Diogenes for the Day, 7/1/2018

He used also to condemn those who praised honest men for being superior to money, while themselves envying the very rich.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.37

When you are calling out on the Rostra, have you forgotten, man, what these things are?

“Yes, but they are objects of great concern to these people!”

Will you too then be made a fool for these things?

“I was once a fortunate man, but I lost it, I know not how.”

But being fortunate means that a man has assigned to himself a good fortune, and a good fortune is good disposition of the soul, good emotions, good actions.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

I used to be quite impressed, and often intimidated, by the confident rhetoric of important folks. They sounded so wise, and seemed so much better than me. I was certain I could never reach such a height of excellence.

Hard experience slowly taught me two things about such people, and why I was so easily misled. First, they don’t know as much as they’d like you to think. Second, their concern is with the appearance of character, not with the content of character.

This was a burden for me at school, and it remained a burden at work. It was something present in all aspects of social life as well. I began to realize, however, that I would run into two very different types of people in this world, those who were committed to the task of living well, and those who were committed to giving others the impression that they were living well.

The first sort of person doesn’t much care about his image, and that makes him worthy of actual respect. The second sort of person only wishes to be seen in a certain way, whether he is actually worthy of it or not.

One is a characterized by humility and integrity, the other by pride and deception. One will help you because it is right, the other will manipulate you because it is convenient.

When I first read Plato, I saw that the sophists have always been with us. They may be able to speak with great eloquence, and put on fine airs, but it’s all style with no substance. Even as their reasoning is fallacious, their words will tickle the passions. In many cases, the sophists use their skill as a means to acquire great power and influence. There are demagogues, both big and little, who are like pied pipers in the political, religious, and professional realms.

The lure of fame is quite tempting, and its acquisition is rather intoxicating. The remedy lies, as Marcus Aurelius says, in rethinking what truly makes our lives worthy and fortunate.

If I employ sweet words and empty promises to lead people by the nose, I am defining my worth by the approval and praise I hope to receive. It is all an illusion, of course, and in one sense the master has become a slave to his mob.

If, however, I am defining my worth by how I build my own wisdom and virtue, I have made myself fortunate from within, with no need to be approved and praised from without. I won’t need to pander, to play games, or to appear like something I am not. 

Written in 9/2006

IMAGE: Magnus Zeller, The Orator (1920)

There are different ways to respond. . .

Social media has indeed given us all of these wonderful opportunities. It has also tempted us to become heartless bullies.

Let's say I read a post, or a blog entry, or any expression of someone's thoughts and feelings. Let's say I find something I don't agree with, or I don't understand what was said. Here are two very different ways I could react:

1) You are wrong. What idiot could ever think such a stupid thing? You're obviously ignorant, and I need to tell you why. . . This often ends with a "LMFAO".

2) Thank you for sharing your ideas. I have a question about something you said, and I didn't want to misunderstand it. What did you mean by. . . ? This often ends with a "Thank you".

Respect for others costs me nothing. Dismissal of others costs me everything, the integrity of my own character.

If you think I'm being a precious, sensitive snowflake, read the comment sections on any news site, from the right or from the left. Read most any page or group, and you will see the oozing of all that nastiness. When people die, we applaud it and make jokes. When people are still alive, we say they should suffer, in all sorts of horrible ways. We condemn, we reject, but we rarely care.

I've failed at it myself, and I've sadly let my passions get the better of me. I'm sorry. I try to become better.

A few months back, I foolishly shared a thought that meant quite a bit to me. I had no intention of doing so, but a kind soul encouraged me to be open. I did so, against my better judgment, and literally within seconds got a response:

"Is anyone else tired of these kinds of posts? What a waste of my time."

It stings for a moment, but then I remember what I am confronted with. This isn't a thinking man or a compassionate man. I shouldn't be resentful. I should either reach out to him, or if that is ineffective, learn to let it go.

I've learned, quite the hard way, that life isn't about making more of myself at the expense of others.  I don't need to cut off someone's head to feel tall.

Written in 4/2017

Diogenes for the Day, 6/30/2018

And he would wonder that the grammarians should investigate the ills of Odysseus, while they were ignorant of their own. 

Or that the musicians should tune the strings of the lyre, while leaving the dispositions of their own souls discordant. 

Or that the mathematicians should gaze at the sun and the moon, but overlook matters close at hand. 

Or that the orators should make a fuss about justice in their speeches, but never practice it.

