At first glance, Jerry Seinfeld doesn’t look or act like a Stoic. His stand-up routine is emotive and stacked with complaints, his car collection¹ is in triple figures and his net worth is over a billion dollars². Isn’t Stoicism about sleeping on the ground and walking around in rags?

But if we compare Jerry with Marcus Aurelius, the most famous stoic and the ideas from Meditations, the results might surprise you. Here’s five things a comedian and an emperor have in common.

Jerry Seinfeld & Marcus Aurelius don’t really care about money

“I like money, but it’s never been about the money.” – Jerry Seinfeld

The Stoics famously did not value external, material stuff. Like Buddhists, they believed attachments to job titles, bank statements and big houses tended to make one unhappy in the long run. But that didn’t mean you couldn’t be rich. When we look at the two men who best exemplified Stoic philosophy, one was a Roman Emperor (Marcus) and the other was a slave (Epictetus). A philosophy doesn’t care about where you currently sit in the social hierarchy. And stoicism simply cares about doing a good job. If you’re a slave, be a good slave. If you’re the king, be a good king. We could even argue that it was more difficult for Marcus to be a stoic considering all the temptations and power that was at his disposal.

Jerry Seinfeld and Marcus Aurelius are cool with death

I don’t think for a second that it will ever mean anything to anyone ten days after I’m dead.. – Jerry Seinfeld

In an interview with Barri Weiss, Jerry is asked about his age. Rather than looking wistfully back on his life, or positively toward the future, he gives an unusual answer. “I’m almost 70, I’m dead. I could die and it’s fine.”³ And why should he worry? Marcus had the German hordes at the border, but if they were to win, he had no reason to feel bad about it. He did all he could do. If Jerry was to die tomorrow, he would leave his family behind but he won’t feel guilty: “I did great by my kids. I was a good dad. They feel loved. So… we’re cool.”⁴

Jerry Seinfeld and Marcus Aurelius are lone wolves

There is nowhere that a person can find a more peaceful and trouble-free retreat than in his own mind. – Marcus Aurelius

No one was meant to read Meditations. Marcus wrote it to himself, and in many ways he had no one to write to, because he had no equals. And who is really equal to Jerry? All Marcus wants to do is to live a good, philosophical life, but he needs to lead an empire. There’s an endless queue of ‘meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous’⁵ people knocking on his door asking him for stuff. And all Jerry wants to do is to craft jokes which he likens to calligraphy or doing lego⁶. He agrees that being a comedian (especially the richest and most famous comedian) is a ‘lone wolf racket’ and that he’s ‘only really comfortable with another standup comedian, or alone.’

Jerry Seinfeld and Marcus Aurelius are not your friend

There’s no one opinion that has any value. – Jerry Seinfeld.

Many people admire the Stoics. They look up to them and wish to be like them. They own heavily underlined copies of Meditations on their bookshelves. But what would Marcus Aurelius really think of you? Michael Sugrue, a former Princeton professor, doesn’t think you’d like the answer. “You wouldn’t want to work for this guy… He’s never going to be satisfied. And if he is.. he’s never going to give you applause. He’s going to say, you’re doing what you ought to do. You’re living like a philosophical man, which is reward in itself. You’re virtuous, what do you want from me? Back to work.”⁷ Tough stuff. Jerry also doesn’t really care what you think of him. “If you’re built right as a standup comic, you don’t give a flying fuck whatever thinks of (you)…I’m doing this job, I’m getting the money and I’m getting the hell out of here.”⁸ If you don’t like the joke, he’s not surprised. “Why would I think that I’m going to make something everyone will like?” What’s unnerving about these attitudes is that even though they sound a bit unpleasant, it’s hard to find ‘the slightest taint of hypocrisy.’⁹

Jerry Seinfeld and Marcus Aurelius know you better than you know yourself

Meditations is a ‘dreadful, powerful, caustic analysis of (Marcus) and others.’ ¹⁰When you read it, you’re shot in the face with a barrage of truth bullets. How can you argue with a line like “human lives are brief and trivial. Yesterday a blob of semen; tomorrow embalming fluid, ash.”?¹¹ Isn’t it the same feeling when you hear a good joke? A good comedian will make you laugh, but is also able to “see through the surface of life itself.”¹² A stand-up set and a chapter of Meditations are like acid that bubbles and boils through all cliches, habits, beliefs and language. Jerry continues, “if you could hear some of the conversations that comedians have you would feel like you took the most cleansing rain shower of your life… it is so peeled away of the surfaces and the gauzy phony planes of existence that most people deal with.” ¹³

We’re quick to judge what a stoic should look like. Ryan Holiday has certainly popularized a certain brand of discipline and hyper productivity. But strong philosophic ideas, Stoic or otherwise, stand outside our beliefs and preferences. And we can thank comedians and stoics alike for seeing us for what we really are and giving us the gift of perspective, neatly packaged in wise epitaphs and one liners.

1. Inside Jerry Seinfeld’s car collection ↩︎
2. ‘Get Out!’: Jerry Seinfeld Is a Billionaire ↩︎
3. Jerry Seinfeld on the Rules of Comedy—and Life ↩︎
4. Jerry Seinfeld on the Rules of Comedy—and Life ↩︎
5. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, translated by Gregory Hays, Modern Library, 2002. ↩︎
6. The Scholar of Comedy (New Yorker) ↩︎
7. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: The Stoic Ideal ↩︎
8. Jerry Seinfeld on the Rules of Comedy—and Life ↩︎
9. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: The Stoic Ideal ↩︎
10. Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations: The Stoic Ideal ↩︎
11. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, translated by Gregory Hays, Modern Library, 2002. ↩︎
12. Jerry Seinfeld on the Rules of Comedy—and Life ↩︎
13. Jerry Seinfeld on the Rules of Comedy—and Life ↩︎