Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.12

How quickly all things disappear, in the Universe the bodies themselves, but in time the remembrance of them. What the nature is of all sensible things, and particularly those that attract with the bait of pleasure or terrify by pain, or are noised abroad by vapory fame. How worthless, and contemptible, and sordid, and perishable, and dead they are—all of this it is the part of the intellectual faculty to observe.

To observe too, who these are whose opinions and voices give reputation. What death is, and the fact that, if a man looks at it in itself, and by the abstractive power of reflection resolves into their parts all the things which present themselves to the imagination in it, he will then consider it to be nothing else than an operation of Nature; and if any one is afraid of an operation of Nature, he is a child. This, however, is not only an operation of Nature, but it is also a thing that conduces to the purposes of Nature.

To observe too, how man comes near to the Deity, and by what part of him, and when this part of man is so disposed.

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

Marcus Aurelius has a powerful, and somewhat disconcerting way, of indicating how weak and fragile so many of the things we care about really are. I hardly think he does so to shock or disturb, but rather hopes that we can move beyond a shallow life of impressions to the deeper insights of the mind. Discern everything that is beastly about you, and you will also come to reveal what is divine about you.

Material things, and all the elaborate ways we have of acquiring and keeping hold of them, will fail and decay, and our efforts will have been in vain. There was nothing lasting and noble in grasping for disposable playthings.

We cling to memory, but it is flighty and elusive. We almost immediately recall things not as they were, but as we wished them to be, and then even the illusion fades. Think of how often we say we will never forget, and then absolutely no one remembers.

Pleasure and pain are hardly things that decide how well we live, but we allow their coming and going to rule and determine us. We are frantic to embrace one and flee from the other, forgetting that they are in and of themselves empty.

Fame is even more fickle, because it doesn’t even take much time for favors and preferences to vanish. Yet many of us dedicate complete plans of life to the vanity of being admired and praised.

We are so terrified by death that we will go to any lengths to avoid it, or we will ignore its reality completely and hope it will simply go away. We are only acting on the force of impressions, and not reflecting on its meaning.

Birth and death, beginnings and endings, are a necessary part of the order of Nature, because it is through the joining and dividing of all the parts that the whole is made complete. If I have a part in the production of great play, why should I feel fear or resentment when all my lines have been delivered?

Now such thoughts about what is passing in life will only seem depressing if we stubbornly cling to the transient, and can find nothing else to take its place. I can choose to look beyond the immediate appearance of how something feels, to the lasting purpose of what it means. It is the right exercise of the mind that can make this possible. Because the mind rises above the limits of the body, it is also what is most godlike within us. 

Written in 8/2004

Image: Philippe de Champaigne, Vanitas (c. 1671)

Three unavoidable things: life, death, and time.