Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.17

Constantly contemplate the whole of time and the whole of substance, and consider that all individual things as to substance are a grain of a fig, and as to time the turning of a gimlet.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10.17 (tr Long)

There are all sorts of phrases that rub me the wrong way, and I have stubbornly complained about many of them, but few expressions seem to frustrate me as much as when someone tells me that “it isn’t that important”, or “it’s no big deal”.

I know that my annoyance stems from a foolish pride, but it will feel as if I my concerns are simply being dismissed, that what matters to me doesn’t really matter at all. I grit my teeth, thinking that just saying something is small does not make it go away. Losing my best friend, or burying a child, or failing yet again at trying to make a living, seemed quite important to me, and it appears others will just quietly shrug it off.

I hardly know how people may have intended it, but I have come to learn how I should always have taken it. It isn’t that it is insignificant, but rather that I can only understand how it is significant within a greater context. When I can see the part within the whole, I can then understand how it serves a deeper purpose. It is still most certainly something, but it no longer has to be everything in my estimation.

This is why my pains, and losses, and blunders do not need to overwhelm me. They can all help me to be more fully human, and by being more fully human I am playing my own role in a bigger story. The meaning is to be discovered in how all the pieces fit together.

I find many people are drawn to Stoicism because of the sense of independence it offers, rightly reminding us that we need only live through what is within our own power. At the same time, however, while stressing the dignity of our own thoughts and actions, I also see Stoicism as placing our own existence within all of Nature, the harmony of my own life with all of life, the relationship of my own being with all of being. How I should choose to live must be in free cooperation with Providence. My independence only proceeds through interdependence with others and with my world.

It is in this fullness of time and substance that I can find comfort and direction.

My grandmother once brought home some fresh figs, and when she cut one open I was fascinated by the many tiny seeds within the flesh. Did each of those little grains matter? Of course they did, but only as parts of the whole. Do all the aspects of my life matter? Of course they do, but only as parts of the whole. They are indeed small, but they belong to something big.. 

Written in 1/2009