Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 4.38

Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom yourself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them.

For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which will be.

But you are thinking only of seeds that are cast into the earth, or into a womb; but this is a very vulgar notion.

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

I have quite a few weaknesses of disposition and character, and one of my greatest is surely my sense of nostalgia. I like things the way I remember them, at some ideal moment in my mind. Change will therefore often frustrate me.

I accordingly need to remind myself every day that it is never best for anything to be preserved in some static state. Transformation is never the destruction of something, but the beginning of something else, and the order of change is precisely how being expresses itself most fully.

Everything is a seed for something else, and not just in the narrow sense of how living things reproduce. Each circumstance, relation, or state of affairs is, in turn, the grounds out of which all things are renewed. It helps me to think of the stages of change itself as harmonious and beautiful, where existence is actualized and perfected in becoming.

Whether I may find anything pleasant or painful, I need to look at it from the side of its own purpose. It was something different, it is even now being altered, and it will soon be something else. It is right and good that the Universe is constantly active, and not merely passive. After all, it would hardly be much of a Universe if it didn’t do anything.

A distinctly human flaw can be wishing for something to be different than it is now, and either looking to the past for relief, which is always my temptation, or hoping for something else in the future. I can’t be thinking of these different aspects as being separate from one another, or being able to exist independently, for each is a part of the whole.

Many years ago, I would resent being young, and I wanted to be older, and now I will equally resent being old, and I want to be young again. Like any good story, the beginning, the middle, and the end, all work together, and it hardly makes sense to read only one chapter over and over, or to read them out of order. Even as the players change, no story ever really ends at all, and it becomes the start of a whole new story.

I can certainly appreciate the past, though I serve myself very poorly when I think only of the past. The past can still be good for me, but only in the sense that it made possible what I can be now, and what will ultimately become of me. It is a package deal.

I used to think it quite sentimental when people advised me to always tell the people I love how much they matter, because what was said before had become distant, and what can be said in the future is never guaranteed. I appreciate this far more lately. As with all things in Stoicism, there is no time like the now, even as it will never be the same the next time I look at it.

Written in 11/2005