LIAM MILBURN: Living with Nature: Reflections on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius 11-12

Living with Nature:

Reflections on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius 11-12

Liam Milburn

11.1

These are the properties of the rational soul: it sees itself, analyzes itself, and makes itself such as it chooses; the fruit that it bears itself enjoys—for the fruits of plants and that in animals which corresponds to fruits others enjoy—it obtains its own end, wherever the limit of life may be fixed.

Not as in a dance and in a play and in such like things, where the whole action is incomplete if anything cuts it short; but in every part, and wherever it may be stopped, it makes what has been set before it full and complete, so that it can say, I have what is my own.

And further it traverses the whole Universe, and the surrounding vacuum, and surveys its form, and it extends itself into the infinity of time, and embraces and comprehends the periodical renovation of all things, and it comprehends that those who come after us will see nothing new, nor have those before us seen anything more, but in a manner he who is forty years old, if he has any understanding at all, has seen by virtue of the uniformity that prevails all things that have been and all that will be.

This too is a property of the rational soul: love of one's neighbor, and truth and modesty, and to value nothing more than itself, which is also the property of Law. Thus the right reason differs not at all from the reason of justice.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.1 (tr Long)

Observe how we pay all of the attention to the outside layers, and we neglect the inner core.

We have all the objects that we wish to possess, and we say they make us complete. We keep our bodies safe and secure, and we say that we are content. We work to satisfy all of our deepest passions, and we say that we are fulfilled. We win praise from others, and we say that we are whole.

And in doing all of that, we praise the qualities of the vessel, while neglecting the character of the captain.

The cruise ship is so big and shiny, made of the strongest steel. The sailors are all so buff and handsome. The pretty girl serving you a cocktail really seems to like you. But who is piloting the whole darn thing?

I am composed of many things, and I have many aspects, but at the heart of them all is my awareness. My power of reason requires the addition of no luxuries beyond itself to be fully itself; any old experience will do. It demands no supplements to be complete. It finds its satisfaction in its own actions, and looks to nothing further.

The ship will only find herself safe on the seas by the skill of the able commander who guides her. Let me listen to the man on the bridge, not follow the cabin boy having his fun with the lonely housewife down below.

Every ship will one day meet her demise, and every captain will one day breathe his last. How long they lasted, and whatever weather or enemies they faced, and however they happened to end, is neither here nor there. While holding the helm, did the captain do what he knew to be best? When the ship went down, did he gladly go down with her, completely satisfied with a job well done?

And so it is in life. There will be loss, and there will be many things that are quite unexpected, and there will be that final moment when we all sink to the bottom. It may happen right now, or it may happen far in the future. The comfort is in living this life here and now, guiding our actions informed by conscience.

The beauty of a good and happy life involves being aware of nothing beyond our own immediate excellence. I must not think of myself as playing a drawn-out part in a fancy play, or slowly earning seniority at an important job, where I am only done after prancing and posing for a certain expected time. A single action of understanding and of love, committed in only a second, can redeem an entire life.

If I only so choose, my consciousness at this instant embraces all things, conceives of all the past, and surveys the whole future. How old I am, or how much I have, or how esteemed I am has nothing to do with it. Give me just the tiniest view of truth, and I am my own master.

The most wonderful consequence of this is that a man who sees things as they are will also respect them, and accordingly will also love them. It is his very power to understand that allows him to love, without condition, demanding nothing else.

Would you like to find people who are fair, kind, and decent? Look for the people who first and foremost understand true from false, and can thereby live according to right and wrong.

11.2

You will set little value on pleasing song and dancing and the athletic games, if you will distribute the melody of the voice into its several sounds, and ask yourself as to each, if you are mastered by this.

 For you will be prevented by shame from confessing it, and in the matter of dancing, if at each movement and attitude you will do the same, and the like also in the matter of the athletic games.

In all things, then, except virtue and the acts of virtue, remember to apply yourself to their several parts, and by this division to come to value them little. And apply this rule also to your whole life.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.2 (tr Long)

I have no time limit on making myself look the fool, because as much as it may hurt, it always helps me to be humble. I am wary, however, of embarrassing others, but in this case I suspect that enough time has passed for anyone to notice.

