Connect your Claude, Codex or OpenClaw for full transcripts on millions of podcasts. Two week free trial, cancel anytime.
Start free trial →The Daily Stoic · Ideas & Essays · November 2026
Talking with Ryan Holiday about Epicurus, Brooks dismisses the idea that satisfaction comes from having more and offers his own formula for it.
The human brain, the prefrontal cortex, is designed for you to time travel retrospectively, prospectively, and mindfully. Those are the three time zones that are actually in your head all the time. Most people spend the least amount of their time here now.
…And it helps you save time, stay organized, and spend less effort chasing down information between systems. Money is on the line. Always say hello with Quo. Try Quo for free, plus get 20% off your first six months when you go to quote.com/slash dailystoic. That's q-u-o.com/slash dailystoic.
Your animal impulse tells you that it's it's about what you have and having more, which is the Gulf Stream, et cetera, which leads to ruin, absolute personal. Talk anything else, just personal ruin because you can never have enough. It's actually better described as what you have divided by what you want. And the denominator is more important because a very efficient way to get greater satisfaction in your life is by decreasing the denominator by wanting less. And so this Epicurean notion of wanting less, wanting less, wanting less, wanting less, and watching your satisfaction rise and rise and rise, or enjoyment in this particular case. But of course, asymptotically, it doesn't work. Right.
You can't go to wanting nothing. Yeah.
Because if you want nothing, well, I mean, wanting for nothing, I suppose. That's heaven, I guess.
Right.