Comic Philosophy

Diogenes the Great Original Troll Philosopher

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Episode Transcript

(00:03):
Hello, Hello, Hello, andwelcome back to Brainbow. Today on the
podcast, we're gonna be going oversomething a little bit more lighthearted and something
that's very near and dear to myheart, which is philosophy and Socrates and
the old school classics. I absolutelylove Socrates because he just reminds me of

(00:27):
like the typical Asperger's savant who justdoesn't even have any intention of pissing people
off, but just does it,you know, like kind of like Larry
David. He's like the Larry Davidof philosophers. And he really just wanted
to find out the truth so badthat he was willing to ask questions that

(00:50):
were offensive and and and he woulddo he would do it in a way
where he would make a full ofhimself. He'd be willing to make a
full of himself, and he didn'tcare if he was right or wrong.
He just wanted to know what thetruth was. And so when you get
a group of people like that togetherand they're all searching for the truth,

(01:12):
there's like magic that comes from it. I've noticed this with like writers on
well right now with sub Stack,there's a lot of writers that are just
completely independent and regular people and veryyou know, gifted writers as well,
and every you know, people fromall walks of life basically that are sharing

(01:34):
their own stories. And so it'sreally cool when you have people that are
so different and are passionate about whateverit is that they do to the extent
that they're going to write about it. And so I noticed there's like a
magic that happens when you get allthese people together and you know, we're
all searching for a common goal,which is what is the meaning of life?

(02:00):
What is truth? How are wegoing to be happy today? You
know, like what is the rightthing to do? And just socializing,
you know as well, sharing oursharing our stories. So I can imagine
what it was like doing this inreal life, how much fun that would
have been where you know, youjust I remember what it was like when

(02:23):
I was in you know, inthe eighties before the internet, and when
I was a kid, you know, before I was even a teenager,
I spent a lot of time outsidejust going to seven eleven, walking around
the neighborhood, going to the park, hanging out, and just every day

(02:43):
it was like a new set ofexperiences of just if you sit outside long
enough, you just watch people goby It's there's something different about that that
when you're in your house and youhave complete control of everything and you're only
really inner acting with whatever you wantto interact with, and you can pretty

(03:05):
much control what's going to happen allday today, there's not going to be
a lot of surprises. So,I mean, I guess there's good and
bad and everything, and but Ijust jeez, I just remember going in
PUNCHO. I just remember how differentit was when you're interacting with people in

(03:27):
real life versus you know, mostof your socialization takes place on the internet.
So I'm not talking about work either. Work isn't really I mean,
I guess it's socialization, but it'snot like your free time. So I'm
talking about socializing and your free time, not like socializing in school or work,
where you're where you're you're forced tobe held against your will, socializing

(03:52):
under rules and restrictions. Okay,so Diogenies, I'm going to read this
really good article I found from jetsat Times, a catalog of cool places,
and this is let's see who wrotethis. I don't see an author

(04:15):
here. You know what's neat nowis like AI can write some pretty good
articles. Okay, so this writeris. Her name is Alison Hendrix h
I n RI I c HS.She's a content editor associate. She's from
Minnesota. Allison is a vegetarian,meditating yogi who practices a conscious lifestyle and
a journaline junkie at heart. Iguess the all journalists really have to be.

(04:39):
She has gone rock climbing in Germanyand surfing waves in Mexico. She
is a keen reader who loves tolearn as long as it's not math.
All right, whatever she sounds,she's she wrote this awesome article and that's
why I want to share it withyou today. Diogenes of Sinope. It's

(04:59):
so. His name is spelled dE d I O g E n E
S. And when I first seeokay, I'm just gonna confess I've never
heard of him before. I lookedhim up today because I found out,
Oh, today is elber Kamo's birthday. And I always associated him with the
first writer of absurdism, where it'slike a person you know, like the

(05:26):
content is like it's content is,it has no meaning, and so you
have to extract meeting and everybody hastheir own abstract way of finding things that
are profound and then and then yourealize, well, there is no meaning

(05:46):
and it's pretty cynical. Basically,it's you know, absurdism is derived from
the idea like, well, nothingmakes sense because there is no meaning in
anything. It's kind of like justupstage and stage in our development and stage
and a stage in philosophy really wherewhen you try to you when you get