My father was quite a follower of the medieval and renaissance music scene in Boston, and he was quite an accomplished musician himself. As a child, I always seemed to be around artsy people playing wonderful old instruments; to this day the sight and sound of a recorder, lute, or viola da gamba will send chills down my spine.

It was surely no accident that when I went to college, I was consumed by all things from that era. I would take class after class about Icelandic sagas, Anglo-Saxon literature, Arthurian Romances, and as much Chaucer and Dante as I could manage. Of course it would never get me a job, but it sure nurtured my soul.

One day, my father took me to a concert at Harvard by a small group that was performing medieval Provencal songs. Now you may find that quite boring, but I found it quite exciting. The only problem was that as soon as the music started, I was no longer listening to the music.

You see, there was this soprano who was singing with the group, and she looked to me like an angel who had fallen from heaven. I had been reading about medieval maidens for so long, wise, virtuous, and strong of temperament, and now there seemed to be one standing right before me.

As all good performers do, she would catch the eyes of the audience, but when she caught mine, those of an ungainly and geeky boy, I was sure I would die of longing. She was what I thought all of the romances described: tall, slender, pale, tumbling hair, fiery eyes, delicate lips. In the timeless words of Bambi, I was twitterpated.

I am now no longer afraid to admit that I made excuses to see this group many more times, and mainly to see her. I didn’t care that she was married to the fellow next to her playing the lute, and it obviously never occurred to me to act on any of it. She was completely out of my league, and it was all in my own head. Isn’t that, after all, what chivalric love is all about? The jewel you may never possess?

Time passes, and one thinks that the silly old longings of our innocent past just fade away. Sometimes they hilariously turn up again. I was personally introduced to her many years later, and though time had changed her, and had also changed me, I stood there like a love-struck puppy, unable to say a word. What an awkward moment.

She smiled, and laughed in a kindly way, probably quite aware of my terrible predicament; she was French after, all, and they understand such things.

“You have the thoughtful look of your father,” she said as she gently shook my hand. Dammit! Twitterpated again!

To this day, I use the whole experience as yet another way to help me make sense of my own foolishness, my own shallowness, and my own illusions. I am sure she was a wonderful woman, but my fantasy had nothing to do with her. It was an image of the whole that called to me, not the reality of the parts. I should never confuse a vague dream, a barrage of appealing images, with discerning things as they are in and of themselves.

Am I entranced by a song? Consider each voice, and each part, and each note, and then I am no longer so entranced.

Am I seduced by a dance? Observe each dancer, and each step, and each gesture, and then I am no longer so seduced.

Am I impressed by a show of strength? Watch each play, and each thrust, and each grab, and I am no longer so impressed.

Break it all down, and it doesn’t seem quite so big. See every piece, and it isn’t so intimidating. Look at all the parts, as common and base as they are, and it isn’t so overwhelming.

Remove all of these diversions, and I am left seeing only people much like myself, no more beautiful or ugly. Seeing only other people, all other trappings cast aside, I recognize that it is only virtue that makes them better, and vice that makes them worse. The confusing muddle of impressions must be refined, reduced from the vague to the precise.

11.3

What a soul that is which is that is ready, if at any moment it must be separated from the body, and ready either to be extinguished, or dispersed, or continue to exist.

But let this readiness comes from a man's own judgment, not from mere obstinacy, as with the Christians, but considerately and with dignity and in a way to persuade another, without tragic show.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.3 (tr Long)

Oh, how certain of my Christian friends hate this passage, because they think it paints them in such a bad light! I remind them that I too try to be a Christian, but they will have none of it.

“You either need to embrace Jesus, or abandon your heathen Stoics!” I don’t see it that way at all, but I suppose I am in a minority of those who think that all truth is truth, regardless of the tribe. Some of us choose to first find what is shared, instead of stomping our feet at what is different.

False dichotomies are so very tempting. I still stand with St. Thomas Aquinas, who told me that Aristotle, and so many other great philosophers, had such profound insight, and that all insight serves both God and men.

The narrow ideologues don’t understand that their own stubborn exclusion is exactly what I suspect the Philosopher-Emperor found so frustrating.

I try to look a little deeper, and do a little bit of thinking on my own time. Any decent man, from whatever school or creed, will hopefully understand that a soul is best when it bows to what is true, and does not seek to lord over it.