Or that the avaricious should cry out against money, while being inordinately fond of it.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.36

Do not be carried along inconsiderately by the appearance of things, but give help to all according to your ability and their fitness.

And if they should have sustained loss in matters that are indifferent, do not imagine this to be a damage. For it is a bad habit. But as the old man, when he went away, asked back for his foster-child's toy top, remembering that it was just a top, so do you in this case also.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

The seriousness of my care for something will rise or fall with how important I truly think it to be in the order of things. A man who places money first in his priorities will commit all his attention to acquiring and preserving his wealth. A man who places his character first in his priorities will commit all his attention to acquiring and preserving his virtue. He will have very little concern about whether he is rich or poor, but he will have great concern about whether he is good or bad.

When he sees the seeker of truth, the seeker of riches will be quite confused. Why, he asks himself, is this fool strolling past all these wonderful opportunities to possess more? Why would he treat money as such an insignificant thing? So the genuine philosophers, and the Stoic philosophers especially, appear to the world as men gone insane.

Life will throw all sorts of impressions my way, offering many appearances of worth. I must learn to judge these things critically, and to recognize that an appearance is only what something seems like for the moment. I must look behind it, around it, and acquire the right perspective. There is nothing inherently good or bad about how anything looks to me, so I must not allow myself to be carried away by any impression. I must tame it. The way it looks will only become as good or bad for me as I relate it to my priorities, principles and values.

My simple version of this, for those times sudden times I need a quick Stoic jolt, is to say that nothing is ever as bad, or as good, as it looks.

When the world tells me that the appearance of money is good, I don’t need to respond with a craving to possess. When the world tells me that the appearance of popularity is good, I don’t need to respond with a fear of rejection. When the world tells me that pleasure is good, and pain is bad, I don’t need to run toward one and away from the other.

If it is most important in my estimation to be a good man, charged with an informed conscience, I will always treat my neighbor with justice, as much as I am able and as much as it assists him. No outside appearance needs to get in the way of this, because nothing, to me, is greater in measure than true thought and right action.

I can then also look out at the gains and losses of this world, and I will be able to not worry over them. They are indifferent things, and so I will take them or leave them by a very different standard, only by how they can help both others and myself become wiser and better. If they don’t help us with that, they have no worth for me.

I have never been able to find a complete explanation of the example Marcus Aurelius gives, but it is apparently a reference to a comic play of his time, now lost to us. Though I can’t speak for any content in the story, the context should make it clear that this isn’t about a mean old man nastily stealing away a poor child’s toy. He asks for the toy top to be returned, precisely because he knows that in itself it is only a toy, a trifling thing that has little value. The value will only be in what I give it, and how much I choose to let it mean to me.

I am learning to care less about what so many others care more for, and I am willing to gladly let such people have all of their appearances of reward. These appearances are just disposable playthings.

Written in 9/2006

Diogenes for the Day, 6/29/2018

He would say that men strive in digging and kicking to outdo one another, but no one strives to become a good man and true. 

Dream Theater, "Pull Me Under"

At a time when things were going very poorly, and I was reading Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius, and Boethius with some frantically renewed commitment, someone told me I needed to run, not walk, to the nearest record store to buy Dream Theater's new album. "Trust me," he said, "this one will blow your mind."

Now progressive metal is not for everyone, but if you like your profound truths mixed with crunchy and screaming guitars, noodling keyboards, machine gun drumming, and a bass to rattle your teeth, it'll do the trick.

It had been a terrible summer, and it wasn't even half over. It all felt like straw. I did as he suggested, however, on the hottest day in my recent memory, and the train broke down on the way back from the record store. I sat in a sweltering hunk of metal, and stared at the cover of the new CD. This had better be worth it.

It was. And then some. The opening track left me floored. These fellows could play, and more importantly they could think. Queensrÿche had been my first love in this particular style, but that would now change.

It was probably just a convergence of time and circumstance, perhaps even a touch of synchronicity, yet I found that the lyrics spoke to me about everything that had been going through my head over the last few months. The way fortune seemed to have her way, the sense of being swept along by everything, being irrelevant to anything, and all the stubbornness and resentment it brought out in me. There was the nagging despair that there was no other way out. I was afraid to breathe when the song was over, because I had never thought that I only had so many breaths set aside for me.

Instead of merely wallowing, I took the song as a challenge. Would there only be honor and spite for me? Could I perhaps make it right in some other way, somehow? Why be so angry, when there could be peace? Was there a better way out?

