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)