/lit/ - Literature

This was psych rather than lit or philosophy.

When I was still a naive youth I took a Women's Psychology course. I thought it would help me better understand the inner workings of women, which I suppose it did in a way.
Almost all the course work was based off a somewhat famous meta study by I believe Janet Shibley. She concluded that there's essentially no difference between the sexes other than throwing speed and other minute physical characteristics.
Towards the end of the semester the class was broken into groups and told to research and present a topic related to female psychology.
Most of the topics presented were just feminist topics. One was "Is Beyonce a Feminist Icon?" About half way through the presentation one of the presenters began to cry and started talking about some pervasive bullying and "mean girl" conduct that pervaded the classroom, I assume due to an audience member making a nasty face or something. This started a chain reaction till around half the room was crying (big class with many students), including the professor, who spoke to the class about this underlying negative current that had been going on all semester, and how women have to be supportive of each other, etc. I guess everyone made up because after a few more tears and eventual smiles they continued their presentation.
An expensive life lesson I suppose.

I think Aurelius spoke of Jupiter granting man the gift of reason so that man can realize and hone the notion of not being emotionally invested in external influences. In other words reason allows man to avoid suffering.
So despite the suffering of the world you still have the potential to not invest yourself in bullshit and thus not be fucked up yourself.
I believe the stoics sought personal harmony over happiness. You can still attempt to fix "shit being fucked" in your external world, just don't be emotionally hooked on the outcome and you can maintain harmony.