Being a literary nerd, the many references to Hamlet in the song were not lost on me. The sparrow falling. Seven lives for one. The love for a father. Too much in the sun. Until your will is done. And, of course, the final lines, that this too solid flesh would melt. Long hair and an electric guitar do not always make for a barbarian.

My life didn't have to be a tragedy. I didn't have to be a Hamlet. Thank you, gentlemen.

This is best listened to loud, with headphones.

Dream Theater, "Pull Me Under", from Images and Words (1992)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SGRgAULYgWE

Lost in the sky
Clouds roll by and I roll with them
Arrows fly
Seas increase and then fall again

This world is spinning around me
This world is spinning without me and
Every day sends future to past
Every breath leaves me one less to my last

Watch the sparrow falling
Gives new meaning to it all
If not today nor yet tomorrow then some other day

I'll take seven lives for one
And then my only father's son
As sure as I did ever love him I am not afraid

This world is spinning around me
The whole world keeps spinning around me and
All life is future to past
Every breath leaves me one less to my last

Pull me under
Pull me under
Pull me under I'm not afraid
All that I feel is honor and spite
All I can do is to set it right

Dust fills my eyes
Clouds roll by and I roll with them
Centuries cry
Orders fly and I fall again

This world is spinning inside me
The whole world is spinning inside me
Every day sends future to past
Every step brings me closer to my last

Pull me under
Pull me under
Pull me under I'm not afraid
Living my life too much in the sun
Only until your will is done

Pull me under
Pull me under
Pull me under I'm not afraid
All that I feel is honor and spite
All I can do is to set it right
Pull me under
Pull me under
Pull me under I'm not afraid
Living my life too much in the sun
Only until your will is done

Oh that this too
Too solid flesh
Would melt
 

Written in 12/2011

Boethius, The Consolation 2.6

. . . “‘Is the insatiate discontent of man to bind me to a constancy which belongs not to my ways? Herein lies my very strength; this is my unchanging sport. I turn my wheel that spins its circle fairly; I delight to make the lowest turn to the top, the highest to the bottom.

“‘Come you to the top if you will, but on this condition, that you think it no unfairness to sink when the rule of my game demands it. Do you not know my ways? Have you not heard how Croesus, king of Lydia, who filled even Cyrus with fear but a little earlier, was miserably put upon a pyre of burning wood, but was saved by rain sent down from heaven? Have you forgotten how Paulus shed tears of respect for the miseries of his captive, King Perses?

“‘For what else is the crying and the weeping in tragedies but for the happiness of kings overturned by the random blow of fortune? Have you never learnt in your youth the ancient allegory that in the threshold of Jove's hall there stand two vessels, one full of evil, and one of good? What if you have received more richly of the good? What if I have not ever withheld myself from you? What if my changing nature is itself a reason that you should hope for better things?

“‘In any way, let not your spirit eat itself away: you are set in the sphere that is common to all, let your desire therefore be to live with your own lot of life, a subject of the kingdom of the world.’”

—from Book 2, Prose 2

Things rise and fall. My situation may increase at one moment, quite unexpectedly, and it may decrease just as quickly. Sometimes we call this chance, or luck, or we personify it as Fortune, that force within our lives that seems always to be out of our control. The only thing predictable about it is that it will unpredictable, the only thing I know about it is that I can never know what it will do.

It is how I am going to make sense of all the rising and falling that will make all the difference for me. Fortune insists she has her own way of doing things, and that her terms are not negotiable. Sometimes I will be handed a portion from the vessel filled with plenty, and at other times I will be handed a portion from the vessel filled with want. That isn’t for me to decide.

In facing such uncertainty, my own attitude can perhaps put the situation in perspective. One of my grandmothers would always tell me not to “make opera” of things. The other would tell me that life “doesn’t have to be a Greek tragedy”. Youth is often drawn to melodrama, so I did not always take well to the reminder, but both sayings stuck with me. I began to see that what I chose to make of my circumstances was really what determined how they affected me.

I am hardly learned in the dramatic arts, but I do recall being taught that tragedy wasn’t just about bad things happening, or unhappy consequences. It was also more importantly about how the thoughts and actions of the characters set the terms for their downfall, and how their thoughts and actions might change because of that downfall. A tragic story is a mirroring and magnification of our own lives, and we will feel sympathy with such great suffering in another. Aristotle said this was cleansing, because it helped us to understand ourselves, and to perceive our own fatal flaws.

