The
words which were formerly familiar are now antiquated.
So
also the names of those who were famed of old, are now in a
manner antiquated, Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Leonnatus, and a
little after also Scipio and Cato, then Augustus, then also
Hadrian and Antoninus.
For
all things soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete
oblivion soon buries them. And I say this of those who have
shone in a wondrous way. For the rest, as soon as they have
breathed out their breath, they are gone, and no man speaks of
them.
What
then is that about which we ought to employ our serious pains?
This one thing, just thoughts, and social acts, and words which never
lie, and a disposition which gladly accepts all that happens, as necessary,
as usual, as flowing from a principle and source of the same kind.
—Marcus
Aurelius, Meditations, Book 4 (tr
Long)
I
am still a man in middle age, and I already feel like people use different
words, or the same words with rather different meanings, than they did only a
few decades ago. This is not necessarily a bad thing, but simply a sign
of how our human circumstances are always in a state of flux. I can choose to
understand these differences, and I can then dedicate myself not just to the
meanings of words, but also to the meaning of the Nature behind all of those
words.
Most of
my students struggle to make sense of Wordsworth or Shakespeare, and one
frustrated young fellow told me he felt like the characters in a Twain or
Dickens novel were speaking in a different language. I often confuse them even
more when I offer anything by Chaucer, and the Old English of Beowulf seems no different to them than
Greek. I can hardly blame them.
The
names and reputations of those once considered the great men and women of
history are no different. I was still given a certain Classical framework in my
youth, though that was already quite rare, so every one of the names Marcus
Aurelius lists means something to me. Now, I wouldn’t be surprised if only one
of those names, Augustus, was even vaguely recognized.
Cato,
who? I would ask if we mean the Elder or the Younger, but it is now the name of
a women’s fashion retailer.
As I
have grown closer to Stoicism, I have increasingly thought that there is no
point in teaching the words and names, the places and events, of the past as things
to be memorized just for their own sake. We lose our awareness of them once we
have filled out the worksheet or taken the test.
Instead,
I ask what the thoughts, words, and deeds of any time or place can tell us
about human nature as a whole, about the order of Nature of which we are a
part, and of the Logos that gives Nature
that order. Those are, I believe, the principles that truly matter. Words and
names are only as good as the reality they help us to comprehend.
On a
moral and personal level, this also helps me remember that status and fame will
always come and go, and are useless indicators of any lasting value. I don’t even
need to have a Classical education to see that. I can look over the Billboard Charts since they were started
in 1936 to see the vanity of recognition.
Most of
us are hardly given a second glance even right now, though some of us may be
esteemed for a time while we live, about outside qualities that have little to
do with who we are on the inside. Only a very few of us will ever be thought of
again once we’ve been put back into the ground, and those legends die perhaps a
bit more slowly, even as the stories about us are far removed from who we
actually were.
Again,
this is not necessarily a bad thing. It can be a moment of enlightenment and
relief. My name doesn’t matter one bit, even if, by some strange fluke of
history, I happened to become one of those folks respected later on for
something I may or may not have done. The enlightenment and relief come from
allowing me to live well for its own sake, and for absolutely nothing else.
I should
think good thoughts, act with love, and respect everything in the world for
what it is, by means of the only thing within my power, my own character, and
within the only moment I have within my power, the right here and now.
Written in 11/2005
Image: Pieter Bruegel the Elder, The Tower of Babel (c. 1563)
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