Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.31

If he is a stranger to the Universe who does not know what is in it, no less is he a stranger who does not know what is going on in it.

He is a runaway, who flies from social reason. He is blind, who shuts the eyes of the understanding. He is poor, who has need of another, and has not from himself all things that are useful for life.

He is an abscess on the Universe who withdraws and separates himself from the reason of our common Nature, through being displeased with the things that happen, for the same Nature produces this, and has produced you as well.

He is a piece rent asunder from the state, who tears his own soul from that of reasonable animals, which is one.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr Long)

We are right to pride ourselves on all the ways modern science has taught us more and more about how the Universe works, and though I have never been terribly gifted in the natural sciences, I try to go out of my way to keep up with all the most recent observations and theories. They always leave me with a sense of awe and wonder.

At the same time, I notice how often the depth of our knowledge, and the rapid growth in the technology that comes with it, are in stark contrast to what I can only call a personal alienation from Nature. Please forgive my poetic side, but I feel it in the air. Too many of us are no longer tied to a sense of all the beauty and harmony in the way things work together. We isolate ourselves from the changes of the seasons, from the wide diversity of life we are a part of, and we stare mindlessly at the steel and concrete we have cobbled together around us, far too rarely with appreciation at the firmament above us.

We also grow cold and distant from one another. We are tied together all the more by new means of communication, but we are increasingly separated in our hearts and minds. Images abound, but understanding is too often absent. Utility overpowers human concern. What should be community gives way to loneliness. We are crammed closer and closer together, but all of us in our own little isolated corners.

The Police, one of the old greats, said it well:

Another working day has ended,

Only the rush hour hell to face.

Packed like lemmings into shiny metal boxes,

Contestants in a suicidal race.

Though I may perceive it so prevalently in our days and age, such a separation is hardly anything new. Marcus Aurelius noted centuries ago how we alienate ourselves when we abandon reason, and we thereby cut ourselves off from the harmony of Nature and from our social bonds with other people.

I have been a stranger to life and an abscess on the Universe most when I do exactly what the Philosopher-Emperor describes. Instead of taking responsibility for myself, I will try to cast blame outwards. Instead of trying to live well through my own power, in harmony with all other things, I will try to make good living something that I expect to be given to me. All the recriminations, and all the resentment, lead only to discord. I have torn myself away from unity.

Surely, I wasn’t the only stubborn child who would try to hold his breath until he was given exactly what he wanted? Our adult version is more refined, but no less ridiculous.

If I am unhappy with the state of affairs, I can do one of two things. I can vainly try to make the world fit my demands, or I can wisely adapt my own action to becoming better. I can only be a good influence on others when I have mastered myself. I can work with Nature, and with my neighbors, or I can work against them. Either way, Providence will unfold as it should, though I will make myself happy or miserable by my cooperation or my arrogance.

Written in 10/2005