Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.31

What do you wish—to continue to exist? Well, do you wish to have sensation, movement, growth, and then again to cease to grow, to use your speech, to think?

 What is there of all these things that seems to you worth desiring? But if it is easy to set little value on all these things, turn to that which remains, which is to follow reason and God.

But it is inconsistent with honoring reason and God to be troubled because by death a man will be deprived of the other things.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.31 (tr Long)

We say it is a sign of a proper and civilized society when people manage to live just a little bit longer. We say it is a sign of a proper and civilized society when people have possession of a few more things. Is it really better to have more time, or to own more stuff?

In one place some starve, and in another place some grow too fat. Which is actually the worse fate?

Neither is better or worse in and of itself. A man isn’t made to live either a short life or a long life. He isn’t made to be impoverished or to grow in wealth. He isn’t even made to live or to die at this point or at another point. He is made to increase in his character, the core of his humanity, whatever circumstances may come his way.

Think that through for a moment, and you will realize that it flies in the face of all we hold so dear. This is anathema to a secular and consumer society, one obsessed with worldly gratification and profit. It is deeply offensive to those who tell you that a good life requires a chicken in every pot, and a car in every garage, and a few more years of life to wallow in it all.

One might prefer a longer life, but that is not the measure of life. Do not confuse quantity with quality, or preference with necessity. We complain about the tyranny of those who bought and sold people, and yet we still continue it by buying and selling longevity and prosperity.

No, a Stoic mindset will not go down well with the movers and shakers of this world, because those who seek to only be rich and powerful are hardly interested in your moral worth. They are interested in your financial worth. The longer you live, the more you can produce for them and buy from them.

By all means live long, if you like, but far more importantly live well, because you must. I hear scientists talking about how we could make humans immortal, and I can only cringe. We might be able to transfer a consciousness to a machine, and then we would never end. How would that possibly improve the human condition?

I am called to honor reason, which asks me to live with wisdom and virtue, and I am called to honor God, which asks me to show reverence for the order of Nature. Living for one more minute, or year, or decade will not make me any better at doing this. If I choose to live in ignorance and vice, with no respect at all for the order of Providence, no amount of extra time will ever improve me.

Do I want to feel more? Do I want to do more? Do I want to have more? Why? What was insufficient in that which was already given to me? The very idea of growth, what is behind the intrinsic value of life as a process directed toward a specific goal, requires a beginning, and a middle, and an ending. Anything else is just stagnation. Growth comes to its natural completion, and then it is right for there to be passing. Out of this can come something new, a rebirth.

A longer or a shorter life will never make me better or worse. A virtuous or a vicious life will make me better or worse. Immortality won’t make me a more decent, just, or loving man. I need to redefine what I think is worthy about life.

Written in 10/2009