For those who wear Stoic armor against the world of Absurd,
And smile with Dante’s fire igniting the depths of their hearts,
Best served as static, with emojis in their joyful fray,
And blissfully free from the chains of JavaScript’s curse.

---

Mythopoetic Stoic Absurdism is a philosophical and narrative framework that:

• Uses memento mori¹ not merely as a reminder of death, but as a mirror to interrogate how we ought to live - through the paradox of meaning² and the poetry of cosmic indifference.
• Constructs mythic and symbolic visions of the afterlife not to escape death, but to dialogue with it - as one would a wise specter by a bonfire.
• Serves as the Dantean Descent³ for Stoics⁴, Absurdists⁵, and Humanists alike - guiding souls not to salvation, but to lucid and coherent authenticity⁶ amidst uncertainty.

It weds the serenity of the Stoic Logos⁷ with the defiance of the Absurd Hero⁸, and binds them through myth - not as dogma, but as living metaphor. In doing so, it sanctifies existence without illusion and gives death its proper throne - not as tyrant, but as teacher.

It constitutes a complete philosophical stance with:

• Ontology⁹ (what is): Indifferent universe.
• Epistemology¹⁰ (what we can know): Uncertain metaphysical truth; relevance lies in action.
• Ethics¹¹ (how to live): With freedom, virtue, and authenticity.
• Aesthetics of Living: Poetic rebellion¹² over passive endurance.

Mythopoetic Stoic Absurdism is a psychological strategy in the face of nihilism¹³. It offers not hope, but posture. It offers psychological resilience and social moral clarity without appealing to unverifiable absolutes. It encourages methods of enduring and engaging the human condition with lucid defiance.

It is through prohairesis¹⁴: - the rational act of posture and choice - that we cultivate arete¹⁵, the excellence of the soul. Let us detach from the outcomes - apatheia¹⁶ - for though the cosmos offers no reward, it is in this virtue¹⁷ that we may find a form of eudaimonia¹⁸: the composure of a coherent self in an incoherent world. The choice to live with coherence is not commanded by reason - it is born of a leap beyond it¹⁹. We choose reason not because it is necessary, but because it dignifies our freedom.

This philosophy of life is the apotheosis of my musings and reflections. There is a foundation of cognitive (neuro)science behind mythopoesis and stoicism.

Tenets

Wielders of the philosophy do not seek divine favor nor cosmic justice. They walk a lonelier path - through silence, shadow, and starlight. To them, the universe is a vast, indifferent expanse - neither cruel nor kind, merely mute. But from this silence, they draw neither despair nor obedience.

Instead, they forge meaning in defiance of absurdity, like firelit rebels in a cold and purposeless void. They believe that though the cosmos offers no guidance, the human soul burns with the capacity to care, to choose, to stand. Not for reward, not for legacy - but for the sheer integrity of doing so.

To follow these tenets is to live without illusion, to love without condition, to choose freely, and - if one dares - to join the social world and love it still.

I. COSMOS & CONDITION

1. The cosmos is neutral and devoid of moral or teleological meaning²⁰.
   It operates by cause and effect, not justice. Higher powers, if they exist, are unknowable and irrelevant to how we must live. The death of God¹³ is the fundamental starting point of all other moral and philosophical considerations.
2. Humans are not neutral.
   Though born of an indifferent world, we possess consciousness, care, and the capacity to reflect, suffer, and choose.

II. SELF & MEANING

1. There is no intrinsic meaning in life.
   Yet the struggle to create meaning - though absurd - is sufficient, even beautiful.
2. The self is relational.
   Meaning is a personal task, but can be nourished through authentic engagement with others.
3. People are ends, not means²¹.
   All action must respect the dignity of others as reasoning beings.
4. To live in bad faith²² is to betray one’s freedom.
   Avoid self-deception, external roles, and unexamined conformity. Live deliberately.
5. Memory is the tether of identity in a world of flux.
   It does not merely recall, but sustains the self across impermanence. To live authentically is to relate lucidly to one’s own past and that of others. Time may be indifferent, but how we carry it reveals who we choose to be.

