Asia
and Europe are corners of the Universe. All the sea is a drop in the Universe.
Athos is a little clod of the Universe. All the present time is a point in
eternity. All things are little, changeable, perishable.
All
things come from there, from that universal ruling power, either directly proceeding,
or by way of sequence.
And
accordingly the lion's gaping jaws, and that which is poisonous, and every
harmful thing, as a thorn, as mud, are after-products of the grand and
beautiful.
Do
not then imagine that they are of another kind from that which you venerate,
but form a just opinion of the source of all.
—Marcus
Aurelius, Meditations, Book 6 (tr
Long)
I was deeply moved when I first read
this passage. I still am. It isn’t just that it is quite profound, but also
that the principle is one the most immediate and practical of tools for
enduring the hardships of life.
I am often too keen to divide my
world into the things that I like, and the things that I dislike. I prefer a
pint of Guinness, a dusty old book, and the fellowship of true friends. I do
not prefer Brussels sprouts, traffic jams, and lawyers. I will revel in the one
set, and I will grumble at the other.
And my problem is that I am not
seeing things from the right perspective, as they truly are within the pattern
of the whole. I magnify them out of proportion, I judge them only by my
passions, and I forget that everything is exactly as it is for a very good
reason.
Everything that seems so big to me,
so desirable or so despicable, is really rather small in the bigger picture. If
I can remember that it is passing, that it is only here in this remote bit of
the world for a moment, I will not be so consumed by longing or by contempt. This
too, as they say, shall pass. That’s good for both the things I love and the
things I hate, and it tells me not to be so caught up in things to begin
with.
The value of something should hardly
be measured by my preferences. Not for a want of trying, I simply do not enjoy
the music of Wagner, or of Led Zeppelin. I find both of them pompous and vain.
This has everything to do with my opinion, however, and not with their merit. I
can learn to respect, and even appreciate, the things I don’t have much of a
liking for.
The world is not there for my
convenience. I am here to serve, not to be served. If Providence has put it
there, it has done so wisely. At the very least, that reason could simply be to
teach me to practice reverence instead of resentment, acceptance instead of
dismissal, and to remind me that it isn’t all about me. Even the most unpleasant
things can help me to remember to be pleasant.
Don’t let the “modern” Stoics, the
minimalist Stoics, the cafeteria Stoics mislead you. Nothing in the entire
model will work without a sense of the whole of Nature, of the order of the
Universe, of the breadth of Providence, of the universal ruling power. I can
only live according to Nature if I acknowledge that there is such a Nature,
something bigger than myself, something of which I am a part.
I should not
reject the concept of the Divine because I don’t like something, but I should
rather seek to find what is Divine in everything I dislike.
Written in 5/2007
IMAGE: Mount Athos, from the right perspective. . .
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