Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.30

Look down from above on the countless herds of men and their countless solemnities, and the infinitely varied voyagings in storms and calms, and the differences among those who are born, who live together, and die.

And consider, too, the life lived by others in olden times, and the life of those who will live after you, and the life now lived among barbarous nations, and how many know not even your name, and how many will soon forget it, and how they who perhaps now are praising you will very soon blame you, and that neither a posthumous name is of any value, nor reputation, nor anything else.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 9.30 (tr Long)

I often hear people talk about finding a new perspective, or taking a different view, or, as became trendy a while ago in the business world, “thinking outside the box.” I also notice that we usually stay quite close to where we were before, look at things much the same as we always did, and become quite comfortable in that box.

I know that I fail to get out my own rut because it is quite honestly frightening to think differently. There’s so much more to it than just trying a new wardrobe, where I’m still worried about how I appear, or using a new tactic to get a promotion, where I’m still running after money and status, or speaking fancy new words, where I’m still working to impress.

The real challenge is in wondering if appearance, status, or reputation are really things I should be pursuing at all. That would be a real change of outlook, reevaluating the very principles I work from, and that will in turn feel quite uncomfortable, because it might ask me to cast away everything I’m so accustomed to.

I have at the same time discovered that a new visual perspective can assist me in forming a new moral perspective; looking at a person, place, or thing from a physically different distance or angle is helpful in acquiring a new mental attitude.

Though I have been wary of heights for some time, I am still drawn to looking at a city from the top of a tall building, or at a landscape from the window of an airplane. In one sense, the whole world below looks quite grand and glorious, as indeed it is, but in another sense all the individual bits and pieces seem quite small and fragile, even insignificant.

All those things that were so imposing when I stood right in front of them are now just little colored dots and blurs. At night a city can appear dazzling, but from far away all the lights just swirl together. Every single one of those specks of light is a street corner, or a home, or a business, and is right now at the center of someone’s attention. People are down there trying to become rich, obsessed about paying off their debts, or trying to fall in love over a drink.

Yet from higher up, none of it seems so important, so permanent, so heavy. That is the kind of changing of perspective that can be a blessed relief. Seeing the whole puts all the burden of the parts in their proper place.

All the sound and the bustle, all the fame, the fortune, and the fighting, and all the worry that goes along with them, aren’t much of anything at all. Of all the people running around down there, chances are that any one of them has absolutely no idea who any other one might be, and even if they have somehow crossed paths, the influence they may have had fades with distance. People who were once friends are now strangers, and people who were once famous are now forgotten.

Remembering that, I can choose to look away from petty concerns, and commit myself to the only thing that was ever really mine to begin with. For the brief time that I am here, I can order my actions by understanding, seek to practice good where I am able, and rest content with the merit of my own thoughts and deeds. The rest is a distraction from the calling of being human. 

Written in 12/2008