Let us say, for the moment, that good or bad circumstances will inevitable come my way, and I can have no say in this. But do I not have a say in how I respond to Fortune? Is that within my power? Did not so many of the tragic heroes only make their situation even worse through their pride, stubbornness, or ignorance? Is it not possible to also make the situation better for me, even if it will all happen as it must?

I imagine both my grandmothers were suggesting precisely that, though, as grandmothers are prone to do, far more clearly and directly. It will mean what you make of it. Let it rule you, and it will consume you, just as it has Boethius. Face it with some dignity, and you may somehow survive it.

So how can I start to live with my own lot in life? Is it just begrudging acceptance, or something more positive?

Written in 7/2015

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.35

If this is neither my own badness, nor an effect of my own badness, and the common good is not injured, why am I troubled about it? And what is the harm to the common good?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

The responsibility for ruling my own character is already quite sufficient for a life that is well lived, and therefore happy. Why must I multiply my worries any further by seeking to be the master of things beyond my power to determine? Why must I confuse conscience with preference?

If I am to take an inventory of all of my frustrations, I discover that most of them follow from trying to take control of things that neither are, nor should be, under my control. I stray from the good life whenever I fret over anything that is beyond my own moral choice to act according to the good of Nature, or whenever I insist that anything I have an inclination for is actually a moral necessity.

My habits of being a busybody, of seeking to arrange all the pieces of my world as I see fit, is the source of so much of my anxiety. If it isn’t about what is right or wrong in my own thoughts and actions, and if it isn’t about how my thoughts and actions conform to the goods of others, then it isn’t any of my business.

This isn’t about not caring. A caring man does not need to be a pushy, bossy, or opinionated man. I should pursue what I know to be right, though never be obsessed with changing things I cannot change. Many years of working with addicts always brings me back to the “Serenity Prayer”:

God grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change,

Courage to change the things I can,

and the Wisdom to know the difference

A more comical, though equally helpful, way to keep myself from overreaching my bounds, and thereby avoid becoming a quivering mass of tension, is simply to listen to Monty Python’s “I’m So Worried”:

I'm so worried about what's happenin' today, you know.

And I'm worried about the baggage retrieval system they've got at Heathrow.

I'm so worried about my hair falling out and the state of the world today.

And I'm so worried about bein' so full of doubt about everything, anyway.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nXlBESlGFPE 

I can then laugh at myself, remember to do what good I can, and let the rest be as it will be. Being troubled by everything only makes me the source of my own grief.

Written in 8/2006

A Stoic Breviary, Kindle Edition

For anyone who may be interested, the original Stoic Breviary text is now available as a Kindle Edition:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07F2D6ZJ4/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1530154815&sr=8-2&keywords=stoic+breviary

Diogenes for the Day, 6/28/2018

When one day he was gravely discoursing and nobody attended to him, he began whistling, and as people clustered about him, he reproached them with coming in all seriousness to hear nonsense, but slowly and contemptuously when the theme was serious.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.34

You can pass your life in an equable flow of happiness, if you can go by the right way, and think and act in the right way.

These two things are common both to the soul of God and to the soul of man, and to the soul of every rational being, not to be hindered by another, and to hold good to consist in the disposition to justice and the practice of it, and in this to let your desire find its termination.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

I very much like the phrase, “to let your desire finds its termination”. Desire is always a want of something, a yearning, and it is fulfilled and completed when its object has been attained. My hunger is satisfied when I have eaten, my curiosity is satisfied when I have understood, or my loneliness is satisfied when I have found a friend.

In the case of my happiness, however, the object of my desire is not something from outside of me at all, but proceeds from the very order of my own thoughts and actions. It is not even a “thing” at all, but a doing, a way of living. Aristotle says, for example, that happiness is not a feeling or a state, not defined by what happens to me, but an activity, defined by the way I live.

The very nature of a rational being is to act through its own judgments, and therefore to live with liberty. The excellence of a rational being is to employ the liberty that comes from judgment in the pursuit of what is true and good, and to always act with a respect for the nature of all other things. A man fulfills his own dignity when he acknowledges the dignity of his fellows, and treats them with justice.

That which completes us, makes us whole, and brings with it serenity and joy in this life is not given to us from without, but flows from within. My own choices are mine alone, and cannot be taken from me. My deeds will only be as noble or base as my thoughts are noble or base.

