The Death of Marcus Aurelius

The Death of Marcus Aurelius

Saturday, May 25, 2019

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.20



That is for the good of each thing, which the Universal Nature brings to each.

And it is for its good at the time when Nature brings it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 10.20 (tr Long)

“But it wasn’t supposed to happen this way!”

I said that whenever people I loved chose not to love me in return, but I was confusing what I wanted to happen with whatever was going to happen. My own choice to love was my own, and that was what I brought to the table. The choice of others to dispose of me was their own, and that was what they didn’t bring to the table.

My wife said that to me when we lost almost everything we had in this world, beyond our own humble dignity, but she was confusing what we thought we deserved with what other people were willing to give us. Our commitment came from us. That other people looked away came from them.

My son said that when he was ripped away from a school that practiced compassion, and sadly forced into a school full of bullies, but he was confusing how he treated others with how he wished to be treated. This one was the most difficult and painful, because he was hardly old enough to even judge for himself. Still, he came to see that he was made to be kind. He should not require to be treated kindly.

It was easier for me to learn this, far harder for me to ask my wife to accept it, and an absolute torture for me to ask my son to learn it. I could rule myself, but I neither could, nor should, rule them. I was grateful that we stuck it out together, and that we suffered through it together, and that we learned to live a better life together.

I have often felt quite disappointed with what life has offered me, and once I had a family to care for, I often felt like I had failed them. I never had enough money to make their lives more comfortable, and I never had enough power to make their lives easier. I dragged a fine woman into even more suffering than she had already been through, and I brought children into this world with no means to make them to be people of importance. This worry will gnaw at me to my dying day.

My only possible consolation is expressed in what Marcus Aurelius tells me here. How have I defined success for myself, or for my wife, or for my children? Things will happen, and they are usually quite beyond my own power. Being rich, or influential, or respected has little to do with me, and most everything to do with the opinions of others. I did not decide it, but I can decide what I will make of it.

What is the only legacy I can leave for my family? Not that hard work will make you rich, because it won’t. Not that sucking up to other people will make you popular, because it won’t. Only that whatever may come to us, and however it may come to us, it is the wisdom and virtue by which we choose to live for ourselves that will matter.

“Only losers say that!” I hear you snicker. No, define your terms. I think that only the real winners say that life should first be loving and beautiful.

It is not only a matter of accepting all the things that happen, but also a matter of seeing the good in all the things that happen. Many modern “Stoics” like the self-sufficiency part, but they reject the Providence part; they are missing a necessary half of the picture. It is not only that things may happen to us that are painful, but coming to embrace that they are meant to be good for us.

If Providence, the very order behind Nature itself, intends for it to occur, it should occur. May events take my prosperity, or my security, or my comfort? Yes, yes, and yes.

Will they take my character? Hell no, not if I refuse to let them do so. It was meant to be from the very beginning, for many reasons, but in a very small part so that I could choose to become better; so that all of us could choose to become better.

“Why this? Why now?” Don’t ask that. Ask rather, what was I made for to do with this, at this point right now?

I never gave my family the comfort of fancy circumstances. All I ever offered them was the comfort of seeking wisdom and love.

Written in 8/2012




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