III. VIRTUE & RESPONSE

1. Fate is beyond our control; response is not.
   One may endure, rebel, or transform adversity with dignity. This freedom of response is sacred.
2. Virtue is not divine command, but an exemplar of chosen coherence.
   It is a reasoned stance amid disorder - not the only path to meaning, but the most consistent. However, it is always a choice, not a chain.
3. Virtue steadies the soul.
   Indifferents²³: - health, fame, fortune - may offer pleasure or meaning, but never eudaimonia. Do not mistake them for the good.
4. To live with virtue is to sever dependency on moral causality.
   Act without hope of reward or fear of punishment. Be free from events, if not from their happening.
5. Virtue is personal in origin, but must stand among others
   Its worth lies not in private sentiment, but in reason shared between equals in a polis. Like a social contract²⁴ among free minds, it must resonate intersubjectively - lest it become tyranny dressed in righteousness.
6. The Four Cardinal Virtues arise not from nature, but from nobility of response:

• Courage is Good - not because it triumphs, but because it preserves dignity amid despair and futility.
• Justice is Good - not because it creates order, but for the mutual acknowledgment that all who reason are worthy of recognition.
• Temperance is Good - not to deny or encourage pleasure, but to master it with grace and indifference.
• Wisdom is Good - not because it controls events, but because it reveals how to live freely within necessity.

And remember:

Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.¹⁷

V. REBELLION & CONNECTION

1. Rebellion¹² against absurdity is not rational, but it is beautiful.
   It affirms dignity where there is no promise of reward.
2. Connection is not owed, but may be dared.
   Service, kindness, love, and sacrifice are not demanded - but striving for ethical living may deepen our rebellion and reflection.
3. To join the world is to love it freely.
   Not as a savior, but as a fellow exile. In solidarity, not salvation, we may find meaning - not truth, but mirroring.

The Divine Pantheon

The deities do not rule from gilded thrones or meddle in mortal drama. Instead, they form a radial constellation - a sacred map of forces, archetypes, and principles that shape the soul from birth, through life, into death, and beyond.

This pantheon is not a family of Olympian personalities, but a sprawling ensemble of gods, titans, personified truths, and metaphorical beings - each governing a facet of the soul’s existential condition. They are not omnipotent, nor are they moral arbiters. Instead, they guide, mirror, or dismantle the self during the postmortem passage through Hades and the realms beyond.

Some offer final choices of remembrance or dissolution. Others confront the soul with what it has made of its time. Some serve not as deities in the classical sense, but as avatars of fate, structure, and the terrifying beauty of necessity.

All are philosophical forces drawn from Stoicism, Absurdism, and cosmic naturalism. Some appear as characters in mythic visions. Others speak only through the silence of time, or through the weight of choices already made. They are encountered in ritual, dream, or at the threshold of death itself.

Some are ancient. Others are born in the fires of modern insight. Yet all are indispensable companions in the soul’s eternal spiral - from the randomness of birth to the ambiguous clarity of the afterlife.