A good part of this is learning to accept that life will not follow my preferences. I may well die in just a moment, by no design or choice of my own. As I still breathe, it is also very possible that it will all hurt quite a bit. Sometimes, I will even be asked to live far longer than I might wish. I am only left to ponder if I have done my best to live with the character my nature demands of me.

Have I been fair, kind, compassionate, and caring? No, I have not always done that. Then let me fix it right now, since I must treat this moment as being all that I am guaranteed to have.

“But my God will reward me later, if I put you in your place right now!” I’m sorry, but I do not understand your conception of God, or why He would make it your job to determine anyone's place but your own. Leave it at that, because I have no wish to fight you.

Virtue is never, I suggest, about throwing one’s weight around, or stepping on other people’s lives. Do I want someone else to be happier, to find his peace, to change his ways? Let me love him, not hate him.

Let me reason with him in friendship, not condemn him from resentment. All the melodrama only draws attention to our own vanity, and assists no one else.

I never actually sat down and spoke to Jesus, but as a Roman Catholic I believe I meet him whenever I receive the Blessed Sacrament. Still, I do not presume to speak for Him. How rude! I never read a bit in the Gospels that told me to make a scene about how much better I am than you.

We’re all going to die; what was actually noble within us while we still lived?

11.4

Have I done something for the general interest? Well then, I have had my reward. Let this always be present to your mind, and never stop doing such good.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.4 (tr Long)

I have made many mistakes concerning the people I admire and trust. I have too often been enticed by fine words and a pleasant presentation, and I have too often overlooked those who simply act with conviction and character, never making a peep about how important they are. Even if my thinking was slowly improving, my doing was lagging quite far behind.

I now see, just a bit more clearly, that good people will genuinely act for the sake of others, and that they will ask for no further reward beyond that. The satisfaction of their conscience is all they seek.

I also begin to recognize where I was going wrong. There are rather clear warning signs for players and scoundrels. Everything they say and do always seems to point back to glorifying themselves, and they always demand some further compensation for their seeming decency. At that point, of course, it ceases to be decency at all; it becomes a mercenary life.

The common good, or the “general interest”, is not merely some abstract idea. It is a concrete commitment. It requires seeing that the good of any one piece can never be at the expense of any other, and that we all rise and fall together.

It brings out the young romantic in me, whose eyes got a bit teary when he first read Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment, where Father Zosima says: “Every one of us is undoubtedly responsible for all men.”

It brings out the old Thomist in me, who still recites to himself that phrase from the manuals: “A man may suffer an evil, but he must never commit an evil.”

Many people have long told me that success in life requires balancing priorities, finding compromises, and seizing opportunities. That indeed sounds noble, until one grasps that it all really depends on our order of what is more or less important, what things we surrender in order to gain other things, and where we find what is useful.

To prioritize virtue over vice is quite good, but to prioritize profit over principle is quite evil. To compromise my preferences for my character is worthy of credit, but to compromise my character for convenience is worthy of blame. To take advantage of the chance to be fair is right, but to take advantage of the chance to play the tyrant is wrong.

I leave little reminders for myself everywhere I can, like a trail of breadcrumbs, to be clear about what I really want, and why I might want it.

11.5

What is your art? To be good.

And how is this accomplished well, except by general principles, some about the nature of the Universe, and others about the proper constitution of man?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.5 (tr Long)

We admire all sorts of art, ability, skill, expertise, or proficiency in people. We send folks to school for years and years, and we put them through the most rigorous training, all so that they can learn to produce or sell things, and thereby to make themselves more influential over others. We are deeply impressed by those who have the prowess to master their circumstances.

Yet we too often neglect the greatest human power of all, to be masters over ourselves.

I was admittedly never very good at most of the trades and professions I attempted, so I can understand why someone might cry sour grapes. Yet even with the few things I had a slight knack for, like being a loyal and dedicated office gofer, or managing as a halfway competent teacher, or even that occasionally brilliant lick on a mandolin, my heart was never into pursuing these things to make myself look better to others. It seemed just downright wrong.

It always felt deeply uncomfortable to lie, steal, slander, or even look the other way to get what I wanted. I saw others doing it all of the time, but whenever I tried to play that game, I felt sick inside.

