Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 11.36

No man can rob us of our free will.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.36 (tr Long)

“Yes, but they can rob me of everything else! What use is my free will, if I can’t eat, or clothe myself, or have a place to live? If no one loves me, if I am in pain, what is the point? What’s the purpose in choosing, if I have nothing good to choose?”

Referencing Epictetus here once again, Marcus Aurelius does me a great favor. He reminds me of what a spoiled brat I am. As the wife likes to say: “First World problems!”

Notice the premise behind all of my whining. I think I have nothing, because nothing comes to me that I might prefer. I completely overlook the fact that my value as a person has nothing at all to do with that, and everything to do with my own virtue.

“Idiot! How can you have virtue when you’re alone, or poor, or homeless, or sick, or even dead?”

Quite readily, as the obstacles give me so many more chances to live well. All circumstances are an opportunity to do something right, and to find peace in it. Dying? Well, that will happen in any event; how about those bits that happen to go on before the actual dying?

Change the attitude, and I change the measure. I will no longer want what I do not need, and I will no longer fear losing what cannot be taken from me.

“What good is your freedom then, when you have nothing else?”

No, I still have everything, everything that is really mine, the only thing I ever really had. Even then, it was just lent to me for a moment by Providence. Let me use it well while I have power over it, for whatever time is given to me.

“They can still break your body, and then they will take your will as well!”

No, they can just break my body. When the will can no longer act, then my own life is not present. That is no longer a “me” at all. That is a husk, a discarded shell.

“Please yourself. I refuse to live in chains.”

As do I. We only differ on which chains actually matter the most. You worry more about the ones other people place on your hands, and I worry more about the ones I place on my own judgment.

Written in 7/2009