Have
you seen those things? Look also at these. Do not disturb yourself.
Make yourself all simplicity.
Does
any one do wrong? It is to himself that he does the wrong.
Has
anything happened to you? Well, out of the Universe from the beginning
everything that happens has been apportioned and spun out to you.
In
a word, your life is short. You must turn to profit the present by the aid of
reason and justice. Be sober in your relaxation.
—Marcus
Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr
Long)
The
Stoic life is simple, because it asks me only for what is necessary, and it
asks me not to worry myself about anything unnecessary. I have only the responsibility
to care for my own character, and this is always within my reach. Anything good
in how I live, or in what I achieve, or how I might improve the world, flows
only from this. Other things will be as they may, and I should be content to
ask myself only how I must change myself in relation to them.
I return
quite regularly to the Platonic version of this rule, equally direct and
straightforward. Justice is minding my own business. I will only get myself
into trouble when I impose my preferences where they don’t really belong.
This
distinction, between the things within my power and the things beyond my power,
is indeed simple, and it would also seem to be easy to pursue, at least in and
of itself. But not all simple things are necessarily easy things, and I suspect
this is precisely because I can’t help but muddle up that very simplicity.
Somehow my influences and habits want to add what is extraneous, thereby making
it all the more complex, and so I also only make it harder for myself.
The
Stoic life does not become difficult from what it asks of me, but because I am
still drawn to all the things it doesn’t ask of me. What I shouldn’t be doing
gets in the way of what I should be doing.
I may,
for example, commit myself to keeping my thinking in harmony with Nature, and
seeking to act only in such a way that it improves the virtue within me. Still,
I am so used to being a busybody, to feeling important, and I see most all the
other folks also rushing about, trying to become masters of their
circumstances.
So I somehow
know I need to be a good man, but I start adding all other sorts of goals, and
I begin including all other sorts of schemes. Suddenly, I’m no longer just
asking how to live well, but how to also become successful, rich, powerful, and
esteemed. I no longer look at my neighbor and ask how I can show him justice,
but I consider how I can gain leverage over him, and how to make him a means
for getting me what I want.
I’ve now
made it harder for myself, once I try to rule over things I have no place to
rule. I have also made myself anxious, distracted, and frustrated by all these
false idols. I am assuming I need more to be happy, but I have only made myself
more miserable.
Has
another tried to hurt me? I should only remove the judgment of being hurt. He
has acted for his own reasons, and he has really only hurt himself through his
vice. I can act for my own reasons, and benefit myself through my virtue.
Has the
world gone in a way that disturbs me? I should only remove the judgment of
being disturbed. It is what it is for its own reasons in the order of all
things together. I am what I am for my own reasons within that same order.
Without
a sense of sober relaxation in my living, I should recognize I am doing
something wrong.
Written in 10/2005
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