Deity	Domain	Traditional Roots	Interpretation
🌌Iuppiter Optimus Maximus	The Cosmos as totality - silent, vast, encompassing	Logos, natural law, sublime order	Not a deity with will. He is the cosmic order, the Stoic ideal. Some submit to him; others rebel against him. All and everything are within him. He is omnipresent. Deus sive natura25. Governed by infinite cause and effect.
🔆Sol Invictus	Inescapable, blinding, burning truth.	Sun god of the late Roman Empire.	It is the sun that shines on Plato’s Cave26. The harsh, uncomfortable truth of ☀️Icarus’ wings melting.
🧵Clotho	Birth, contingency, unchosen foundations (Geworfenheit27)	Moirai (Greek); Parcae (Roman)	Spins the thread of life. Establishes one’s birth conditions. Immutable.
📏Lachesis	Life’s unfolding, environment, choice context	Moirai (Greek); Parcae (Roman)	Measures the thread. Defines mutable conditions, life’s canvas.
✂️Atropos	Death, finitude, inevitable ending	Moirai (Greek); Parcae (Roman)	Cuts the thread. Ends life but not meaning. Echoes of ⏳️Chronos in her silence.
🎲Fortuna	Chaos, chance, intervention	Fortuna (Roman)	Occasionally tugs the threads woven by the Fates - for amusement, mischief, or revelation.
⏳️Chronos	Time, inevitability, cosmic duration	Chronos (Greek primordial deity); Kronos (Greek Titan) and Saturn (Roman) as devourer	Whispers to ✂️Atropos and provides her with scissors. Represents time’s indifferent flow and necessity. Memento mori1 becomes carpe diem28. Devourer of moments.
🍷Bacchus	Ecstasy, embodied being, sacred madness	Dionysus (Greek); Bacchus (Roman)	Not merely a god of wine, but of existential presence and catharsis. Reminds the soul that the body mattered. The moment, the immediate, mattered.
🥀Thanatos	Peaceful death, soul extraction	Thanatos (Greek personification)	Gently removes the soul at death, under ✂️Atropos’ decree. Transhumanists attempt to chain him, as 🪨Sisyphus did.
🪽Mercury	Psychopomp, silent guide of souls	Hermes (Greek); Mercury (Roman)	Guides the soul across the liminal divide. Neither judges nor pities - he merely delivers.
🛶Charon	Ferryman of the dead across Acheron	Charon (Greek)	Collects the soul at the threshold. Awaits the Coin of Judgment. Charges meaning, not money.
🔗Ananke	Necessity, fate beyond fate, cosmic inevitability	Ananke (Greek primordial force)	Present at all critical thresholds. Watches silently. Embodiment of inescapable structure of the cosmos.
⚖️Nemesis	Consequence, justice, moral cause and effect	Nemesis (Greek)	Guardian of the court. Holds the Mirror of Impact. Ensures actions are faced in full. Reminder of causality and moral gravity.
🪞Aeacus	Judge of authenticity and intellectual honesty	Aeacus (Greek mythology)	Asks: Did you live truthfully and meaningfully? Embodies existential and cynical rigor.
🫱Rhadamanthus	Judge of civic virtue and ethical integrity	Rhadamanthus (Greek mythology)	Asks: Did you serve others with dignity and virtue? Patron of Stoic duty and humanist ethics.
🌵Minos	Judge of suffering and one’s response to absurdity	Minos (Greek mythology)	Asks: How did you face the absurd and pain? Patron of rebellion12 and amor fati29.
📚Mnemosyne	Memory, resistance, mythic legacy	Mnemosyne (Greek Titaness)	Offers remembrance and rebellion after death. Drinking her water preserves selfhood as symbolic fire.
🫗Lethe	Oblivion, serenity, union with the Logos	Lethe (Greek deity/river)	Offers dissolution into cosmic unity. Ego is shed. One joins the natural order in tranquil non-being.
🍀Kekius Maximus	Nihilistic malevolence	Internet culture; Egyptian frog god of darkness	Malevolent trickster god of those 🫥Lingering Souls that turned their apathy into destruction, harming others in their self-indulgence.

The Patron Daimones

In the heart of the philosophy, where suffering and rebellion intertwine, four Patron Daimones stand as paragons of human will. Each embodies a distinct path of resistance to the chaos of existence and the ways in which one might continue in the face of meaning’s apparent absence. To follow a Daimon³⁰ is to choose how to bear one’s burdens - and whether to carry them for others, for oneself, or with an iron resolve to defy fate itself.

These Daimones are not merely symbols; they are the choices made at the threshold of the Absurd, each one lighting a fire in the soul, shaping destiny, and guiding the faithful through life’s turmoil. To walk their path is to take on the very essence of rebellion, seeking meaning not in the cosmic void, but within one’s own strength to endure and create.

Daimon	Motivation	View of Suffering	Embodies	Tagline	Philosophical Resonance	Existential Choice	Shadow Path (If Corrupted)
🔥Prometheus	For Others	A meaningful burden for the good of others	Altruistic Sacrifice	“The one who suffers for others, who finds meaning in suffering, and endures torment because it serves a higher light.”	Duty, compassion, Stoic responsibility, Frankl’s meaning through suffering31	“I endure because others need me.”	Martyrdom complex, self-erasure, savior delusion
🪨Sisyphus	Against Absurdity	A void to confront with dignity	Defiant Persistence	“The one who bears pain with no promise of redemption, and still chooses to push.”	Absurdism, Stoicism stripped of hope, courage without illusion	“I endure because that is what it means to be human.”	Nihilism, cynicism, passive fatalism
☀️Icarus	For Selfhood	A necessary risk for authentic expression	Expressive Courage	“The one who knows he might fail, but rebels with beauty and flies nonetheless because he must.”	Nietzschean will to power, radical authenticity, Kierkegaardian leap	“I endure because I must express what I am.”	Narcissism, recklessness, tragic hubris
⚓Odysseus	Through Resilience	A storm to navigate with cunning and grit	Strategic Endurance	“The one who neither fights nor flees from pain, but outsmarts it and endures to tell the tale.”	Existential navigation, Stoic adaptability, Taoist balance	“I endure because I intend to return.”	Opportunism, inauthenticity, manipulation

The Saints of Pain

Suffering is not an enemy to be vanquished but a challenge to be met with strength, wisdom, and purpose. The Six Saints of Pain offer unique paths to confront the most harrowing of trials - each with their own philosophy and method for transforming anguish into a powerful force for personal growth.

