Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.24.3

. . . Third, if you should suddenly be raised up above the earth, and should look down on human things, and observe in the variety of them how great it is, and at the same time also should see at a glance how great is the number of beings who dwell all around in the air and the aether, consider that as often as you should be raised up, you would see the same things, sameness of form and shortness of duration. Are these things to be proud of?

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

I know I’ve been around the block a few times too many, when all the same things start popping up. Those old sayings, the ones that seemed so empty and worn out, now begin to reveal their meaning. What comes around, goes around. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

The instances are different, thought the pattern continually repeats itself. It took me all those years to see that Heraclitus was right when he said that all is in flux, and that Parmenides was also right when he said that change is an illusion. They are simply meant in different senses, from looking at the particular from one end, and looking at the universal from the other. Distinguish.

Looking at something from many different perspectives doesn’t change what is real, but it does change the depth and completeness by which I understand what is real. And the best way is to try and look at things from above, to see the bigger picture, not merely from down below, stuck in this or that individual circumstance.

I have grown tired of bickering over all the differences, at the expense of what is shared. I no longer have time for drawing ideological lines in the sand, when I consider how it is all one world. Yes, be precise and be accurate, but neither miss the forest for the trees, nor overlook the trees for the forest.

The bigger view is, in this sense, the better view, because it includes all things as they are, not just some things as I would prefer them to be. The players change, but the drama unfolds in precisely the same way, again and again. Even only a few decades have taught me that. I can only imagine how I might see it all more fully, and more beautifully, with the benefit of centuries, or millennia, or through all of time itself.

See how small it all is when you gain a bit of elevation. That doesn’t make it meaningless, though it does put it within the context of a greater meaning. I consider all my worries, and how they have consumed me, and then I realize that they are nothing new. Countless before me have faced them, and countless after me will face them. They are a part of the whole, but they are not the whole.

To know that my own situation is not unique does not make me any less. To know that my situation is shared throughout all of creation makes it mean all the more. My own pride must decrease, as my reverence must increase.

Written in 9/2009