Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.34

About fame: Look at the minds of those who seek fame, observe what they are, and what kind of things they avoid, and what kind of things they pursue.

And consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide the former sands, so in life the events that go before are soon covered by those that come after.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7 (tr Long)

Those who run after fame aren’t only those who crave great celebrity and stardom. Whatever the degree of our goals may be, we have succumbed to the power of fame whenever we define ourselves by what others may think, by whatever happens to be fashionable, or by the comfort of conformity. We do this by putting reputation ahead of character.

Notice how tempting this can be for all of us. I know that I am starting to get pulled in when I observe certain signs in myself. I begin to change both what I am doing, and the reasons why I am doing it. I become interested in how things appear, and not how they are. My actions begin to proceed from images that will be admired, and my motives begin to be ordered toward attention and recognition.

The question, then, is no longer whether something is right, but whether it will be perceived as being right by others. It makes a big difference. Thoughts and deeds are then no longer desired for their own sake. They are desired for the sake of something else. Virtue, therefore, ceases to be an absolute measure for a man, and instead becomes something relative, that is measured by completely accidental circumstances.

If I am motivated by moral character above all else, I will strive to act with justice in each and every case. If I am motivated by fame, I will act “fairly” only when it is convenient for me in other ways. It isn’t justice at all anymore, of course, because the right intention is not present.

Action suddenly isn’t for the sake of right action, since my motives have been completely redirected. I am hoping for something else, to have a good name, to be respected, or loved, or perhaps even feared.

Yet all of those conditions are, as St. Thomas Aquinas might say, like straw. They have nothing to do with me at all, and as much as I may think that my fame will live on and on, it is the most precarious and fleeting of things. Water will wash new sand over the old. The winds will constantly raise up different dunes. What once was is now covered over, and what now is will soon be erased.

A life dedicated to truth and love is itself already complete, as it is its own purpose. A life dedicated to fame is one of the greatest wastes, and therefore one of the saddest things that can plague humanity.

Written in 11/2007