Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.34

Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. You will see all these things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for some to die, grumbling about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring consulship, kingly power. Well then, that life of these people no longer exists at all.

Again, remove to the times of Trajan. Again, all is the same. Their life too is gone. In like manner view also the other epochs of time and of whole nations, and see how many after great efforts soon fell and were resolved into the elements.

But chiefly you should think of those whom you have yourself known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what was in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to this and to be content with it.

And herein it is necessary to remember that the attention given to everything has its proper value and proportion. For thus you will not be dissatisfied, if you apply yourself to smaller matters no further than is fit.

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

Few things are as helpful for overcoming our vanities than seeing how passing their true nature is. Time can often give us a new perspective on what we thought was so terribly important, impossible to ignore, or absolutely necessary to address above all else. In the heat of the moment, our priorities can be quite scrambled, because we are acting on the magnitude of how something feels to us then and there, not on what it is in itself.

It is when the force of impressions has faded that things are once again revealed in their proper proportion. Shadows often make things look more frightening than they really are, and clever staging often makes things look more desirable than they really are.

An old saying has it that if I don’t like the weather, I should just wait a minute. Much the same applies to making decisions in the face of certain appearances and circumstances, and the habit of thinking in a bigger context is the key to not confusing greater and lesser goods.

History, of course, is full of such lessons. People spent so much of their energy worried about the most shallow and petty things, none of which offered any peace or contentment then and there, and then they were gone.

I spent much of my childhood surrounded by history, and sometimes I felt a bit overwhelmed by it all, but it always helped me to reflect on distinguishing the things that were temporary or lasting. If my family passed an important monument, grave, or portrait, my mother would often repeat a very Austrian sort of phrase, roughly translated as “Well, his old bones aren’t hurting him anymore!” There was a good bit of sympathy in those words, and then a bit more of a friendly reminder that nothing really stays the same.

One of my own versions has long involved observing how a street or a neighborhood will change, and how what I assumed was an immovable landmark of life might disappear at the moment I look the other way.

An old friend would regularly watch as many of the weekday afternoon soap operas as she possibly could, even if they were just on in the background. This hardly seemed to fit her personality at all, and I had to ask why she found them appealing.

“The stories are ridiculous, the characters are selfish and arrogant, and the stakes are all about useless things,” she said. “I like to be reminded about how not to live, and how much worse my own life could be.”

Well, that actually seems quite sensible. Seeing how people sadly waste their dignity on diversions can soberly remind me to do a better job of ordering my own attention.

Written in 11/2005

Image: Funerary Relief, Syrian (c. 2nd-3rd century AD)