The benefit that came to me from all of this was to look elsewhere for a happy life. As much as I might desire riches or fame, shouldn’t I really concern myself with becoming a decent person, first and foremost?

That is the human art, the one we gloss over. What good will any degree, or any job, or any worldly achievement help me, if I have not first struggled to be wise, brave, temperate, and just? For all the preferences I may have, where is my work and effort on making myself better, not just making my situation better?

No refined scholarship is necessary, and no high-powered credentials are required. I only need to take an honest hold of myself, and to consider how I can find my own place within the order of Providence.

Virtue is the greatest human art, and no schooling, or titles, or plays for power will ever give that to me. This is because it cannot be given to me at all, as I can only give it to myself.

By all means, let me be in awe at a man’s ability to get things done. Better, however, to be committed to my own ability to do things right. I must understand that radical difference. True art is measured by its own beauty, not by how much it will fetch at auction.

11.6

At first, tragedies were brought on the stage as means of reminding men of the things that happen to them, and that it is according to Nature for things to happen so, and that, if you are delighted with what is shown on the stage, you should not be troubled with that which takes place on the larger stage.

For you see that these things must be accomplished thus, and that even they bear them who cry out, "O Cithaeron!" And, indeed, some things are said well by the dramatic writers, of which kind is the following especially:

"Me and my children if the gods neglect,

This has its reason too."

And again,

"We must not chafe and fret at that which happens."

And,

"Life's harvests reap like the wheat's fruitful ear."

And other things of the same kind.

After tragedy, the old comedy was introduced, which had a magisterial freedom of speech, and by its very plainness of speaking was useful in reminding men to beware of insolence; and for this purpose too Diogenes used to take from these writers.

But as to the middle comedy, which came next, observe what it was, and again, for what object the new comedy was introduced, which gradually sank down into a mere mimic artifice. That some good things are said even by these writers, everybody knows; but the whole plan of such poetry and dramaturgy, to what end does it look?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.6 (tr Long)

I can hardly speak with any authority on the historical development of ancient Greek and Roman drama, though I can certainly relate quite well to how the skillful telling of a story can have a profound effect on our thinking. Tragedy and comedy allow us to consider both the rising and falling of fortune in life respectively, and can help us to understand what we are to make of such circumstances, how we choose to relate to the force of events.

It isn’t just a question of the text being sad or funny, or whether things end poorly or end well. A good story, in whatever form it is told, will teach us something about ourselves, and hopefully encourage us to walk away slightly wiser, and slightly better.

This is especially important from a Stoic perspective, where the interplay between what happens to us and our own choices about what happens to us is so crucial. Hopefully we learn that the value of our lives will follow from the content of our character, whatever the world may or may not give to us.

Perhaps because it was the first play I read through all on my own, Oedipus Rex has long had a powerful effect on me. At first, it seemed to me that Oedipus was just a victim of terrible fate, and that all I could do was have compassion for his suffering, perhaps hoping also that such a thing should never happen to me.

Yet as I looked more closely, I saw that his suffering has come precisely from his own choices and actions. In vainly assuming that he had it within his power to control fate, he himself became the very vehicle of that fate. Disgusted by the prophecy that he would kills his own father and marry his own mother, his pride and presumption made those very things come to pass.

I can look at myself, and see quite a number of things I would wish had happened differently, and I may dwell upon them. I can find ways I may think I have been wronged, and I may stew with thoughts of vengeance. Yet each and every time, the only real loss that came to be from such situations was the result of my own judgments about them. Instead of relying on my merits, I made the events more important to me, and so I allowed them to determine me.

If I freely bind myself to what will happen, I can hardly blame what will happen. There is the tragedy, and there is the lesson.

11.7

How plain does it appear that there is not another condition of life so well suited for philosophizing as this in which you now happen to be.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.7 (tr Long)

We had a corny old family joke, back from the days of VHS tapes, whenever this message would pop up before a movie:

This film has been modified from its original version. It has been formatted to fit this screen.

At which point one of us had to ask, “How did they know how big our TV screen is?”

So it is with the circumstances of our lives. Sometimes we say we are deeply grateful for all of our blessings, and sometimes we cry out that we have been cursed, but in the end we are given exactly what we need, right when we need it.

