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About How to Relate to Discussion Forums (a la Epictetus)

Paraphrasing Epictetus, Enchridion Chapter 4:

When you are going to take part in a forum, remind yourself what kind of forum it is. If you are going to a philosophy forum, or, for that matter, any forum, treat it as you would a public bath: place before yourself what happens in the bath: some splashing the water, others pushing against one another, others abusing one another, and some stealing: and thus with more safety you will undertake the matter, if you say to yourself, I now intend to bathe, and to maintain my will in a manner conformable to nature. And so you will do in every forum: for thus if any hindrance to you shall happen, let this thought be ready: it was not this only that I intended, but I intended also to maintain my will in a way conformable to nature; but I shall not maintain it so, if I am vexed at what happens.
Location Vol. MCMXVVI, Ch. 7, Sec. 26, p.156n45
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Favourite philosophers Heraclitus, Ashtavakra, Spinoza, Adiaphorous
Favourite quotations The wiser men are the more humbly they are disposed to receive the instruction of another, nor do they disdain the simplicity of the teacher, but behave humbly toward peasants, old women and children, since many things are known to the simple and unlearned which escape the notice of the wise. For no one is so learned in nature that he knows all the nature and properties of a single fly.
—Roger Bacon, Opus maius, 1267

A philosopher's words are empty if they do not heal the suffering of mankind. For just as medicine is useless if it does not remove sickness from the body, so philosophy is useless if it does not remove suffering from the soul. - Epicurus, Fragment 221

Philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak; it exacts of every man that he should live according to his own standards, that his life should not be out of harmony with his words, and that, further, his inner life should be of one hue and not out of harmony with all his activities. This, I say, is the highest duty and the highest proof of wisdom, – that deed and word should be in accord, that a man should be equal to himself under all conditions, and always the same.
– Seneca, Epistle XX,2

Hesiod distinguishes between good days and evil days, not knowing that every day is like every other
-- Heraclitus

To find water you do not dig small pits all over the place.
-- Nisargadatta Maharaj

To someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
-- Jonathan Bennett

". . . lost in the chaos of the Good..."
-- Stephan Bar Sudhaili
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