These Saints are not distant figures of divine perfection, but embodiments of human struggle, thought, and resilience. Whether through purpose, dignity, defiance, dialectic, disdain, or creative transformation, each Saint represents a different way of engaging with pain, encouraging the faithful to confront it, learn from it, and ultimately transcend it. To walk the path of one of the Saints is to choose a mode of response to life’s inevitable suffering and to rise above it in a way that reveals your truest self.

Thinker	Pain Question	Mode of Response	Realm
🕯️Frankl	“How do I make this pain meaningful?”	Existential purpose	Fervently urging those in the Asphodel Meadows to find meaning, and not cower in fear of it.
🏛️Stoics	“How do I bear this pain virtuously?”	Virtuous dignity	Sit on a porch in the Mourning Fields, reminding the shades that externals are not the true good, and that detachment is required for flourishing.
🎭Camus	“How do I face this pain honestly?”	Lucid defiance	Moves between Tartarus and the Asphodel Meadows, calling out the shades’ evasion of the Absurd with a grin both scornful and tender.
🗣️Socrates	“How do I question this pain wisely?”	Dialectic irony	Captured and put on trial by Tataric shades for asking too many questions, and calmly drinks hemlock in the underworld, unsettling judges even in death.
🐶Diogenes	“Why should I care about this pain?”	Disdain and satire	Wanders in Elysium with his lantern, looking for an honest man. He reminds us that, even in enlightenment, we are still only humans and must strip all pretense.
🦅Nietzsche	“How do I overcome this pain through becoming?”	Creative becoming	Stands at the Acheron’s edge, accusing the Lingering Souls of cowardice, warning them that Eternal Recurrence32 requires courage and that they turned his thunder into slogans.

The Fates

The Fates weave the very tapestry of existence, governing the foundational aspects of a soul’s journey - the unchosen scaffolding, the Geworfenheit²⁷ that each individual must navigate. While a soul’s choices shape its essence, the Fates define the essential conditions under which it must act. These divine weavers are not concerned with the specifics of one’s choices but rather with the environment in which those choices take root and grow.

Each Moira plays a distinct role in the dance of life, setting the stage for the soul’s unique adventure. 🧵Clotho begins the journey, providing the birth, chance, and contingencies of life. 📏Lachesis offers the world in which one may choose, the mutable canvas upon which the soul’s choices can be painted. Finally, ✂️Atropos brings the inevitable end, marking the closure of the soul’s mortal thread, though not the cessation of its meaning.

Through the Fates, one learns that while one cannot control the conditions of birth and death, the choices made within that span are where true freedom lies.

Moira	Symbolizes	Mutable?	Role in Soulcraft
🧵Clotho	Birth, chance, and contingency	No	Sets origin, not essence.
📏Lachesis	Life, environment & choice	Partially	Shapes the canvas of your life. The space where you can paint on.
✂️Atropos	Death, mortality, completion, and finitude	No	Ends the thread, but not the meaning

Fortuna occasionally tugs the threads woven by the Fates - for amusement, mischief, or revelation. ⏳️Chronos whispers in the ear of ✂️Atropos, reminding her that the thread must be cut eventually. Together with 🎲Fortuna and ⏳️Chronos, the Fates define the limits of the mortal stage. The soul acts within this drama. In the midst of these figures, we find 🍷Bacchus, dancing. He lives in the moment, reminding us that the soul is unbound and intense, and that the body is not separate from the soul.

The Journey to the Realms of Hades

Upon death, 🥀Thanatos extracts the soul from the body, illuminated by the radiant sunlight of 🔆Sol Invictus, under orders from ✂️Atropos. 🪽Mercury then wordlessly guides it to the banks of the Acheron, where the souls gather at dusk and mist, and 🛶Charon, cloaked and grumbling, awaits. Standing at the other side is 🔗Ananke, watching us from a distance. Looking at her is a reminder that the only thing that matters, is that we act and choose. Moral agency is a prerequisite for entering Hades. As such, only beings with fully developed consciousness and cognition have their souls extracted by 🥀Thanatos. Beings without cognition or consciousness, be they animals, young children, or the severely intellectually disabled, are immediately embraced by 🫗Lethe and 🌌Iuppiter Optimus Maximus instead.

The soul must present their Coin of Judgment - a token of how life was lived in the face of the Absurd.