This can only fill us with awe, whether it is due to the most wonderful serendipity or the most profound Providence. It is Nature at work, and more specifically the properties of human nature at work, precisely because it is within the power of reason to rule itself, through each and every condition. Each is so well suited, because they are all made to be so well suited.

What state of affairs do I currently find myself in? That is the best one for me right now, since it is offering me an opportunity to be a better man right now. What about the state of affairs I will find myself in tomorrow? That will be the best one for me tomorrow, since it will also offer me an opportunity to be a better man then.

I was always, from the very beginning, quite uncomfortable with the idea that certain people are rewarded by fortune for being good, and that certain people are punished by fortune for being bad. Can I not just as easily be given pleasant circumstances while being a sinner, and unpleasant circumstances while being a saint? I wondered why this seemed so odd to people, because I saw it around me all of the time.

The trick, of course, is not letting life be ruled by fortune at all. It’s all good, if we choose to make it so, and it’s all bad, if we choose to make it so.

“But I will make the world in my image!” No, you won’t, because that it is not for you to decide. Let us stick to what is our own, and accept any of the rest with a character that proceeds from within us.

I have gotten some things I wanted, and very many more things I did not want at all. I have thought my life was wonderful when I was loved and appreciated, and I have thought it unbearable when I was rejected and ignored. Only a right understanding of my own nature helps me to gladly accept that everything necessary to embrace virtue is offered to me at any given moment, if only employed in the right way.

11.8

A branch cut off from the adjacent branch must of necessity be cut off from the whole tree also. So too, a man, when he is separated from another man has fallen off from the whole social community.

Now as to a branch, another cuts it off; but a man by his own act separates himself from his neighbor when he hates him and turns away from him, and he does not know that he has at the same time cut himself off from the whole social system.

Yet he has this privilege certainly from Zeus, who framed society, for it is in our power to grow again to that which is near to us, and again to become a part that helps to make up the whole.

However, if it often happens, this kind of separation, it makes it difficult for that which detaches itself to be brought to unity and to be restored to its former condition.

Finally, the branch, which from the first grew together with the tree, and has continued to have one life with it, is not like that which after being cut off is then engrafted, for this is something like what the gardeners mean when they say that it grows with the rest of the tree, but that it has not the same mind with it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.8 (tr Long)

How much of the most sincere love, the most genuine sacrifice, and the most undying commitment I have had the joy to see in this life. It was not always so apparent to the world, but it is still the hidden lifeblood that keeps it all going.

How much of the most grinding hatred, the most heartless selfishness, and the most disgusting abuse I have had the horror to see in this life. It often seemed to run the world, and I often felt like it was the cancer that would finally eat away all of us.

Yet chop off all of the limbs you may wish, and burn them in a fire of your own malice or indifference, but the tree doesn’t die. Nature still lives, and the Divine still lives. Try to cut it away, and it will grow back nevertheless.

Remove the part from the whole, and the part becomes nothing at all in itself. Now the branch has no choice if it is pruned from the tree, but I most certainly have the choice if I will be separated from all of my brothers and sisters.

Being part of a social community has nothing, I suggest, to do with being liked or respected. Shallow people, who define themselves through the opinions of others, are the only ones to think that. Real folks, those who work, commit, love, and bleed, are not interested in what they receive. They give to the whole, knowing that they are a part of the whole.

Lust is selfish, but love is selfless. Love is not to the harm of the branch, but rather to the benefit of both the branch and of the tree. There is no one without the other.

I am the only one responsible for my isolation from my neighbors. Do they not care for me? Let that be. Do I not care for them? I can do something about that.

The worst part of it is that annoying power of habit. The more I hate, the harder it is for me to love. The more I look away, the harder it is for me to look right back at it. The more I grow cold, the harder it is for me to become warm once again.

I have learned, through hard and painful experience, that everything I have ever suffered came from me. I have also learned, with much shame and squirming, that after I had so foolishly detached my branch from the tree, I could always have easily reattached my branch to the tree. Only the stubbornness of my will got in the way.

“I’m sorry. I love you. How can I make it right?”

Yes, many people will laugh at you, or dismiss you, if you say something like that. Say it in any event, and mean it, from one branch of the tree to another.

