Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.35

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.

And, to conclude the matter, what is even an eternal remembrance? A mere nothing.

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)