LXI. How to Strengthen Your Soul
The taste of death in a trivial cause, is the same as in a noble one.
The ‘Neuroscience-based Tools’, ‘Lead to Win’ & the Le Monde Élégant social skills sections are companions for The Stoic Manual to enhance your overall health, vitality, stress resilience, discipline, focus, motivation, and refine your people skills, relationships & leadership skills for a distinguished life—by Dr. Antonius Veritas.
“My talent is such that no undertaking, however vast in size...has ever surpassed my courage.”— Peter Paul Reubens
“Listen to me.
You have to consider the possibility that God does not like you.
He never wanted you.
In all probability, He hates you.”
These words by Tyler Durden, in the film Fight Club echoed in rock bottom.
See, the last thing Claire had of her grandmother was gone.
She had come home to find the apartment door slightly open, a thin sliver of darkness cutting through the dim hallway. Her stomach tightened.
She pushed the door wider, the old hinges groaning, and stepped inside. The place had been ransacked. Drawers pulled out, papers flung to the floor, couch cushions gutted and tossed aside like carcasses.
Her laptop was gone. So was the little cash she had left.
But none of that mattered.
She ran to her nightstand, yanking open the top drawer. Empty. She ripped through the others, hands shaking, breath coming in short, shallow bursts.
Maybe she had misplaced it. Maybe—
But she knew better.
Her fingers dug into her scalp as she backed into the wall and slid down onto the floor. Nausea climbed up her throat.
She could take the lost job, the humiliation of her husband screwing someone else behind her back, the exhaustion of being sick and still pretending to be fine. She could endure watching her friends thrive while she slipped further and further into something she barely recognized as living.
But this—this was too much.
That necklace had been hers since she was eleven. A thin, delicate chain with a tiny pendant in the shape of a phoenix.
It wasn’t expensive. It was not flashy.
But it had weight. A history.
Her grandmother had worn it every day of her life and then passed it down to Claire, pressing it into her palm with a smile that said, You will always rise again.
And now it was gone.
Her stomach twisted violently. She curled forward, pressing her forehead to her knees, willing herself not to cry.
But the tears came anyway, hot and furious. A bitter laugh slipped out between sobs.
How unbecoming was this? A grown woman crumbling over a stolen trinket.
But it wasn’t just the necklace.
It was everything.
It was the past three years of trying and failing. Of scraping herself together just to be knocked down again. Of watching everyone else move forward while she sank.
And now, even the one thing that had kept her sane had been ripped away.
Her chest tightened, breath hitching in a way that made her feel like she was suffocating. The walls of her apartment suddenly felt too close, like they were pressing in, trapping her in the wreckage of her own life.
Her fingers dug into the fabric of her jeans as if anchoring herself would keep her from falling apart completely.
She wanted to scream.
Not cry—scream.
To claw at something, to break something, to hit the walls until her hands were bruised and her knuckles split open just so the pain inside her could be something tangible, something she could see, something that made sense.
She wanted to stop trying, to stop pretending that things would ever get better, to stop this endless, soul-crushing cycle of hope and disappointment.
Her body ached from exhaustion. Her head throbbed. Her muscles felt like they had given up before she even stood.
And a part of her—the part that had been breaking, quietly and steadily, for months—whispered, This is it. This is the moment you let go.
But then what?
The thought slid in so smoothly it startled her.
She swallowed hard, wiped at her damp face with shaky fingers.
Then what?
She could sink into this. Let it consume her. No one would blame her. No one would even notice.
She could lie on this floor for hours, days, let time pass and let the world move on without her.
But beneath the exhaustion, beneath the grief and rage and endless fucking frustration, there was something else.
Something that hadn’t been completely crushed yet.
It wasn’t hope. It wasn’t resilience. It wasn’t even stubbornness.
It was a quiet defiance. A seething refusal to let this be the end.
She clenched her jaw.
The apartment was still a wreck. The necklace was still gone. Her life was still a disaster.
But she was still here.
She could hate it. She could scream. She could curse every unfair thing life had thrown at her.
But she wouldn’t surrender.
Not yet.
Someone would say,
We can find this ‘something’ that Claire hang on to in another moving story of a soldier in the Roman Republic as told by Cassius Dio.
This beautiful lore shows us what strength that transcends the body is like in action.
It’s an ideal that should inspire us to keep fighting the good fight, against bad habits and injustices—for our freedom, power, wealth, happiness.
It goes like this.
The battle was lost, the legions broken, the standard trampled beneath enemy boots.
But he refused to die.
His sword was gone, his shield shattered, his left arm severed at the elbow, his right limp and useless. His legs had been taken from him, cut at the thighs, leaving him a man who could neither stand nor crawl—only a bleeding corpse waiting to be still.
But when the enemy soldier approached, squatting near his body, ridiculing him in mockery, he lunged—
Not with a weapon.
