Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.46

But, my good friend, reflect whether that which is noble and good is not something different from saving and being saved; for as to a man living such or such a time, at least one who is really a man, consider if this is not a thing to be dismissed from the thoughts.

And there must be no love of life: but as to these matters a man must entrust them to the deity and believe what the old women say, that no man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.

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

Classical thinking in general, and Stoic thinking in particular, will sometimes stand in sharp contrast to many of the attitudes we take for granted in contemporary life. This is surely one of those times; the modern reader may at the very least be confused, perhaps even deeply offended by such a passage.

But I will never assume that this is just a matter of the old versus the new, or blindly reject one attitude for the sake of another. Rather, I should try to understand how and why the difference arises, and what it tells me about the way our first principles can lead us down quite different paths.

We are familiar with the idea that living is good, and that dying is bad, and so we should take our very survival as an inherent good. The Stoic will look at this a bit differently. It is not merely the purpose of something to exist alone, but to act according to its nature, and so a human being should not just live, but seek to live well. Given that it is our nature to think and to choose, to know the true and love the good, the life well lived is the life of wisdom and virtue.

If this is the purpose for which I am here, then I should make all other things subservient to this greatest good. Therefore I should be indifferent to how much wealth I acquire, or how much pleasure I receive, or how popular I am, or, yes, even how long I live.

This means that a life well lived is not necessarily a longer or a shorter life; neither is inherently good or bad, and either can offer the opportunity to live well.

This does not mean that the Stoic neglects life, or seeks death. I may indeed prefer to live a long life, and all other things being equal, I would be free to pursue it; but if living longer requires that I abandon my character, then I must gladly and willingly surrender the former for the latter.

Indifference, in the Stoic sense, isn’t about not caring, but rather about not wanting relative things for their own sake. All of this proceeds from the premise that human worth is not in the quantity of living, but in the quality of living, and that such quality is measured not by the circumstances around us, but by the virtues within us.

We moderns may also frown upon ideas like destiny, or fate, or Providence, but the Stoic simply understands that many things happen that proceed from causes beyond our own power. Now we may angrily fight against these, or we may graciously accept them, knowing that Nature does nothing in vain, and orders all thing toward the good.

It isn’t ultimately up to me how long I have, but it is completely up to me what I’m going to do with it.

Written in 12/2007

IMAGE: Alphonse Mucha, Fate (1920)