Stoicism is not about being apathetic towards the world but bearing the weight of the world. Not because someone told you, not because you want to be popular or any form of personal gain. But because you choose to. And that is the true form of detachment. You change your inner world to change the outer world. The change should start within oneself and bend reality to your will.
You were never going to eat the cereal.. But that's not why you came here, you came here to understand WHY you were never going to eat it - The Oracle (kind of), The Matrix
It sounds like you're still attached to "changing the outer world" and "bending reality to your will". It gives me the sense that you're missing the point - trying to "cheat God" as it were, by covering up your real desires from yourself with the appearance of having renounced them.
I think from what he's trying to say is that he isn't trying to change the world at all. He is simply changing himself and allowing those changes to be personified outwardly. Trying to apply what he sees within himself beyond himself. Attachment implies he's changing what already is established and "fixing it" but going by what he has said he's changing himself and letting the world observe him instead and the world changes around him. There's no attachment, perhaps just extension.
Sounds circular reasoning to me. He asked him why he chooses to do something and his answer was that he chooses to. I found everything the agent was saying more profound than Neo’s answer. Why does he choose to if there’s no meaning?
That’s the point though, isn’t it? Because he has the ability to choose. The agent is a program and doesn’t necessarily ’choose’ to do anything because it is programmed to do exactly its job.
I think it’s lame. I have the ability to do a lot of things that I don’t exercise just for the sake of I guess. I can see how it’s a scene to point out the difference between a program and a human though.
That seems like it's missing the point. It's more about how your reactions to things effect you more than the actual things themselves. You should do what's right, but it's not about being a martyr.
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u/yevelnad 15d ago
Stoicism is not about being apathetic towards the world but bearing the weight of the world. Not because someone told you, not because you want to be popular or any form of personal gain. But because you choose to. And that is the true form of detachment. You change your inner world to change the outer world. The change should start within oneself and bend reality to your will.