"Smoke and ash and a tale."

"Constantly bring to your recollection those who have complained greatly about anything, those who have been most conspicuous by the greatest fame or misfortunes, or enmities or fortunes of any kind.

"Then think, where are they all now? Smoke and ash and a tale, or not even a tale.

"And let there be present to your mind also everything of this sort, how Fabius Catellinus lived in the country, and Lucius Lupus in his gardens, and Stertinius at Briae, and Tiberius at Capreae, and Rufus at Velia; and think of the eager pursuit of anything conjoined with pride; and how worthless everything is after which men violently strain; and how much more philosophical it is for a man in the opportunities presented to him to show himself just, temperate, obedient to the gods, and to do this with all simplicity: for the pride which is proud of its want of pride is the most intolerable of all."

--Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12 (tr Long)

I am at my worst when I complain, and there's a perfectly good reason for that. It shows me that I care about my fortune more than I care about my character.

It need not even be complaining, as bragging is an equal indication of my dependence. Whether it be good or band fortune, my words and actions tell me that I have defined myself by lies.

I have often worried if there would be anything left of me when I was gone, perhaps a legacy, or at least a memory in the minds of others. I can try to build the fine tale, and I might keep it going for a generation or two, but in the end it will all be smoke and ash. We will all end up in exactly the same place.

I directly experienced the goodness of many in my family, something I felt should endure forever, but I will most likely be the last to remember any of it.  And that is right and proper, because the measure of any person isn't whether or not he is remembered, but whether or not he lived with virtue while he lived.

In my High School and College years, I would often take walks in our local cemetery, just a few blocks from my family home. My sense of peace didn't just come from the silence, and it never had anything to do with morbidity. I would find great solace in simply reading the inscriptions on gravestones, and realizing that all of these people, no different than myself, had lived, loved, lost, and struggled.

Some were buried in ornate graves, others with the simplest of markers. But each and every one told a story about a life, a life that was special and worth living. Many of these graves were a hundred or more years old. I doubt anyone ever came to see them anymore, but that did not make those lives any less valuable and precious.

There was one that always moved me deeply. There were three headstones, from the late 1800's. The first was for a teenage girl, who had drowned at Cape Cod. The second was for her brother, who had died stillborn two years after his sister's death. The third was for the mother, who had died in childbirth at the same time. There was no marker for the father, and I always wondered what became of him.

One need not feel dark or depressed to remember that all the things we worry about are nothing but smoke, ash, and a tale.  Quite the contrary, I take hold of these things to remind me of what truly matters. While I am still here, I am made to love, to show fairness, to give wherever these is a need for giving.

It matters nothing whether I am recognized, now or in the future. The happiness is in the doing itself. The desire for esteem is the pride of wanting pride.

Written on 1/12/1997

Image: Jan van Bronchorst, Fame (1656)