Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.19

Consider what men are when they are eating, sleeping, generating, easing themselves, and so forth.

Then what kind of men they are when they are imperious and arrogant, or angry and scolding from their elevated place.

But a short time ago to how many they were slaves and for what things; and after a little time consider in what a condition they will be.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10.19 (tr Long)

I was often told, and I will still sometimes make use of the trick, that if I feel intimated speaking to a crowd, I should just imagine the audience sitting in their underwear. It is a great equalizer.

My great-grandfather liked to say that any man, however rich or fancy, still had to put his pants on in exactly the same way, one leg at a time. It is a great equalizer.

A rather eccentric friend of mine, whose crazy antics bordered on offensive performance art, once stood around in the toilet paper section of a local grocery store, and waited for all the yuppies and revered citizens to pick out their brand.

“Does this one work best for you?” he would ask quite loudly. “Can you tell my why it’s better?” Once again, though I cringed when he did things like this, it is a great equalizer.

To whatever degree I wish to take it, to consider that all of us share the exact same human functions, from the most noble to the most base, will help me to recall that no man is really more worthy than me, and that I am really no more worthy than any man.

It is easy to feel intimidated by the illusion of power and greatness, though just as easy to smile at all the rather crude but necessary aspects of our lives. Keeping in mind the latter helps us to brush aside the vanity of the former.

I don’t imagine my own generation was really better or worse than any other, but I did notice how we had quite the division between the ways we behaved around one set of people, and then the ways we behaved around another set of people.

We dressed up real nice, put on fancy airs, and presented ourselves as bright, charming, and confident when we wanted a good grade, or a better job, or a professional favor. As soon as we were away from all that shallow posturing, we stuffed our faces with food, drank to excess, gratified our passions in front of others at parties, and defecated on the neighbor’s doorstep.

That taught me to look behind the public mask, to become aware that so much of how we lived was a game of deception. I will still occasionally see photos of people I knew in college, posing for an award, or smiling to promote whatever product they now sell. All of it is to insist that they have arrived, that they matter, that they are so hugely important and successful.

Still, I also remember seeing them try to cheat on their girlfriends in the back of filthy cars, making excuses for why they were too drunk to finish the job. I remember them doing lines off of toilet seats, at seedy bars, the very sight of which would have made their mothers cry. I remember some of the smartest and most vocal Catholic students I knew back then, vomiting all over their dorm rooms. 

They now tell me that my alma mater is rated 43rd in the country, and how proud I should be. I am not proud at all, because I saw it from both ends, both as a student and as a teacher. The entire house of cards is built on the presumption that greatness is in how we make ourselves come across to others, not in how we actually live. It is about the constant lie that merit lies in our outer appearance, not in our inner character.

As long as I can resist resentment on my part, I can also use this as a lesson for my own struggles. Once I see another promoting his image, I can turn to the rather shameful reality. Once I am tempted to promote my own image, I can turn to the rather shameful reality.

The next time you find someone marching down the street, like some great Roman general puffed up with his own pride, keep in mind that all of his strengths stand together with all of his weaknesses, that all of his public glory is a veneer for all of his private embarrassments.

It is a great equalizer. 

Written in 2/2009