> he mostly wrote what he thought of as ideal and how we would like to see himself, but often failed to apply it in practice

Yes, most Stoic thought is about attempting to do your best to attain the ideals, not that you'll suddenly perfectly attain them.

Sort of like how meditation has the common misconception that you're doing it wrong if your thoughts wander. No, the point is acknowledge the wandering, bring your thoughts back to your breath, and keep trying.

Also, reading through that undergrad student's critique, I disagree with many of them characterizing his words as contradictions. I don't think many strong arguments were made that he was being very contradicting. One of them implies he was being contradictory by making humanitarian laws benefiting children. Because he had lost many children, and wrote that only "right and reason" should guide you, not the loss of a child. Like it couldn't be that the humanitarian laws were due to "right and reason" as opposed to emotion from losing his kids.

He was a complicated man. On the one hand, he liked to sleep on the floor without finery, and had to be told to stop because he's the Emperor. On the other hand, he basically waged a war of genocide against the German tribes. He clearly took personal development really seriously, but, like... genocide.

I've read him extensively and multiple translations. Your original post is strongly stoic, although the "tune out to it all and just live a good life" is a bit more Epicurean[0].

Stoicism is not about being a neutral perfectly calm emotionless robot. Stoicism is recognizing that you ultimately can't control the world, you can just control your (re)actions. The entire ethical system stems from that realization. Death or dying isn't "bad", it's just "not preferred", because the only good and bad things centre around things you can control. Everything else is just life. Roll with it.

(Personally, I'm with you though. I've learnt to eschew the labels and just lead a common sense life; but I do pick and choose from the valuable ethical systems over time.)

[0] https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/epicurus/