Cherry Picking from Ideologies
Why do I study Stoicism? As a wandering cherry picker, ... I browse. I sample. I keep the pits of cherries I find worthwhile. I leave the rest behind. I take the good seeds back and plant them in my mind's garden. I journey forward; sharing cherries with others whom hunger; encouraging them to decide for themselves which are good. -- The ideas and attitudes of Stoicism, for me, are an orchard I discovered in my journey. I don't find all of it agreeable. Some of it seems toxic. Some of it hasn't aged well. But some of it is both delicious and serves me quite well. For me, it's the same as all other ideological fields and orchards. I even kept a few cherries from Bibles, Qurans, secular-Satanism, Leftist Humanism, Conservativism, Libertarianism, etc etc.. With the Abrahamic trees, I was extra careful. There, I found many layers of old bones around the base. Trees aged with rings of old blood; a record of ages whence their fruits turned entire villages violently m