(06:08):
past ethics and you try to findmeaning and everything and you're like, ah,
well that happened and that's very randomand there's no meaning in it,
or if you've been through struggles andso forth. So Camu wrote, he
wrote about Sissyphis. Now that's themythological character who keeps pushing the rock up
hill and then it falls down,and so it's like he has to It's

(06:30):
like the hero's journey where he justhas to keep pushing it up and it
falls back down. So he saysthe story, the moral of the story
is basically that you have to findmeaning in whatever it is that you're doing,
because that, in and of itselfis your purpose. So to be

(06:54):
happy with whatever you're doing and findmeaning from that, then you're a creator.
But if things just happening to youand it's like you're held against your
will, you're being forced to socialize, you know, and under rules and
restrictions that aren't of your own making. Then then you're not the creator,
You're you are a victim. Andthen and that's really what we're striving for

(07:19):
in life, is to be tobe our own heroes and whatever our story
is. You know, whenever I'mwatching a movie, there's always foreshadowing,
right, Like when it's a movieabout a person's life, too, you

(07:41):
always see the foreshadowing of like howthis led to this, and that led
to that, and then these seeminglyrandom occurrences wind up having a profound effect
on the character's development and changes theirtrajectory in life and sets amount of path
that they never would have encountered orthey never would have chosen for themselves.

(08:03):
But nonetheless it put them on thatpath of their own destiny. So that
could be debated, you know,that's like maybe they made meeting, maybe
there's destiny whatever. I'm not gonnaget into all of those discussions. But

(08:24):
if you look back on your life, can you see foreshadowing? Can you
see like something happening that if yourlife was a movie, it would have
changed. It would have been inevitablethat it would change you for your destiny

(08:46):
and life. I guess I'm beingpretty vague about that, but it's just
so broad and general. Everyone's experienceis different. I've heard I don't really
feel like sharing anything super personal rightnow. I'm just not in that mood.

(09:07):
So it's very personal, you know, talking about Sometimes I'm in the
mood for a memoir, and sometimesI'm just like I want to just talk
about everything else besides that. Notbecause there's pain or something, it's just
I'm just tired of myself and thinkingabout myself all the time. I just
want to I don't want to keeprelating everything back to myself either, because

(09:30):
that gets kind of like, allright, let's try to expand our consciousness
and just imagine that we're somebody else, or try to relate to somebody else
as well. Okay, so Iguess you can think about there's a lot

(09:52):
I mean, basically, any hero, anybody that has been successful in life.
I guess that's why I don't wantto talk about it, because I'm
not there yet, like see onhis success and so all of this led
up to this. So yeah,we need to take a successful person who
is like, Okay, this personhas achieved their success and that's like they
got their trophy. What what arethe events that led up to that?

(10:15):
Some of them may have come frombroken homes. Some of them may have
may have had like failed businesses,or they may have had some kind of
like even handicap, or maybe theywere in a war. You know a
lot of things that could have happened, but it wouldn't have turned them into
who they are if they didn't gothrough that you know, fire and brimstone

(10:39):
type of thing. So that's allI'm saying about that. So Camu says
that during this process of whatever itis that we are carrying the weight of
the world on our shoulders, whateverthat means to you, to adapt to
it and find meaning in it.And so I'm going to go ahead and

(11:00):
start this article. I think it'sreally beautiful. He'll be joining me here
with it, and I hope ithas you know, makes has a positive
impact on your life. Diogenies ofSynop was the embodiment of the teacher cynical
way of life. He rejected socialnorms, politics, and luxury, but
instead promoted multicultural appreciation and communal anarchy. To put it simply, he was

(11:24):
a woke anarchist hobo philosopher, whichmay just be the best kind of philosopher.
It is the privilege of the godsto want nothing and of god like
men to want little. That's oneof his quotes. At the end of
this I'm going to read some ofhis quotes, and some of them are
funny and some of them are veryprofound. But that's how I'm gonna,

(11:45):
you know, cap off this podcast. Sorry. Diogenes of Sinope he was
born in three twenty three and hedied in No, I'm sorry this is
backwards. Who was before Christ?He was born in four h four and
he died in three twenty three.He's a lesser known Greek philosopher compared to

(12:11):
the likes of Aristotle and Plato.He is nonetheless one of the most ridiculous
figures in history. Archival records onthe philosopher are few or if not completely
non existent, Yet his philosophical ideaswere so profound that they single handed least
cemented him in the history books.Diogenes was unique among his fellow Grecian philosophers.

