Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 2.7

Do the things external that fall upon you distract you? Give yourself time to learn something new and good, and cease to be whirled around.

But then you must also avoid being carried about the other way. For those too are triflers, who have wearied themselves in life by their activity, and yet they have no object to which to direct every movement, and, in a word, all of their thoughts.

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

If I am to worry less about what is outside of me, I must be certain to have something worth caring about inside of me.

It is never enough to tell myself that I must not be distracted by all the lesser things, when I have hardly paid any attention to nurturing the greater things. Stoicism is not about being a bump on a log, because life is itself defined by action; it is the end toward which all that action is ordered that will make all the difference.

Years ago, I enjoyed the company of one of the most charming old hippies I have ever met. When people asked him if he’d been at Woodstock, he would reply that he never thought music was about making more money for shady promoters. He had such a wonderful way of always sticking it to the man, of calling out greed, consumerism, and the decadence that is our entitled modernity.

As I got to know him, and I learned about all the things he thought didn’t really matter, including sucking up to your boss, mortgages, neckties, and working in very tall buildings, I asked him what he actually thought did matter. I was waiting for an epiphany.

He shrugged. “None of it matters,” he said softly. I loved this man, and though I have long lost touch with him, I still love him. Yet for that very brief moment, I saw something inside of him he had never revealed to me before. He knew exactly the things Nature asked him to avoid, the shallowness of wealth, power, deceit, and arrogance, but he had no idea what to put in its place. For all of his exuberance and wit, he seemed quite adrift.

We would share Turkish coffee and cigarettes together at a local folk music club, and one day he just got up and told us he was moving on. “Don’t write,” he said, “because you won’t know where to find me.” The last memory I have of him is the sound of his old pale green Datsun backfiring.

I think of that man quite often, because I hope he found the peace and purpose every one of us deserves. When I first read this passage from Marcus Aurelius, he immediately came to mind. I was also the sort of fellow who first knew what to stay clear of, without also finding something to be dedicated to.

I would lie awake at night, thinking about finding someone who would choose to love me with complete dedication, about discovering friends who appreciated me for my own sake, about having my music, my writing, and my thoughts respected. I always hoped that I could make a living from doing what I loved.

I now see how all of those dreams were about what I wanted to happen to me, and not about the merit of what I did. Change the wording ever so slightly, and you can change the meaning quite drastically.

I would probably never make a living from doing what I loved, because most people will only pay you for what they want, not for what you want. Instead, I could make a life doing what I loved. Making a living and making a life are very different things.

Stay clear of what will harm you, but most importantly stay close to what will heal you. Define yourself by what you are, not by what you aren’t. Find joy in the greatness of what you may choose to do, not grief in the frustration of what others might do to you.

Written in 7/2004