If no coin is presented, or if it crumbles to dust in the soul’s hand, they are left behind - lingering at the banks, their journey never begun. The souls who pass are then guided to one of the Realms of Hades, where the choices they made, or failed to make, in life define their fate.

Type	Description	Saying	Aesthetic
🫥The Lingering	Souls who remained in radical nihilism or solipsism. They withdrew, refused, or erased the self. They do not meet the Judges - for there is nothing to weigh. They drift along the banks, whispering fragments of thought that never cohered. They neither accepted the illusions of Plato’s Cave nor sought the light beyond. They are paralyzed by seeing nihilism as an endpoint.	“They did not fail the test. They tore up the paper and vanished before the ink could dry. Life is pointless, so why even bother to do anything?”	Foggy shores, broken mirrors, echoing thoughts, silhouettes fading as one turns to look. 🪽Mercury passes them by without pause, and 🍀Kekius Maximus looks at them with a grim smile.

The Coins of Judgement

Coin Type	Name & Image	Represents	Realm	Description	Saying
⚫Black	Coin of Dullness (No face)	The Unexamined Life33	Tartarus	Passive existence. Lived by habit, conformity, without agency or reflection. A soul that never saw the Absurd because it never asked the questions. In Plato’s Cave, they saw the firelight dance - and asked for nothing else. They committed philosophical suicide by surrendering to external meaning.	“They marched in perfect step, never once wondering where they were going. 42 is the answer to life, the universe, and everything.34“
🟤Bronze	Coin of Comfort Odysseus gazing at Circe35	Cowardice before the Absurd	Asphodel Meadows	The comfortable life. Questions asked, but always from the safe zone. Souls who declined the challenge of meaning, preferring dull security. They were the freed prisoners who saw the sun - and begged to return to the safety of the Cave.	“They glimpsed the edge of the cosmos and turned away, whispering ‘maybe tomorrow.’“
⚪Silver	Coin of Attachment Face of Orpheus36	Meaning through others or externals	Mourning Fields	Life examined, but meaning was placed in love, wealth, status, memory - attachments one could not let go. The soul clung to something in defiance of impermanence, and may have mistaken preferred indifferents with eudaimonia. Even after seeing the light beyond the Cave, they returned, unable to abandon those still in chains.	“They loved too deeply to let go, and carried their ghosts into the afterlife like wilted laurels.”
🟡Gold	Coin of Clarity Face of Socrates	Existential & Stoic Enlightenment	Elysium	The soul that fully faced the Absurd, and lived with clarity, virtue, or rebellion. The soul achieved a state of eudaimonia and arete. A life lived with meaning - authored and owned. They emerged fully from Plato’s Cave, bore the pain of the truthful sun - and some returned, not as prisoners but as liberators.	“They walked into the void with open eyes, laughing, weeping, and building gardens as they fell.”

The Realms of Hades

In every realm, 🔗Ananke can be found wandering.

Realm	Coin	Description	Aesthetic & Imagery
🕳️Tartarus	Black	The realm of numb conformity and spiritual inertia. The soul is surrounded by eternal queues, monolithic structures, coffee breaks with no flavour. There is no torment - only greyness, dullness, and the comfort of never having chosen.	Brutalist architecture, greyscale skies, looping Muzak, schedules carved into stone. Everyone arrives early but never begins.
🌫️Asphodel Meadows	Bronze	Eternal twilight, where comfort dulls the soul. Questions were asked, but never answered. Books are unfinished, wine half-drunk, thoughts always deferred. The soul could have soared, but chose instead the soft sofa of safety.	Pale green fields under a setting sun. Comfy armchairs among forget-me-not flowers. Time naps here.
🌹Mourning Fields	Silver	A place of beauty and sorrow, where souls wander among statues and ruins of what they could not leave behind. Their love, fame, dreams remain echoing. This is not punishment - it is yearning prolonged.	Marble colonnades, roses on graves, melodies in the wind. The scent of letters never sent. A melancholic heaven.
🌄Elysium	Gold	The highest realm, where the soul dances with absurdity and meaning in harmony. It is neither pleasure nor reward - it is arrival. Souls build gardens, laugh with gods, and occasionally argue with 🐶Diogenes.	Sun-drenched hills, crystalline water, vineyards flourishing. Every soul wears a crown made of choices.