(12:35):
In exile, he chose to rejectsocietal norms like manners, and he
ignored the opinions of others, meanwhileadvocating for complete truthfulness always and under all
circumstances. For Diogenes, this wasthe secret to freedom. At one point
in his life, his father,who was a minter of coins in the

(12:56):
city, was accused of defacing currencyand sent to exile, for which Diogenes
followed his father to Athens. Diogenesbegan his career as a student of a
similarly wacky individual, the philosopher AnTiffany's. He was born in four forty
five BC died in three sixty fiveBC. Man, these people lived to

(13:18):
be very old. So he waslike eighty five. And how old was
Diogenes, Well he wasn't. Ohyeah, so he was like over eighty
as well. Okay, So Diogenesbegan his a career as a student of

(13:39):
Antiphanes, who was a former studentof Socrates, and it has been alleged
that Plato referred to him as aSocrates gone mad, born into a wealthy
family, and tiss and Tisthanes andTisthians. I'm sorry it's spelled a a
Nti as th Hi. His philosophywas influenced by the contradictions and injustices he

(14:03):
observed within society. Diogenes quickly tookto these lessons and applied them into his
own ideology, A search for anhonest man. Although originally from Synope,
the majority of di not Diogenes's history, has been recorded in Athens. In
order to follow his own philosophy,Diogenes chose to be homeless, at least

(14:26):
in the traditional sense. For him, home sweet home was a ceramic tub
or pithos. His house truly gavea new meaning to the phrase humble abode.
Early on in his life, herealized that he had no need for
conventional shelter or other dainties after hewitnessed a mouse adapt to different living situations

(14:48):
with ease. Observing the mouse taughthim that he too, could adapt himself
to fit into any circumstance. Thislesson became the origin of his famous a
assis or intense self discipline, andthis is spelled ask e sis means intense
self discipline. Diogenes chose to liveself sufficiently and close to nature. He

(15:13):
rejected materialism and egotism, and hewandered the Greek Empire for decades, carrying
nothing but a knapsack, a staff, and the cloak around his shoulders.
Diogenes's absurdity and bizarre behavior made himincredibly notorious. He was known for walking
backwards in Athens holding a lantern inbroad daylight, insisted that he was in

(15:37):
search for an honest man. Diogenesdisregarded convention out conventionality completely. He masturbated,
defecated, urinated, and even participatedin intercourse in public. The citizens
of Athens began referring to him aschion word for dog. Ironically, what

(16:02):
was intended as an insult turned outto be a perfect representation of his philosophy.
Even the Greek word for cynic meansdoglike. Diogenes understood that dogs,
when burdened by concepts like social standing, wealth and vanity, they were therefore
freer than man. It was inAthens that Diogenes began his search for an

(16:23):
honest man, as his way ofrevealing the hypocrisy of polite societal conventions.
The Shameless Philosopher was seen as anextreme version of the Socratic philosophy, which
provided a captivating, if not unrefinedtime in Greek history. According to legend,

(16:45):
in old and wise. Diogenes evenencountered the young and brash Alexander the
Great at one point in his life. At the time of the encounter,
Diogenes was well known, and itwas likely that the Great conqueror had heard
of the famous especially since Diogenes wasallegedly taken captive by Alexander's father earlier before

(17:07):
Alexander took up the campaign against theGreeks. Diogenes was asked by Alexander's father,
King Philip the Second, if hewas a spy, to which the
philosopher replied, I most certainly ama spy, Philip, I spy in
your absence of wisdom and common sense, which is the only thing forcing you
to go and gamble your kingdom andyour life in a single moment. Such

(17:30):
a retort earned him a vacation ina Greek prison. So, okay,
at the time, I just wantto recap this real quick. At the
time, Alexander the Great, Philipof Macedonia, they were take they were
conquering the whole world, and theywound up in Greece, and then they
were setting up their government and politics, and I would imagine the article doesn't

