Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.11

Since it is possible that you may depart from life this very moment, regulate every act and thought accordingly.

But to depart from among men, if there are gods, is not a thing to be afraid of, for the gods will not involve you in evil; but if indeed they do not exist, or if they have no concern about human affairs, why would I wish to live in a universe devoid of gods or devoid of Providence?

But in truth they do exist, and they do care for human things, and they have put all the means in man's power to enable him not to fall into real evils. And as to the rest, if there were anything evil, they would have provided for this also, that it should be altogether in a man's power not to fall into it.

Now that which does not make a man worse, how can it make a man's life worse? But neither through ignorance, nor having the knowledge but not the power to guard against or correct these things, is it possible that the Nature of the Universe has overlooked them; nor is it possible that it has made so great a mistake, either through want of power or want of skill, that good and evil should happen indiscriminately to the good and the bad.

But death certainly, and life, honor and dishonor, pain and pleasure, all these things equally happen to good men and bad men alike, being things which make us neither better nor worse. Therefore they are neither good nor evil.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 2 (tr Long)

There is no reason to fear death if Providence rules the Universe, and there is no reason to desire life if Providence has no power.

I unfortunately have little patience for what I call “Hipster Stoicism”, a smug stress on self-reliance, an insistence on all of the lower bits, at the expense of the Providential order of Nature, a neglect of all of the higher bits. It is hardly my place to tell another how to think and live, but I do wonder how such an interpretation differs in any way from post-modern atheistic existentialism.

All the great Stoics had a trust in the power of the Divine, and they did not think of themselves in isolation, or surrounded by randomness. They understood their own power as a part of Nature, and as part of a whole ordered by design and purpose. Their own judgments and actions only made sense within that greater context.

Perhaps Providence has blundered, or missed something, or is prone to weakness, or is indifferent? I would only think this if I were applying my own limitations to what is by definition without limit. These are all aspects of imperfection, but what is absolute, the fullness of all the things that exist, will quite literally lack in nothing, and must of necessity be perfect. I may well forget about Providence, but Providence does not forget about me.

If the Divine indeed gives complete meaning to everything around me, I should never worry about how it will all end for me. If there were nothing Divine in the Universe, I would hardly care if it ends right now for me. I will find no peace in a world where the only satisfaction is the struggle to exercise my own selfish desires. Stoicism is not a trendy accessory to egoism.

Whatever happens to me, however gratifying or disturbing, has happened for a reason. God does not play dice with the Universe. Whatever the degree of it, we will all experience pleasure and pain, gain and loss, triumph and failure. None of these things are good or bad in themselves, but are only as good or bad as we choose to make them. The harmony within Nature makes it possible for us to find benefit from any circumstance.

Providence makes no mistakes. I am the one who makes the mistakes, whenever I fail to listen to what She teaches me. 

Written in 4/2014