The Judges of the Afterlife

Upon reaching the final stage of their journey, souls stand before the Judges of the Afterlife - a trio of ageless figures who serve as both gatekeepers and mirrors. The judges do not punish or reward; instead, they seek to understand how a soul navigated its existence. Each judge probes a different aspect of the soul’s life, asking one essential question that examines how it confronted and engaged with the world. Judgment is not based on the conditions assigned by the Fates, but on the meaning woven from one’s choices. It is not the hand dealt by the Fates, but how you played the game that matters. In one of the seats of the courtroom, we find 🔗Ananke sitting and watching.

The doors to the Hall of Judgement are guarded by ⚖️Nemesis. She guards the entrance not as executioner, but holding a bronze mirror. She reminds us that our actions have consequences, and affect the world around us. She is the revealer of impact. Existential freedom means freedom to act, but also freedom to face the consequences. ⚖️Nemesis ensures that we understand authenticity is not just a matter of choice but also of living up to that choice. To some, ⚖️Nemesis’ mirror might burn with wrath.

Judge	Aspect Judged	Key Question	Philosophical Roots	Associated Figures
🪞Aeacus	Authenticity & Intellectual Honesty	“Did you live an examined, meaningful, and rebellious life in truth?”	Existentialism, Cynicism	Socrates, Diogenes, Camus, Sartre
🫱Rhadamanthus	Civic Virtue & Ethical Integrity	“Did you act with duty, dignity, and service to others?”	Stoicism, Humanism, Virtue Ethics	The Stoics, Frankl, Cicero, Aristotle
🌵Minos	Response to Suffering & Fate	“How did you respond to the pain and absurdity of existence?”	Stoic determinism meets existential freedom (amor fati29 + revolt)	Prometheus, Sisyphus, Icarus, Odysseus

The Eschatology

“At the edge of all becoming, not reward nor punishment awaits - but decision.”

In the final silence beyond the judges, before the soul steps into the infinite void, two waters are offered. One by the Titan 📚Mnemosyne, and one by the Goddess 🫗Lethe, both tending with care to their rivers. Once again, we find 🔗Ananke observing us.

There is no throne room of salvation, nor is it justice. There is only eschatological freedom.

Both waters lead to the same metaphysical conclusion: non-being in an atheistic universe that neither knows nor remembers you.
This is the final rite of the soul: not a verdict, but a verdict rendered by the self. Drink, and embrace 🌌Iuppiter Optimus Maximus.

The Waters at the End of the Universe³⁷

Name	Path	Philosophical Roots	Nature of the Afterlife	Key Figures	Pathos
🫗Lethe	Serene Dissolution	Stoicism, Natural Law, Buddhist Nirvana	The soul dissolves into the Logos; there is peace, no memory, no self - only cosmic unity.	Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, Buddha	Escapism and apathy.
📚Mnemosyne	Defiant Continuity	Existentialism, Absurdism, Cynicism	The soul vanishes but is remembered - echoing through story, resistance, and symbolic legacy.	Camus, Diogenes, Prometheus	Unable to let go of impermanent attachments.

🫗Lethe offers tranquil extinction: the obliteration of ego in the flow of cosmic necessity. One becomes part of all things, faceless yet free of suffering.

📚Mnemosyne offers fire in the darkness: selfhood remembered even in oblivion. One becomes a myth, a tale, a spark of resistance echoing forevermore.

This is the final freedom: to vanish like dew, or to burn like a memory.

---

References

Main sources and inspirations

• Hesiod. (8th-7th century BC). Theogony.
• Homer. (8th-7th century BC). The Iliad and The Odyssey.
• Plato. (c. 399-347 BC). Various dialogues, especially The Republic and Apology.
• Aristotle. (c. 350 BC). Nicomachean Ethics and other works.
• Cicero, M. T. (44 BC). On Duties, Tusculan Disputations, and other works.
• Virgil. (19 BC). The Aeneid.
• Ovid. (8). Metamorphoses and other works.
• Seneca, L. A. (c. 65). Letters from a Stoic, On the Shortness of Life, and other works and plays.
• Epictetus. (c. 108). Handbook, Discourses, and Fragments (compiled by Arrian).
• Aurelius, M. (c. 161-180). Meditations.
• Nietzsche, F. (1882–1885). The Gay Science, Thus Spoke Zarathustra, and other works.
• Camus, A. (1942). The Myth of Sisyphus.
• Sartre, J.-P. (1943). Being and Nothingness.
• Frankl, V. E. (1946). Man’s Search for Meaning.
• Fry, S. Great Mythology Series: Mythos (2017), Heroes (2018), Troy (2020), Odyssey (2024).

Recommended listening

• Christopher Tin, The Fall (To Shiver the Sky, 2020).

Glossary of terms