11.9

As those who try to stand in your way when you are proceeding according to right reason will not be able to turn you aside from your proper action, so neither let them drive you from your benevolent feelings toward them, but be on your guard equally in both matters, not only in the matter of steady judgment and action, but also in the matter of gentleness to those who try to hinder or otherwise trouble you.

For this also is a weakness, to be vexed at them, as well as to be diverted from your course of action and to give way through fear; for both are equally deserters from their post—the man who does it through fear, and the man who is alienated from him who is by nature a kinsman and a friend.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.9 (tr Long)

Old habits will die hard. Even when I have thought something through as thoroughly as I can, doing my best to remove all selfishness or pride from my judgment, I will still feel discouraged when others put me down for my conviction, and I will be sorely tempted to the deepest despair or fiercest anger.

But if I follow through with that response, how will my response be any different from theirs?

People aren’t just bad in the biggest and most obvious ways, but are far more often nasty and brutish in the smallest and subtlest of ways. What stings me the most, for example, is being dismissed and ignored, not being slandered and assaulted. Show me an enemy I can fight fairly, I think to myself, not one who slices off little bits of me when I’m not really looking.

But there is no need for any of that. That way lies only my own doom. If I am committed to doing right and living well, then let me also clearly show love. Yes, even to those who snipe away, who gossip behind my back, who treat me like human garbage. Scratch that: especially to those people.

There will nothing of worth within myself if I cannot treat others with worth. If I don’t like how deeply the insult wounds me, I should cease to be insulting. If I don’t like being cast aside, I should cease to cast aside. I should not be ashamed, as I have been so often, to proudly proclaim that old hippie mantra: love is the law.

I may well feel the hurt, but that hurt does not need to become resentment. The former happens to me, and is a product of my passions, but the latter is something I choose, the product of my reason. There is no blame in pain, even as there is quite a bit of blame in frustration about pain.

Try asking people you know for help, even with the simplest of things, and notice how many of those who have the least will still give all of themselves, and many of those who have the most will give you absolutely nothing at all. This is because some people are quite enamored of the having, not of the offering.

This may make my blood boil, but I must be wary of that trigger. Tell me that you will not help me, and I must still, despite all of my doubts, do my best to help you.

I originally thought Winston Churchill said it, but apparently it was Victor Hugo. Either one would be a worthy source:

You have enemies? Why, it is the story of every man who has done a great deed or created a new idea. It is the cloud which thunders around everything that shines. Fame must have enemies, as light must have gnats. Do no bother yourself about it; disdain. Keep your mind serene as you keep your life clear.

11.10

There is no nature that is inferior to art, for the arts imitate the natures of things. But if this is so, that Nature which is the most perfect and the most comprehensive of all natures, cannot fall short of the skill of art.

 Now all arts do the inferior things for the sake of the superior; therefore the Universal Nature does so too.

And, indeed, hence is the origin of justice, and in justice the other virtues have their foundation: for justice will not be observed, if we either care for middle things, those things indifferent, or are easily deceived and careless and changeable.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.10 (tr Long)

There is an art to being fair, right, and decent, just as there is an art to all aspects of living well. Yet that art remains fully in the service of Nature, such that whatever we may desire must always exist within the whole and for the sake of the whole, never for one part at the expense of another. It is deeply comforting to know that morality is grounded in the very dignity of what things are, not merely in how convenient they may be at the moment.

Still, I need to be quite careful when I hear people appealing to justice, because they may well be speaking of something very different. For some, justice does not mean everyone giving and receiving what is rightfully due, but rather becomes giving only enough to receive what is most preferred. This is hardly just a play on words; it is the difference between respect and gratification as the measure of our lives.

The art of justice can easily become twisted into the utility of cleverness. I have come to recognize this whenever I see someone who would expect to be treated in a certain way, but will not treat others in that very same way.

Do you know the sort of person who demands to be forgiven for a mistake, but will cast blame whenever another makes a mistake? Do you know the sort of person who is always asking for sacrifice from you, but who never seems to sacrifice anything of himself? Do you know the sort of person who distinguishes between telling a lie on the one hand, and being caught telling a lie on the other? You already know quite well those who subvert Nature to their own sense of entitlement.