(17:56):
go into it but I would imaginethat there was a lot of resistance because
nobody likes somebody coming into their hometerritory and likes changing the government around.
This may have been a very passive, aggressive way of resisting the tyrants.
I mean, I don't know ifeverybody consider them tyrants, but some people

(18:18):
may have seen them as liberators.But either way, they were disrupting their
culture and they were outsiders that weretaking charge by force and enforcing their own
form of rule on the Greeks,which I think it's safe to say that

(18:38):
a lot of them would have been. I guess they wouldn't have been happy
about it. So, Okay,Alexander he knows about Diogenes because he's like
a town favorite. He's very influential, so he's one of the first,

(19:00):
you know, influencers. But hedid it in a backward way, like
he would walk around backwards with alantern. And so Alexander he was a
very crafty, wise man himself,and so he knew too, you got
to get on the good side ofthe ones who are popular. You don't
want to make anyone martyrs. Andso he was standing above him and he's

(19:23):
like, what can I do foryou, like, how can I make
your life better? Because here heis homeless, sleeping with dogs. They
call him a dog, but somehowhe's like Sasha Baron Cohen, and he's
very influential. He makes you know, he's kind of like almost like a
Cordjuster in the way that he couldchange people's minds. And so Alexander,

(19:48):
being the wise man that he was, wasn't going to wasn't going to make
an enemy of him. So he'sstanding over and he's like, what can
I do for you? I'm goingto read this story as it was written
right now. Accounts differ, butyears later it is believed that the philosopher

(20:14):
was sleeping when Alexander approached him andasked him what he could do for him,
and the response was move aside,you're blocking the sun. To insult
the Great Conqueror could have resulted inhis capture again or even his death,
but Alexander was not displeased. Instead, he said, if I were not
Alexander, I would want to beDiogenes. And you know what Diogeny said,

(20:36):
if I were not Diogenes, Iwould wish to be Diogenes as well.
So they're pretty funny funny guys.And I got a handed to Alexander
the Great for not having that tyrant'sheart where you know he gets offended by
every little thing. Cynicism is aphilosophy that stems from a relocation of societal

(20:57):
convention. It ranks below nature andreason. If a specific act is not
disgraceful or humiliating in private, thenit mustn't be in public. It is
this very philosophy that resulted in hislabel as a madman. His disregard for
convention made him a pariah. ButDiogenes held strong to his belief and explained

(21:18):
that it is not him, butthe conventions that lack of reason. He
says, most people are so nearlymad that a finger makes all the difference.
For if you go along with yourmiddle finger stretched out, someone will
think you mad, but if it'sa little finger, he will not think.
So I just have I probably shouldhave looked this up. But did

(21:41):
the middle finger back then mean whatit means? Now? I know this,
Okay, So they did follow astrologyback then. The middle finger is
ruled by Saturn. Saturn is thegod of like karma, Gronus. Right,

(22:03):
So if you give someone the fingerit's like, you're gonna get your
karma if you give them the pinkyfinger. That's Hermes. Hermes was like,
well, he was bisexual, andhe was like a trickster, and
he I would say, he's probablylike a feminist type of god. And

(22:23):
so I'm gonna you guys go doyour own research. I didn't do research
on that, but I'm just wondering. It's an interesting thought, like what
did it mean to give him thefinger? Well, it meant something.
I meant something back then. Buthe's like, all of this is stupid,

(22:44):
all of your like stories and mythsand superstitions, it's all dumb.
And so they call him mad,but he's saying that everyone else is mad.
It's easy to simply categorize Diogenes asan negative individual with a pessimistic philosophy
to boot, but that would beignoring the larger picture of his teachings.

