I have occasionally listed Stoicism, Epicureanism, Buddhism, Freud, Schopenhauer, and Thoreau as the primary influences on my philosophy. I would like to admit here that I am not an expert on any of those sources, and explain that I don't agree with any of them 100%. It would be more accurate to say that I have taken basic kernels of wisdom from each of them and blended them together to form my own philosophy.
I would say that I am most influenced by Stoicism and Epicureanism, two ancient Greek philosophies that were generally opposed to each other. I think of them as kind of like brothers, in that when you compare them to each other you mainly see their differences, but when you compare them to other philosophies you tend to notice their similarities. I tend to waiver between the two, though over time I've been leaning more toward Stoicism. From Stoicism I get the concept of Apatheia (without passion), the idea that we must learn to accept things which are beyond our control because our emotional reactions to events generally cause us more suffering than the events themselves. From Epicureanism comes the idea that we must learn to choose our pleasures wisely. Epicurus warned against letting ourselves become accustomed to certain pleasures, because we may feel resentment later when we are no longer able to enjoy them. My inclination towardisolation also comes, in part, from Epicureanism.
I especially do not claim to be an expert on Freud, but his basic model of the human psyche (the conflict between the id, the ego, and the superego) has been a major influence on my thinking. It helps me to understand human nature more than anything else I've encountered. Also, his idea that we have two basic instincts (the life instinct which Freud himself labeled as Eros, and the death instinct which his followers labeled as Thanatos) from which spring all of our desires. However, I don't view those instincts in exactly the same way that Freud and his followers did, especially Thanatos. I tend to define them more like the Buddhist definitions of the different types of tanha.
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