u/_jay_fox_

I've been learning about ancient Greek philosophy (such as Socrates, Plato, Aristotle) through whatever sources I can find.

These are typically sources from the last 100 years or so, such as modern university courses, online lectures, interviews / podcasts with various credentialed experts on YouTube and books by authors such as A. C. Grayling, Bertrand Russell and Martha Nussbaum.

I tried to be fairly diverse in who I read and listen to – I try to get opinions from a variety of genders, ethnicities, economic backgrounds, schools of thought, etc.

I think the above represents a pretty wide sample of opinions and is actually quite well rounded.

However there is one thing all these people have in common: they were all born within the last ~100 years.

Does the modern west properly understand ancient philosophers and philosophies?

Might there be various blind-spots and biases embedded in the modern understanding of these philosophies? For example: political, ideological or maybe "recency bias" (focussing too much on recently relevant issues and not enough on what might have been relevant to the ancients in their own contexts)?

I don't want to shoot for being wealthy or even upper middle class. I just can't justify sacrificing additional years of toil to achieve Fat FIRE when there is so much more to life and so many uncertainties.

At the same time I don't want to take the Lean FIRE route and be ultra frugal to the point of having to live in rough neighbourhoods or rent a tiny room crammed in with 5 other people in a share house.

I don't want to be a big winner or a big loser, just somewhere in a comfortable middle zone.

I guess I just want a "normal" lifestyle with the balance tilted toward leisure and away from hard work. A life where I can live like a typical person in my location, cook a nice dinner every evening and chill.

Anyone else feel similarly?