Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.30

There is one light of the sun, though it is interrupted by walls, mountains, and other things infinite. There is one common substance, though it is distributed among countless bodies that have their several qualities. There is one soul, though it is distributed among infinite natures and individuals. There is one intelligent soul, though it seems to be divided.

Now in the things that have been mentioned, all the other parts, such as those that are air and matter, are without sensation and have no fellowship: and yet even these parts the intelligent principle holds together and the gravitation towards the same. But intellect in a peculiar manner tends to that which is of the same kin, and combines with it, and the feeling for communion is not interrupted.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.30 (tr Long)

We insist so often on how much things are different, that we forget how much they are really the same.

Classical Stoicism stressed the fundamental unity of all things, that the great varieties of things we see around us are aspects or manifestations of only one being.

Now there are various philosophical concerns here, about the definition of this or that  -ism, or about the specific distinction between a substance and a quality, but in practice it really just means that we should think about things as being joined together, not as being set apart.

There is nothing that exists in and of itself, separately from what is one. There is no multiplicity without proceeding from singularity.

This is all the more true when it comes to mind, where the very identity of consciousness means that intellect receives and contains within itself the forms of all that it knows, and that awareness is an openness to binding itself to other things. When minds meet, they perceive one another as alike, drawn to their shared nature, each becoming present within the other. My mind, and your mind, and all the many expressions of mind, participate in the one Mind, the glue that binds reality together.

In thinking about myself, I do so through reflecting on other things, and I thereby reach out to others as others reach out to me. To recognize another soul like my own is to find myself all over again, to discover what is common.

In those rare but wonderful times when I have found friendship, fellowship, and sincere love with others I am touching upon that mutual kinship. Few things can be as powerful or fulfilling. I am not made only for myself, but to be in community with others, and to be in harmony with all of Nature.

Yes, some will laugh at you if you say that. They will dismiss, reject, and exclude, convinced that who they are has absolutely nothing to do with who you are. They choose not to see that the limit of one thing is only possible through its presence to another, or that it is impossible to speak of this independently of its relationship to that. 

Written in 10/2009

IMAGE: M.C. Escher, Mosaic I (1951)