Happiness will often seem so elusive, something just out of reach. I will only think this, however, if I falsely assume it is something that is acquired through my circumstances. I might think I am happy or sad, content or despondent, depending upon whether I have achieved a certain set of goals out there in the world. Did I get a good job? Do I live in a nice house? Did I marry the right girl? Do my friends respect me? Such things may be preferable to us, but they do not constitute happiness. My happiness follows only from how well I live, with wisdom and with virtue, whatever circumstances may come my way.

I knew many people in college who had a complex plan of life all mapped out, and they were certain that they would be successes or failures by how many of these worldly goals they achieved. These hoops jumped for the best promotions, these contacts made to get ahead, a marriage that supports the best career, strategically placed children, and a home in the best school district to start the cycle all over again.

It was saddening to see so many people defining themselves by what they hoped would come to them, what would somehow happen to them, instead of quite simply saying: “My map of life is to live as a good man, regardless of my conditions.” 

Happiness finds its rest, the termination of its desires, through nothing more than my simple choice to live with virtue. Anything that is of benefit to a man proceeds from this.

Written in 8/2006

Cooperation over conflict. . .

Quality and quantity. . .

Diogenes for the Day, 6/27/2018

Education, according to him, is a controlling grace to the young, consolation to the old, wealth to the poor, and an ornament to the rich.

The Naked Hermit

Let him go home.

“It hadn’t really occurred to me before how important it is to choose the place of your death, like whether it’s in a hospital or at home with family by your side. But to die here, surrounded by nature — you just can’t beat it, can you?”

“In civilisation people treated me like an idiot and made me feel like one. On this island I don’t feel like that.”

“Here, on the island I don’t do what people tell me to do, I just follow nature’s rules. You can’t dominate nature so you have to obey it completely.”

“I’ve seen those baby turtles being born and crawling towards the sea. I get goosebumps every time I see that. It makes me think how wonderful life is."

https://www.news.com.au/lifestyle/real-life/true-stories/naked-hermit-who-lived-on-deserted-island-for-thirty-years-captured-brought-back-to-civilisation/news-story/cb26d68f95f682f86e04d339e11e1541

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.33

Soon, very soon, you will be ashes, or a skeleton, and either a name or not even a name. But name is sound and echo. And the things that are much valued in life are empty and rotten and trifling, and like little dogs biting one another, and little children quarreling, laughing, and then immediately weeping.

But fidelity and modesty and justice and truth are fled up to Olympus from the widespread earth. What then is there which still detains you here? The objects of sense are easily changed and never stand still, and the organs of perception are dull and easily receive false impressions, and the poor soul itself is an exhalation from blood. But to have good repute amidst such a world as this is an empty thing.

Why then do you not wait in tranquility for your end, whether it is extinction or removal to another state?

And until that time comes, what is sufficient? Why, what else than to venerate the gods and bless them, and to do good to men, and to practice tolerance and self-restraint. But as to everything that is beyond the limits of the poor flesh and breath, to remember that this is neither yours nor in your power.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

Whenever I have asked anyone to read this passage, they usually make it to the bit about weeping, and, if they have the patience, to the bit about the world being an empty thing. Then they stop, shrug, and comment about how they don’t need to be reminded that life is terrible.

No, I will always say, read to the good bit!

Many decades ago, a favorite phrase was “Life sucks, and then you die.” I would impishly reply with “Life only sucks if you’re worried about dying.”

Like any good Stoic, Marcus Aurelius draws attention to the things in life that are vain, shallow, and frivolous. He isn’t trying to get you down. He’s trying to convince you not to worry about the useless things, only so that you can then find happiness in useful things. This over here is completely unimportant, so now go and commit yourself to what is actually important.

I can hardly blame someone for being depressed when he is told that wealth, honor, and pleasure are a waste of time. These are, after all, the very things we’ve been told make life worth living. Make some money, become important, and have some fun, as long as having your fun doesn’t keep you from making money and seeming important. Don’t get caught. Acquire these things, and you will be happy. If I am suddenly told that none of these things are worthwhile, or can give me any contentment, or are even within my power, I will most certainly think that life, as they say, sucks.

I need to be reminded, each and every day, that the conventional wisdom about what matters in life is nothing but conventional ignorance. What kind of fool would believe that the meaning of life rests entirely in receiving things that are completely outside of us, depending only on upon what is given, not upon what we give? It’s no wonder we are so bitter, nasty, and neurotic.

