Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 3.3

Hippocrates, after curing many diseases, himself fell sick and died. The Chaldean soothsayers foretold the deaths of many, and then fate caught them too. Alexander, and Pompey, and Caesar, after so often completely destroying whole cities, and in battle cutting to pieces many ten thousands of cavalry and infantry, themselves too at last departed from life. Heraclitus, after so many speculations on the conflagration of the universe, was filled with water internally and died smeared all over with mud. And lice destroyed Democritus, and other lice killed Socrates.

What does all this mean? You have embarked, you have made the voyage, and you have now come to the shore. Get out.

If indeed to another life, there is no want of gods, not even there. But if to a state without sensation, you will cease to be held by pains and pleasures, and to be a slave to the vessel, which is as much inferior as that which serves it is superior: for the one is intelligence and deity, while the other is earth and corruption.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 3 (tr Long)

I was once told that young people behaved like fools because they didn’t fear death enough, and that old people behaved like fools because they feared it too much. Though I will sometimes get funny looks for saying it, I’ve always thought that Stoicism has a very healthy sense of life and death, one that finds the balance between the vain pride of assuming I am immortal on the one hand, and the morbid horror of dancing with the reaper on the other.

I should hardly fear either living or dying, because each gives a necessary context for the other. Beginnings, middles, and endings ought to proceed naturally into one another. If I have lived well I should be quite glad to die well, and only if I have lived poorly will I shudder at the prospect of dying poorly.

I am well advised to always have my kit packed and ready at a moment’s notice. If I don’t feel ready to disembark from the ship to the shore, maybe I am afraid that I squandered the voyage.

I have my own thoughts on the question of life after death, but I make it a point not to bore others with the details of those musings. I also deliberately bracket the question for myself in a very practical sense, in that I try to live in a way where it would make no difference whether or not I will go on to another existence. I do this not because I think the question unimportant, but rather because it helps me to consider doing good for its own sake, and not merely for the promise of some later reward.

I see something similar in what Marcus Aurelius has to say here, which in turn mirrors the words of Socrates at the end of Plato’s Apology. If there is indeed another life, one where my individual awareness will continue, then I can see this as a way to continue to live closer to what is Divine. If there is no life beyond this one, and my individual awareness will cease, I will no longer be troubled by the weakness of the body, and in that way too I will be closer to what is Divine.

I should never worry myself about death, because whether it is followed by something or by nothing, it can always remind me of the importance of living well. 

Written in 10/2004

Image: Adriaen van Utrecht, Vanitas—Still Life with Bouquet and Skull (1642)