Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 12.32

How small a part of the boundless and unfathomable time is assigned to every man, for it is very soon swallowed up in the eternal!

And how small a part of the whole Substance; and how small a part of the Universal Soul; and on what a small clod of the whole earth you creep!

Reflecting on all this, consider nothing to be great, except to act as your nature leads you, and to endure that which the Common Nature brings.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.32 (tr Long)

Stoicism does indeed ask me to be responsible for myself, but I must also remember that it does not ask me to make myself the measure of all things. I am not the center of gravity, or that around which the world revolves, or the absolute by which everything else is to be judged. The part is in service to the whole, not the whole in service to the part.

Not only am I a part of Nature, but I am a rather small part within a grand design, only here for the briefest moment, one instance of thought among countless others.

This does not mean that I have no value, but it certainly means that I am not all that is of value. I am with other things, never above other things. I am the master of my own good, but I am not the master of all that is good.

The self-reliance of Stoicism can tempt me into becoming quite self-serving, in which case it would hardly be any different from so many other forms of subjectivism, relativism, and egoism that pass for philosophy, that are so especially fashionable at the moment.

It is easy for me to blame others, to be angry at the world, or to stubbornly insist that I am not getting what I deserve.

Informed by a twisted form of Stoicism, I might then instead transform my resentment into dismissing others, ignoring the world, or stubbornly insisting that no one deserves anything at all from me. The expression is different, while the vanity remains the same. There is still no sense of my commitment to my neighbor, or of a reverence for Nature.

“I don’t care about the universe, because the universe doesn’t care about me.” I find no wisdom in that. “You don’t exist for me. What you do is meaningless to me.” I find no virtue in that.

Stoicism does indeed ask me to radically change my perspective, but it cannot just be a change where I modify and shuffle around the terms of my own importance. The particular will only make sense with the context of the universal, my nature within Nature. I am called to follow virtue, because my own nature tells me it is right. I am called to show respect for whatever may happen to me, because Nature herself tells me it is right. 

Written in 10/2009