Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 9.37

Enough of this wretched life, and murmuring, and apish tricks. Why are you disturbed?

What is there new in this? What unsettles you? Is it the form of the thing? Look at it. Or is it the matter? Look at it.

But besides these there is nothing. Towards the gods then, now become at last more simple and better. It is the same whether we examine these things for a hundred years or three.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 9.37 (tr Long)

I notice quite often how people like to insist that they are so very happy, yet they still regularly clench their jaws in frustration, or bicker with their neighbors, or sit there during a conversation while ripping up ever-smaller pieces of paper. There is lots of aggression, resentment, and scheming, and I wonder how that could possibly be happiness.

So much of it involves playing a role when people are looking, and then thrashing about when we think no one is really looking. It is the cult of appearances, the substitution of outward posturing for inner peace.

I know it quite well, because I’ve done it myself. I feel miserable, I complain all of the time, and then I play the part of some trained animal doing a clever performance to win some tasty treats. I may curse the boss, but I still beg like a dog, forcing myself to wag my tail, whenever he casts his glance my way.

What is truly bothering me? The fact that I am not myself, but rather allowing myself to be ruled by images. I lie to myself, and to others, and say that all is fine; but it isn’t fine, because I have a hole in my heart.

What is it that entrances me? The vanity of the outsides, and the neglect of the insides. I must look more closely. It is all made of gross matter, put together for this moment in a temporary form.

Why should that frighten me? It shouldn’t. They are all just things, each one no more impressive than any other. Their power is in how I think about them, never in what they actually are.

Be simple and be better. These two go together. Simplicity is not about having less, but about being more through wanting less. Being better is not about lording it over others, but about seeing myself within others, and others within myself.

It is time to stop being a mimicking ape, and to become a man who rules. I need not rule anything, however, beyond myself. That is enough. That fact won’t change, however long I fret over it.

Written in 12/2008