Mason  🏃‍♂️ ✂️

I actually think it’s critical to care *deeply* what other people think, but choose those people carefully — only people you’d consider your *teachers*! If someone has the power to easily punish or reward you, that person is your teacher whether you’d endorse it or not

I don't agree - if someone has power over you without consent, you're a slave. Stoicism is about reshaping your value set to become your own master.

In other words, I don’t want to be *entirely* my own master as long as I have many friends wiser than myself

'Master' implies that you defer to these wiser folk when you disagree. This is a mistake. That they are *usually* more right than you doesn't mean they are right in the (few?!) cases where they fail to persuade you. If anything, the opposite is to be expected.

Likewise for being 'taught' or 'trained' if those terms have connotations of deferring unpersuaded.

Mm, it’s not so much “deferring,” just having a noticeable pang of doubt that’s much greater than I’d have with a typical person, one that would gnaw at me until I’d give the issue enough time or mental space to find a resolution for the point of disagreement