Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.24.2

. . . Second, consider what every being is from the seed to the time of its receiving a soul, and from the reception of a soul to the giving back of the same, and of what things every being is compounded, and into what things it is resolved.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.24 (tr Long)

Remember, it always looks more powerful and intimidating than it really is. Part of my own personal Stoic exercises, quite useful at many frustrating times during the day, involves mentally breaking things down. What are they really made of? What were they before? What will they very soon become? When I can do this, I am suddenly not so troubled. I can whistle my way past the highwayman.

“You’re not so big!” my little daughter would often say, standing up as straight as she could, whenever she came across something frightening.

I can do this when the circumstances of the world seem to be rolling over me. They are what they are, and I still remain what I am. Bodies crash into me, and my thinking can still remain intact.

I can do this when I see that someone else is making himself appear to be the king of the hill. He clothes himself in images, while beneath them he is just another fragile animal with a brief spark of mind, no different than myself.

I can do this, most importantly of all, when I begin to take myself far too seriously. I’m not all I make myself out to be. Most of what I fret over does not matter one bit, and I recognize it when I break myself down.

It is all from the same matter, and to the same matter it will return. In the meantime, it adopts a certain form, a temporary arrangement of that matter, and I therefore take it to be far more than it actually is. I am impressed by the vanity, but I should remember what is base. This vanity is something I add in my own estimation, and not what is actually there.

I still have a very vivid memory of some of my students, having just attended Ash Wednesday Mass, sitting about before class, and bragging about how special this made them.

“It’s so sad that more students didn’t receive the ashes! They don’t know how blessed it would make them!”

I tried to bite my tongue, but I said it in any event. “You do know what the ashes represent, right?”

“Of course, it’s a sign that we’re Catholic, and that we should be proud of our Faith, that we are chosen.”

“Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.”

“What?”

Didn’t you just hear those words at Mass?”

“Well, I don’t know Latin, so. . . “

“Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

I was met only with empty stares.

“Yes, you may be special, but you’re also just made of dirt.” 

Written in 9/2009