Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 7.64

Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth; consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and benevolence and everything of the kind.

It is most necessary to bear this constantly in mind, for thus you will be more gentle towards all.

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

I would hardly want to be ignorant, knowing that what I think is in error, just as I would hardly want what is bad for me, knowing that what I desire is harmful. As foolish as I may be, I am treating a falsehood as if it were a truth, and what is wrong as if it were right.

Do I deceive myself? Do I hurt myself? Yes, of course, but the tragedy is that I do so only from my own confusion. I have never found myself thinking, “I’m going to go out and do some evil today,” but even if I did use such terms, I would be assuming that whatever I’m calling evil is actually a good. I remember how in the 1980’s we liked throwing around trendy terms like “bad,” “wicked,” “ugly,” or “brutal,” but we always used them to describe desirable and admirable things.

It will at first seem odd to recognize this, but the tyrants would be just if they could, the gluttons would be temperate if they could, the haters would embrace love if they could. For whatever particular reason, wherever the responsibility lies, they don’t know any better. They pursue misery under the appearance of happiness, “they make a desert and call it peace.”

Once I grasp that vice grows out of misunderstanding, I can find it so much easier to be understanding of others. If I simply paint a man as a nasty villain, I will fill myself with contempt for him, but if I see him as a fellow suffering from a deficiency, he will more easily receive my sympathy.

After all, do I not ask for compassion whenever I have stumbled and fallen from blindly groping around in the dark? When I have made mistakes, do I not hope that others will help me to correct those mistakes, instead of casting me out?

Why should I turn another into a faceless force of evil? Why do I insist on making him my enemy? If he blunders about without a clue, much as I often do, should I not rather recognize myself in him, and call him a friend?

If I blame him for responding with hatred to the pain he feels, why do I think I am somehow justified in responding with hatred to the pain I feel? If I refuse to forgive him for his error, why do I think I should be forgiven for my errors?

I am best served by offering an embrace before I raise my fists. 

Written in 1/2008