, if they are right, it should be something you have to change about yourself. If they are wrong, then you should ask for evidence or when they don't have it give a list of reasons explaining why that is wrong. If they call you a moron to hurt you, then you should investigate the reason why they did it and employ reason from then on.