There is another way. I can dispose of my obsession with what is unreliable, and I can hold to what is reliable. I can stop being like a snarling dog or a weeping child. I can make the Stoic Turn, and define my life by what I do, not by what is done to me. I don’t need to be saddened by the emptiness of my circumstances, but I can rather be liberated by not caring for my circumstances.

What remains? I can show reverence to Nature and to Providence, love my neighbor, bear hatred with compassion, and seek to rule no one but myself. These things are completely reliable, because only I will determine them. There is no one who can take them from me. That is why they are the measure of a good life, of a life worth living, of a happy life. Everything else is an accessory.

Yes, caring about what is empty and rotten is a waste of my time. I should care about what is truly sufficient, what is truly my own.

Written in 8/2006

Diogenes for the Day, 6/26/2018

He would continually say that for the conduct of life we need either right reason or a halter.
 

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.32

Why should unskilled and ignorant souls disturb him who has skill and knowledge? What soul then has skill and knowledge? That which knows beginning and end, and knows the Reason that pervades all substance, and through all time by fixed periods administers the Universe.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

I will often find myself feeling frustrated and offended when the actions of others are thoughtless and careless. I will then be tempted to act vindictively or dismissively, but both of these responses are themselves thoughtless and careless. They both proceed from a disordered sense of self, an unwillingness to understand myself in right relation to others and to the world around me.

A man will be unskilled in life not because he lacks training in some specific trade, but because he neglects the essential art of acting with character. He will be ignorant in life not because he lacks any formal education, but because he doesn’t know who he is, where he came from, and where he is going. If I strive to attain both skill and wisdom, I should surely know that allowing myself to get upset only weakens my own power to live well. I must remember that a foolish man acts he as he does from a lack of understanding, and my anger will help neither him nor me.

As is so often the case, Marcus Aurelius doesn’t just tell us not to be disturbed, but he offers a very brief yet thorough account of why this should be so. If I am to live well, this is only possible if I grasp my own part within the context of the whole. It isn’t just about me, or about how I feel, or about how I perceive myself to have been wronged.

Everything that happens is according to a universal order and purpose, and it is the wise man that can comprehend, however incompletely, that his own thoughts and actions should be in harmony with Nature, not in conflict with it. If I can respect that there is a reason for why things are as they are, I can then seek out the good in all things.

There are no grounds for being disturbed. There are only grounds for discovering how to freely participate in a greater good for everything.

When I was first asked to read Homer’s Iliad, I rolled my eyes, and was, in a sense, offended that I should have to examine some dusty old text, one I thought irrelevant to my life, and also so difficult to read. It didn’t take long for me to change my tune.

I immediately saw that this was a story with many strands and many themes, but one that stood out for me, time and time again, was the rage of Achilles. Here was a great man, but a man who too often acted only for himself, without seeing the big picture, motivated by vanity instead of wisdom. When he struggles against Agamemnon, when he refuses to fight, when he reacts to the death of Patroclus, or when he denies pity to Hector, he is consumed by selfish passion.

I walked away from that first reading with a profound sense that I always needed to look to origins and ends, and how what I did played into a greater sense of meaning and purpose. I didn’t need to be disturbed by pettiness, or lash out at others, if I could only see beyond myself to the reason that is shared by all.

Written in 8/2006

IMAGE: Giovanni Battista Tiepolo, The Rage of Achilles (1757)

Diogenes for the Day, 6/25/2018

He was great at pouring scorn on his contemporaries. The school of Euclides he called bilious, and Plato's lectures a waste of time, the performances at the Dionysia great peep shows for fools, and the demagogues the mob's lackeys. 

He used also to say that when he saw physicians, philosophers, and pilots at their work, he deemed man the most intelligent of all animals; but when again he saw interpreters of dreams and diviners and those who attended to them, or those who were puffed up with conceit of wealth, he thought no animal more silly.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.31

How have you behaved until now to the gods, your parents, brethren, children, teachers, to those who looked after your infancy, to your friends, kinsfolk, to your slaves? Consider if you have until now behaved to all in such a way that this may be said of you:

“Never has he wronged a man in deed or word.”

And call to recollection both how many things you have passed through, and how many things you have been able to endure.

And that the history of you life is now complete and your service is ended, and how many beautiful things you have seen, and how many pleasures and pains you have despised, and how many things called honorable you have spurned, and to how many ill-minded folks you have shown a kind disposition.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

I see around me all the many different ways that people consider their lives to be worth living, and this informs me about whom I should admire as an example, and whom I should be wary of as a temptation.