(23:07):
Although he was absurd, it didn'tstop him from earning the respect of his
fellow philosophers, including Alexander the Great, who said that he wishes he couldn't
be Alexander the Great, he wouldwant to be him. I think that's
a high compliment Diagen's believed that theway to achieve happiness was to live in
accordance with nature by enjoying the littlethings like jumping into the water on a

(23:30):
hot day, feeling the sun onyour skin, listening to the wind and
birds chirp in the early morning,or taking the first bite of a juicy
fruit from a tree. That wasa good life. As strange as he
was, there was still much tolearn from him. Okay, so that's
the end of her article. Ijust wanted to share one more tidbit about

(23:52):
this. He came to his philosophywhen he think he actually was in jail
and he didn't want to. Hedidn't like a lot of the people of
that were and had to resist atyrannical new government that was taking over.
He had to make some hard choices. Now, he could have conformed,

(24:17):
and he could have been an insider, and he could have you know,
turned on and betrayed his culture andhis you know, his friends and family
and gotten with the big guys,right. But instead he chose to be
free, to be true to hisnature. And then he saw a mouse.

(24:41):
And I'm not sure if he sawthe mouse in jail. I think
it was in jail but he sawthis mouse and it was doing just fine.
It could leave if it wanted to, but it was in there and
it couldn't. And then he watchedit outside wherever it was it was fine,
and He's like, if this mousecould be fine wherever it is,
then I should be able to befine. I want to at least aspire

(25:02):
to be as successful at life asthis mouse is and not be like,
WHOA, this is tragic. Whatwas me? I'm going to like,
you know, the end of theworld. Is it coming? So he's
just like, yeah, I'm justgonna be happy for every little thing that
I have after this. And andso I think that is what I like

(25:25):
to What I would like to dofor myself as well, is just be
able to adapt, be able toyou know, like be self reliant at
least as much as a mouse,and to you know, live out my
days as long as I can,and that would be that would be a

(25:47):
successful life. I really hope thatmy cat has that, because then that
would make him free and rich.He did like being outside. He used
to have have curfew. I wouldmake him come in at ten o'clock because
I didn't know, you know,coyotes and just other things out at night.
And plus I didn't want him wakingup and killing things either, because

(26:07):
you know, in the early morning, that's when all the birds come out
and stuff. So I wouldn't lethim out until around eight o'clock and then
I would bring them home, bringhim inside in ten And you know,
three days before he went missing,he he didn't want to come in.
He was like, no, I'mhe was just lazing around, didn't want
to come in. And I didn'tblame him, because it was weather,

(26:30):
it was changing, and it wasbeautiful. So at least when I saw
him, he didn't seem emaciated.He didn't even eat that much food,
and so I knew. I waslike, well, he's eating mice,
and I guess that's better to eatthat kind of raw diet than whatever's in
the caf food. He lost alot of weight, but he looked,

(26:53):
he looked good. He looked hewas in the prime condition. When when
when they took him, and hewas twelve, he turned thirteen on July
first, he'd already been out therefor a whole month, and he survived
heat waves, he survived a bunchof stuff. So at least when I

(27:15):
saw him. He didn't look likehe was afraid. He stood his ground.
He wouldn't let me come near,but he followed me around for three
and a half hours. And I'mso glad I have that memory of him
being strong and adapting, And it'sreally an inspiration to see that kind of

(27:38):
will to survive, especially after you'vehad to deal with depression. And then
you realize like it's an effort tobe happy, and anybody on a second,
anybody could could dwell on why theheck am I crying? So I

(27:59):
really should pop this? Okay,So anybody could dwell on negative things that
happened. But if you could justadapt every day and just be happy,
like the sun's coming out and younever know what's gonna happen. You never
know what's gonna happen. I justsaw the movie cast Away again with Tom

(28:21):
Cruise, and he was stuck onan island for four years and he was
gonna kill himself because he didn't wantto have to do it anymore. It
was becoming like a struggle just toand boring too. So right after he
made the news and it failed,then he realizes, like right after that

(28:48):
happened, there was the tide broughtin like an old I think it was
a port of potty wall or andso he used it to escape the island
eventually, and it was from California, and so he was in Fiji and
then you know, he just itwas shocking to see something wash up from
California and you're on Fiji. You'reyou know, you're stuck on this island.

