Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.36

Willingly give thyself up to Clotho, one of the Fates, allowing her to spin your thread into whatever things she pleases.

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

Marcus Aurelius has already employed the symbol of the thread of life, and here he makes a more specific reference to the Fates, the goddesses of destiny. Clotho spins the thread, Lachesis measures it, and Atropos cuts it.

There does not need to be any terror or despair in considering the concept of fate, because the Stoic understands that what makes life worth living isn’t really determined by externals at all. I might worry that willfully giving myself to destiny is a complete surrender of everything I am, but it is rather an acceptance of the conditions out of which I will determine who I am. It isn’t giving up my will, but being grateful for the tools my will can employ.

Clotho crafts the very fiber out of which I am made, and in doing so she represents all the circumstances of life that I am given. Such things are outside of my power, and while they may seem to be so much of what defines me, what will matter is what is fully within my power, my own choices and actions.

I had a rather Stoic moment about freedom and fate long before I even knew what Stoicism was. In my elementary school library, I was leafing through a book about gangsters, and as I turned the page, there was a striking image of the victims of the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre. A real scene of death was far more frightening than anything I’d seen in the movies.

I noticed how they were all wearing nice suits, and one fellow had a sand-colored fedora perched on his chest. For some reason, I suddenly wondered what these men were thinking when they got dressed that morning, and whether it could possibly have occurred to them that this was the last time they would ever do so.

My reflection arose not from heartlessness, but from a certain sympathy. They may have been hardened criminals, but they were still people like everyone else, and something like this could happen to anyone. If life was that precarious, and even the immediate future so unknown to us, what could ever be reliable?

As my own life unfolded, many things seemed routine, but there were also these sudden explosions of completely unexpected events. I would look back at them in shock, and tell myself, “If I had only known!” I would sometimes remember that photograph.

But it wasn’t my place to know, just as it wasn’t my place to decide what would happen to me. That had already been set by other causes. The only comfort I could ever find was remembering that it was still up to me how I chose to think and live, at any given moment, regardless of any of the circumstances.

Let the thread be spun, measured, and cut however it may, but I can still be myself.

Written in 11/2005

Image: The St. Valentine's Day Massacre, February 14, 1929