The Death of Marcus Aurelius

The Death of Marcus Aurelius

Thursday, July 16, 2020

Seneca, On Peace of Mind 12.5


In this same way every one of those who walks out to swell the crowd in the streets is led around the city by worthless and empty reasons.

The dawn drives him forth, although he has nothing to do, and after he has pushed his way into many men's doors, and saluted their nomenclators one after the other, and been turned away from many others, he finds that the most difficult person of all to find at home is himself.

From this evil habit comes that worst of all vices, tale-bearing and prying into public and private secrets, and the knowledge of many things which it is neither safe to tell nor safe to listen to.

I still think with dread of all the years I spent getting up in the morning, putting on the clothes someone else told me I needed to wear, and getting myself onto a small metal tube to go where I was told to go. It was packed with hundreds of folks who were on the same mission.

Once I got to where I had been told me to go, I then spent the rest of the day bothering other people. Sometimes I was asked to beg from them, and at other times I was told to yell at them, and, on a few occasions, I was supposed to sign a form or punch a button, and this apparently made everyone happy.

I had to be very careful. If I yelled at the person I should be begging from, or begged from the person I should be yelling at, there would be trouble. There were reprimands, and probations, and double-secret probations. There was an HR person who delivered little multi-colored slips every morning, to tell us how we had all failed.

Through it all, I had to smile and play nice with an important fat fellow in the office down the hall. If his mood was poor, I had to cheer him up, or he would erase my existence. If his mood was good, I was still cheerful, in the hope that a few extra numbers would show up in my bank account at the end of the week.

Then I got back on the small metal tube, which usually broke down around this time, and when I finally made it to my tiny wooden box, barely paid for by those numbers in my bank account, I would sigh and complain to the wife. She had gone through much the same as me, though she drove the smaller metal box that her owners were generous enough to barely help her pay for.

We sighed and complained together, and we fell asleep, and our chirping alarms woke us again the next morning to repeat the cycle.

I know that I am a hopeless romantic, but this is not a way to live, not even for the most thoughtless or insensitive person. It is a living hell.

What was the job, you may ask? It was most every job I ever had, whether as a pencil pusher, or as a programmer, or even as a fancy teacher. It is also most every job you have ever had.

Search your feelings. You know it to be true.

The waste was never in the effort, or in the striving, or in the sacrifice. The waste was in the action without purpose. Let there, by all means, be small metal tubes and even smaller metal boxes. Let there be tiny wooden boxes. Let there be struggle, but please Lord, let there actually be some meaning to it. The numbers come into the bank account, and then they leave more quickly, and often there is a negative sign before the numbers. Then there is death.

It all keeps what we call the “economy” going. It is all for the best, apparently, so we can all be sad together, owing money for our little metal boxes and tiny wooden boxes.

Again, not a way to live.

With no human purpose, and all labor involved in busywork, it’s no wonder we die on the inside.

What else is left but to poke our noses into the lives of others, to gossip, to slander, to condemn? There is much planning, quite a bit of managing, and hardly any doing. Ask yourself how few fine people actually produce anything, and then compare that number to the dazed people who spend their entire lives bossing other people around.

Search your feelings. You know it to be true. 

Written in 12/2011

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