Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.7

Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.7 (tr Long)

It is not only the though of death that can be deeply uncomfortable for us, but any sort of reminder of our weakness, our frailty, our tenuous hold on all that we hold so dear, the prospect that all of our grand efforts will be as nothing in the scale of things.

The fact that we will most certainly die is disturbing enough, but then we must also face the fact that our bodies, our minds, and all of our circumstances are fragile and breakable things, completely beyond our power to retain, and that when it is all over, the memory of us will pass almost as quickly as we did.

We nervously look away, pretending it isn’t real, being all the more attentive to our glittering playthings and our petty schemes, like a fellow constantly checking his watch to avoid making eye contact with the girl who broke his heart. Maybe a clever rationalization, or a comforting superstition, will distract us from the dread.

“Well thanks, now you’ve really depressed me.”

But see, it doesn’t have to be that way. Yes, I will only be here for a short time, and that is as nothing compared to the vastness of creation. Yes, my health, my possessions, or my achievements really don’t amount to much of anything at all. Yes, even if I’m so lucky as to have someone thinking about me now, no one will be thinking about me at all fairly soon.

But why is this even bothering me? It will only be as troublesome as I allow it to be, and I will only care about all these diversions if I judge them to be important. I don’t need to live forever. I don’t need to be indestructible. I don’t need to be recognized. I simply need to possess myself, for the fleeting time that I have. I need to be charged, however briefly, with wisdom and virtue, with awareness and love, and the rest then becomes trifling.

Make it small in my estimation, and I can now turn to the true task at hand. The illusion has been dissolved. Lift your head up, look that girl straight in the eye, and smile with kindness, because all the other trappings don’t matter.

And so Stoicism turns it all around, taking what seems so terrible and transforming it into a glorious reminder of all that is good within us. By all means, contemplate death, and the corruption, and the insignificance of pleasure, and power, and fame, but don’t contemplate this to dwell on your loss. Contemplate this to point you to what you can now gain.

Written in 7/2009