Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.18.6

. . . Sixth, consider when you are much vexed or grieved, that man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead. . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

Here is yet another of those passages that some people find morbid, as if the fact that life is short means that we should be glad it all ends anyway, and that we can simply tolerate suffering for a certain time, in the knowledge that it will soon pass.

Yet even in my darkest moments, when the Black Dog does his worst, I will no longer choose to think of it in such a manner. It isn’t that the shortness of life makes pain more bearable, but that the shortness of life makes virtue so much sweeter. It’s all in the attitude, and in putting circumstances in their proper perspective.

Now I can rightly say, if I have been rejected or cast aside in my life, that this too shall pass. But I can just as rightly say, if I have won the lottery, or made it big in the world of business and politics, that this too shall also pass. This is because neither kind of fortune, the convenient or the inconvenient, is really what defines me.

Does it bring hurt? Don’t worry, because it won’t last. Does it bring pleasure? Don’t worry, because it won’t last.

And the problem we are so obsessed with is making “bad” things go away, and “good” things stay with us. There are two problems here: that we determine things by their quantity instead of their quality, and that we assume the bad and the good are measured by the situation outside of us.

The very nature of human life is a passing thing, and a rather quickly passing thing at that. The measure for the Stoic is always the same: what have I managed to do with whatever I have, for whatever short a time, and in whatever conditions, to live with character?

I come back to this, time and time again. The Stoic essentially rejects the rule of the pack, because he measures his life by the excellence of what he does, not by what happens to him. That moral transformation is essential to a good life.

Pain and pleasure are not evils and goods. Poverty and riches are not evils and goods. Death and life are not evils and goods.

Strut about all you like, and smirk all you like, and draw attention to your importance all you like. You and I will both end up in exactly the same place. By then, it will have become too late to make that past life worth living.

Written in 5/2009