Many of us look to acquisition, or reputation, or gratification as if they are worthy ends. Instead, Marcus Aurelius here asks me to consider the virtue of my actions themselves as a worthy end, determined by whether or not I have lived with fairness, kindness, appreciation, and self-control.

How have I treated others around me? Have I brought them support and comfort, or rejection and insult? When it is the former, I can be humbly content, but when it is the latter, it is a strong reminder of what remains for me to do. The task is still incomplete.

How have I faced suffering and hardship? Have I risen above it, or allowed it to rule me? Have I made myself better or worse, more caring or uncaring, when things don’t go my way? When it is the former, I can be humbly content, but when it is the latter, it is a strong reminder of what remains for me to do. The task is still incomplete.

My life could quite easily cease right now. Have I been grateful for beauty, or resentful of it? Have I been indifferent to pleasure and pain, or have I allowed myself to be ruled be them? Have I pursued only what is right for its own sake, or have I sought only to be admired for my efforts? The answer to each of these questions will tell me what is done and what is left undone.

Most telling of all for me, have I met with abuse, dismissal, or deception from others in kind, or have I responded with respect, compassion, and integrity? There has been some success here, but also much failure.

I should be happy with the successes, but the failures should not have to make me miserable. The failures will only make me miserable if I do not use them as a means to finally getting it right. Then even the failures will have served what is good, however indirectly, whenever I have tried to fix what I have broken, to make something better of what is worse. 

There came a point of awareness for me, when I could no longer hide away from my mistakes. Feeling ashamed of them, I had long hoped they might disappear if I only ignored them. Yet when I honestly asked myself if I had only sought to do right for others, and the answer was clearly no, I realized I was only compounding the wrong. I needed to use this as an inspiration, as a way to regain the lost ground, as a means to make amends whenever I could, and to start all over again whenever I couldn’t.

Marcus Aurelius asks me to face a soul-searching question. However I may respond to it, I need never be afraid of the answer. I only need to be afraid of what I do with the answer.

Written in 8/2006

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 5.30

The Intelligence of the Universe is social. Accordingly, it has made the inferior things for the sake of the superior, and it has fitted the superior to one another.

You see how it has subordinated, coordinated, and assigned to everything its proper portion, and has brought together into concord with one another the things which are the best.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 5 (tr Long)

While we Moderns have knowledge of the natural world that would have amazed the Ancients, the Ancients had something that we too often neglect. They sought to understand the identity of things within the context of order and purpose, and therefore as an expression of harmonious design. We seek out the structure of matter and the laws by which it moves, while they also sought out the essence of things and their ultimate ends. Their world was not just a place where “stuff happened”. It was a world woven from intertwined strands of meaning.

In Aristotelian terms, while we Moderns, following Francis Bacon, perceive efficient and material causes, the Ancients also perceived formal and final causes. It isn’t just about matter moving about, but matter given form, directed toward a goal.

The whole Universe is, in this sense, social, because each and every thing plays a part within the balance and relationship of the whole. Things that are less perfect exist for the sake of things that are more perfect, and things that are more perfect exist for the sake of one another. A hand or a foot serves a man, and men mutually serve one another.

I will sometimes feel as if I am in constant conflict with things in the world, and always struggling with others. Events and circumstances seem to go against me. The people who should be friends and neighbors seem more like enemies and competitors. I then remind myself that this impression comes only from letting my passions blind the clarity of my thinking. In both the bigger picture and the smaller picture, for the cosmos as a whole and for the rational and social animals that live within it, every aspect is balanced with every other.

I lose track of the role I must play when I feel resentment for the role everything else must play. I get back on track when I commit myself to my part, and can thereby accept, respect, and trust in the purpose of the other parts.

When I was a child, I always enjoyed simply observing different instances of cooperation, things such as the way water and rocks act upon one another, or the interplay of bees and flowers, or the harmony of different players in an orchestra. One of my favorite assignments in elementary school had been making a colorful poster displaying the overlapping water, carbon, and nitrogen cycles.

Whenever I now observe things in life that seem harsh, conflicting, or severe, I turn back to those fond memories. Something may diminish or cease to be, but wherever there is a lessening in one part, there is an increase in another, and wherever there is an ending, there is also a new beginning. Nothing is in vain, since everything is relational and social. 

Written in 8/2006