(29:11):
So then he realized he's like,well, you know, I'm just
gonna breathe and the sun's gonna comeup and you never know what the tide's
going to bring. And to livethat life, I think it's very freeing.
And then that's that's that that ismeaning even if you know you don't
have to be like super successful inthe sense of material wealth or notoriety,

(29:34):
but at least you know you survivedand you can, you know, to
live to old age. I thinkthat's successful. Okay, jeez, I'm
like all choked up. I feellike a strain on my Okay, I
guess that's what they mean like chokedup, because you it literally feels like

(29:56):
I'm choking up. Okay, takea deep breath, Let's do some fun
stuff now. Well, I amnot an Athenian or a Greek, but
a citizen of the world. Iguess that's some I guess that's if you

(30:26):
can make your own identity when yourcountry is being taken over and you're not
fighting for your like nationalism, andyou just whatever. I'm just going to
adapt. I'm not going to fightit. But he says, I'm a
citizen of the world. But trulyif I were not Alexander. Oh yeah,

(30:49):
okay, I already read that one. This is my first time reading
these quotes. By the way,people when they hear one must imagine Sissifus.
Oh yeah, imagine Sissyphus happy.Okay, I'm sorry. I thought
I had something here. Some menNone, that's Aristotle. Jeez, sorry

(31:17):
about that. Jeez, where's thatquote? I I He said something about
if you're not offending people, thenyou're not a good philosopher. When Diogenes,

(31:41):
the ancient Greek philosopher, noticed aprostitute son throwing rocks at a crowd,
he said, careful son, Ohyeah, because I used to stone
women. So the mother was beingkilled for being a prostitute, and oh
that's so sad. The son islike throwing rocks at the people that are
throwing rocks killing her and he says, careful, son, you might hit

(32:02):
your father. Who knows. Imean, it's kind of dark humor.
You got to have a dark senseof humor to be an absurdist, because
you because you know what I knowis like with comedians, I think they're
the most brilliant people on the planet. They're the best philosophers and a lot
of good comedians. They could justlike play music, like to be a

(32:23):
musician you want. There's there's agenetic component to it where they're just cool
and friendly and they sense harmony,and they have a heart style of communicating.
They could feel truth, they couldfeel emotions, and they live with
their their heart instead of just youknow, just that logical brain. And

(32:49):
that's it. So comedians are naturalabsurdists because a lot of them have come
from some really through dark things.If if you look at like some of
the best comedians, you look attheir life stories, it's like, wow,
they've been through things that most peopledon't have to deal with and it
and by finding the humor in it, it gave them some kind of advantage.

(33:15):
Man is the most intelligent of allthe animals and the most silly.
I come on, I'm just Ishould probably pause this and read. I'm

(33:45):
not really finding a lot of goodquotes. He never wrote a book,
and I don't really see any booksthat are written out about them. Like
the way Plato wrote about Socrates,I trolled before it was cool. Yeah,

(34:07):
he was like the original troll,right him and Socrates? Well,
Soacris is before him. So Socrateswas the original troll. He said,
I pissed on a man who calledme a dog? Why was he so
surprised? Keep seeing this over andover again. Get out of my son.

(34:30):
It is not that I am mad. It is only that my head
is different from yours. In arich man's house, there is no place
to spit but his face. Yeahit's pretty It's pretty pretty skimpy with stuff

(34:55):
about him. I'm just keep seeingthe same thing over and over again about
They're there, great and not awhole lot stuff. I should I should
probably find a good book about thisand then get back to you guys later,
because like I said, I justgot into him today. But I'm

(35:15):
reading a lot about and oh youknow what I'm doing is I'm taking setting
to be a pet detective. SoI'm taking a class that's gonna it's like
an eight week class, and thenafter that then I'm going to train my
dog instead of being a truffle hunter. Like I told you guys before.
She picked that up real fast,like she could. I just don't want

(35:36):
to get into that kind of businessbecause, well, for a lot of
reasons. But I think she'll begood finding cats. I don't think she'll
be good finding dogs because she's afraidof dogs, but she loves chasing cats
and rabbits. So if people losetheir rabbit or their cat, you know,
would we could help them find theircat. And I'm really pad about

(36:01):
these cats that going to survival modeand are displaced and have PTSD and behavioral
issues, like I'm for some reason, I'm just like, I just want
to specialize in that. So Okay, I'm sorry I couldn't find you guys
more quotes, but I hope youlook them up. Deogenes. Yeah,

(36:22):
So I guess that wraps it upfor today, and I hope to see
you guys next time on Brainbow