Stoicism in Five Minutes or Less (for Developers)

These are the slides for a Lightning Talk I gave at RailsConf 2019 after I noticed people kept mentioning Stoic ideas. It's a fast overview of some of the big ideas in a philosophy that tries to give a person an operating system for living a life that's worth living through personal improvement and usefulness to others.

Transcript

1. I'm Andrew Neely. — I work at Flywheel in Omaha
2. You might know one of my coworkers Please stop using Hashie. — Michael Herold Hashie maintainer
3. I'm Andrew Neely. — I'm a practicing Stoic — It's helped me immensely
4. Stoicism in Five Minutes or Less for Developers
5. Stoicism is a philosophy of life. — It describes how to live a good (ethical) life, one that is worth living.
6. It provides tools for facing challenges great and small.
7. You might break your coffee mug. (Annoying)
8. You might be struggling to grow your software career. (Hard)
9. You might definitely be going to die one day. (Inevitable)
10. Practice with these tools can create a sense of calm in the face of these challenges.
11. This is a powerful personal benefit, but it's not the point.
12. The point is to answer three important questions:
13. When to act? — Do what you can and should do. — Accept what you can't control, such as what happens next.
14. For whom do we act? — For ourselves, mostly to maintain our character — For our friends, colleagues, and loved ones, to be useful to them — For the broader good of all people, The Human Cosmopolis
15. How to act? — Practice behavior that is good under all circumstances.
16. e.g. Market-based approaches have gaps in who and what they serve because individual selfishness isn't good under all circumstances. See DHH's mention of the Tragedy of the Commons in the opening keynote
17. Tool - Dichotomy of Control When We Act — We only have control over ourselves, specifically our actions and reactions. — We accept everything else as either preferred or dispreferred indifferents.
18. For example, JavaScript is the most popular language in the world
19. For example, JavaScript is the most popular language in the world and there's nothing I can do about it...
20. ...Except to accept it.
21. Toolbox - The Four Virtues How We Act and for Whom
22. Justice — Treating everyone with fairness and dignity.
23. That crack I just made may have felt clever or satisfying, but it's actually not helpful at all.
24. Lots of under-represented people in our field come to programming through CSS and JS via design, marketing, and content strategy. — Maybe shitting all over what they're good at and enjoy doing isn't helpful to them.
25. JavaScript and CSS are part of the most broadly adopted and freely accessible computer/human interface in history.
26. I should be celebrating this for the people it has benefited and using them to build useful software not controlled by a single vendor.
27. Yet Please give Firefox another try.
28. Actionable: — Hold yourself accountable. — Show up for others. You can choose to be inclusive. — Rewatch yesterday's closing keynote by Bärí A. Williams. It's fantastic and full of useful things to do and consider.
29. Courage "How can [someone] be brave if [they] are afraid? That is the only time [they] can be brave." — [Spoiler] from Game of Thrones.
30. Fear is a powerful signal. It can lead us to the right thing to do.
31. Actionable: — Speak up for others, even when you have something to lose. — Apply to companies that you might not think will hire you. — Dive into projects you don't feel ready to tackle. — Give a talk at a public meetup or a conference.
32. Temperance (Discipline) First ask yourself what you would be, then do what you must do. — Epictetus
33. — Self control is a habit. It gets easier with practice. — Withhold judgement of others. It's harder than it sounds. — Strive to improve yourself.
34. Actionable — Review your day. How did you do? What should you do differently? Try again tomorrow. — Form a practice routine. Even 20 minutes a day will snowball. — Exercism.io — Practicing Rails
35. Wisdom (Practical Knowledge) It is impossible for a [person] to learn what [they] think [they] already know — Epictetus
36. When you're facing a challenge, nature gives you Reason to ask: — What is actually happening right now? — Which virtue is critical in my situation? — e.g. Can I change my situation to remove the need to lean on my willpower? — Struggling: What don't I know? What do I need to learn?
37. Am I wrong? — Failure is always an option. This can be a good thing. — It's one of our greatest teachers. — Your obstacles are often your greatest opportunities.
38. Resources
39. Further Learning — Massimo Pigliucci — How to be a Stoic — William Irvine — Guide to the Good Life
40. Daily Practice — Massimo Pigliucci — Stoic Meditations podcast — Ryan Holiday — Daily Stoic book and podcast
41. Thank You — @ravinglogic