Not with his hands.
But with his teeth.
He clamped his jaws onto the man’s throat with the force of a starving wolf, crushing flesh and windpipe, tearing through muscle as blood filled his mouth.
The enemy shrieked, staggered, stabbed him through the ribs—
But still, he did not let go.
Only when they ripped him away did his body slump, lifeless at last.
And yet, it was the enemy who stood shaken.
They had won the field, but something in them understood: they had not broken Rome.
Because if even one of its men, torn to the edge of death, could still kill with nothing but his teeth—
Then Rome was something beyond flesh.
Beyond fear.
Beyond defeat.
The Republic would return, with more men like him—
Men who did not surrender.
Men who did not break.
Rome was not steel or bone.
Rome was will.
And will did not die.
This indomitable Roman spirit of Strength and Honor, which draws a parallel to the Japanese culture of Death Before Dishonor, as I have tattooed on my left forearm, is what led to Pax Romana, the golden era where Rome expanded and thrived exponentially in trade and power.
The poem by Al-Mutanabbi expresses this age best.
Arabicإذا غامرتَ في شرفٍ مرُومِ فلا تقنعْ بما دونَ النّجومِفطَعمُ المَوتِ في أمرٍ حَقيرٍ كَطَعمِ المَوتِ في أمرٍ عظيمِيَعِيشُ المَرْءُ ما استحْيا بِحِلْمٍ ويَبْقى العُودُ ما بَقِيَ اللِّحَاءُEnglish TranslationIf you seek honor, strive for the stars, Do not settle for what lies beneath them. The taste of death in a trivial cause, Is the same as in a noble one. A man lives as long as he preserves his dignity, Just as a tree stands as long as it has its bark.
Join 17,200 other readers
On The Roman Soul
"It's a disgrace in this life when the soul surrenders first while the body refuses to."—Marcus Aurelius
There comes a point when we’ve had enough.
Enough of failure, of fighting for things that slip through our hands, of watching betrayal rot the trust we once had in our friends and loved ones.
Enough of the exhaustion—
The days that feel like weights tied to our backs,
The nights where sleep doesn't even feel like rest.
We have every right to be bitter.
Every reason to let anger fester,
To turn our backs on the world and shut the door behind us.
We’ve earned the comfort.
The right to step away and let others deal with the chaos.
After all, what has effort ever really given us—
Besides more battles?
And yet—
Something in us refuses.
Even when the body fails,
When sickness drains what little strength remains,
When every thought is poisoned with frustration, resentment, goes of the rails,
The soul still grips the wheel.
Still commands us to stand when we should have collapsed.
The weight of fatigue should have broken us by now—
But it hasn’t.
We should be done—
But we’re not.
Because to surrender, to give up while we still breathe,
Would be the real disgrace.
We’d even face more danger if we turned our backs on necessity.
We’ve seen people let go—
Let their will rot before their bodies ever did.
We’ve seen strength dissolve into indulgence,
Once-powerful minds numbed by comfort,
Men and women who had fight in them once,
But let it slip away for a life of ease.
But that is not our path.
We do not lay down our weapons simply because we are tired.
We do not bow to circumstances, to failure,
To the creeping voice that tells us it would be so much easier to stop trying.
There is no honor in retreat, even when we’ve began again countless times and still failed.
The soul stays strong,
Not because it is easy,
But because it refuses to be anything else but light.
“It’s time you realized that you have something in you more powerful and miraculous than the things that affect you and make you dance like a puppet.”
—Marcus Aurelius
We press forward because it is in our nature to do so.
Let the body falter.
Let the mind scream its doubts.
Let the world crumble if it must.
None of it changes the fact that we are still standing.
And until the body itself gives out,
Until we are dragged to the grave,
The soul will never kneel.
For we are legion.
Practical Ways to Strengthen and Enrich Your Soul
I’ve found 5 ways to strengthen and enrich our souls over the years.
It all comes down to refining our thoughts and intentions, having an expansive attitude about life, pushing the limits of what we perceive as possible and denying ourselves some comforts.
Not for suffering’s sake, but to meet ourselves—the divine beings we were created to be.
Here they are.
1) Philosophical Contemplation — Marcus Aurelius said, “the soul becomes dyed with the colour of its thoughts.” I wrote about how to practice this here.
2) Fasting — We've talked about how to practice it here, and this riveting story here.
3) Love — We've talked about it here and here.
4) Sauna — Future post on the Neuroscience-based health tools section.
5) Meditation
This is what we'll get into today.
You’ll learn the science behind meditation so you can make informed evidence-based decisions.
But if this is too much, you can always skip to the effective meditation practices section tailored to your subjective experience because there’s no one size fits all for everyone.
And I wouldn’t want you to be frustrated by the practice.
Let’s dive in.