Philosophy is not a cure for the soul.

Quite a few people make the mistake of thinking that philosophy is a kind of personal therapy for the pain in their soul. Nothing could be further from the truth. Meanwhile, the boom in stoic life guides speaks volumes and is treacherous for those who know about the millennia-old metaphysical war smouldering between us!

Stoicism, like other quietist forms such as Catholicism as a kind of theosophy, is a general tendency to retreat, a symptom of the powerlessness that pervades and overwhelms the individual in the generally defeatist psychodynamic current of his time, until he finally hides behind the already erected walls of other sufferers such as Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus. Stoicism is a symptom of cultural lateness.