Understanding that justice is rooted in Nature herself, and not merely in appearance and convention, will change absolutely everything about how I go about living my life, and it will often require taking the path that is the not the easiest or the most pleasant. Justice, as the virtue that orders our relationship to others, in turn informs all the other virtues, such that no thought or action can ever really be considered separately from whether it works in harmony with the whole.

If I start ruling my life by what the Stoics often call “middle things” or “indifferent things” I have left justice far behind. It is my own virtue that is good for me, and my own vice that is bad for me. Now there are also all sorts of things in life, those in the middle, that are neither good nor bad in themselves, rather becoming good or bad by whether I guide them with character.

So it will in itself be neither good nor bad for me, and should therefore be indifferent to me, whether I am rich or poor, loved or hated, healthy or sick, and so on. As soon as I want these things for their own sake, and act toward them as my highest goal, I am far from being a just man. I am now only a man who follows what he most prefers, what strikes his fancy from a certain light, and what feels appealing at the time.

In all, I can ask myself: Am I acting to improve my own excellence, or just to improve my situation? Am I acting for the good of the whole, or am I supporting some of the parts while neglecting other parts? Am I correctly discerning what is good and bad from what is indifferent?

The scales are only balanced if these questions are answered rightly.

11.11

If the things do not come to you, the pursuits and avoidances of which disturb you, still in a manner you go to them.

Let then your judgment about them be at rest, and they will remain quiet, and you will not be seen either pursuing or avoiding.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.11 (tr Long)

“I do my best to avoid seeking the wrong things in my life, and I do my best to stay clear of all the bad influences around me. Still, they frustrate me, and they make me angry, and they make me sad.”

When I say something like that to myself, I am still very much in the sway of such powers. I may have insisted that I will not choose to do evil, and I may be firm that I will not allow evil to lead me astray. Nevertheless, I allow them to have quite a hold on me. I am perhaps managing the outside, even as I am eating myself away on the inside.

The younger me was quite ready to desire many of the wrong things, and to run from many of the right things. Only hard experience, years of the same old mistakes over and over again, began to help me get it into my thick skull that I had to radically change the way I lived.

The discipline of the doing, however, ran ahead of the discipline of the thinking. The older me began, in small ways, to control how I reacted to certain circumstances, but I would still find myself full of resentment and despair about it all. I knew I had to do things differently, all the while forgetting that this meant nothing if I didn’t change my own standards of judgment.

“Stop running after achievements that provide only money, power, or fame!” That’s a wonderful rule of life. It becomes meaningless if I still want those things within me.

“Stop asking to be accepted by just anyone at all, following all the wrong friends, and falling hopelessly in love with questionable women just because they give you the time of day!” That’s a good piece of advice. It becomes meaningless if I continue to bemoan their loss within me.

“Stop numbing your senses to life because something hurts, and begin to make something of yourself, and for yourself, regardless of what may happen!” That’s quite a healthy approach. It becomes meaningless if I only grit my teeth at the hurt, and don’t transform it into something else within me.

I will only find rest when my soul is at peace, and my soul will only be at peace through a rebuilding of how I distinguish good from bad, right from wrong. Only then will I actually stop caring about possessions, or status, or gratification.

I will not be frustrated, or angry, or sad if I stop allowing such impressions to be important in my very values, at the root of my conscience. The actions must follow from the estimation. Then there is rest, and then there is peace.

11.12

The spherical form of the soul maintains its figure when it is neither extended towards any object, nor contracted inwards, nor dispersed, nor sinks down, but is illuminated by light, by which it sees the truth—the truth of all things and the truth that is in itself.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.12 (tr Long)

A sphere, in one sense, can be described as an ideal figure, perfectly balanced, its limit always extending the same distance from the center, equally strong throughout all its points, presenting itself in the same way from all angles and perspectives.

Marcus Aurelius employs the image of the sphere a number of times to express the unity, the simplicity, and the purity of the soul.

Sometimes my soul feels like it has been stretched and dragged out. I have twisted and misshapen my soul, because I have reached out to possess so many things beyond myself.

Sometimes my soul feels like it has collapsed in on itself, or become deflated. I have neglected my soul, and allowed it to be emptied of any inner meaning and purpose.

Sometimes my soul feels like it is spread far too thin, and I can no longer find its center. I have defined myself by everything that isn’t me, and so I no longer recognize what is me.

Sometimes my soul feels like it has become to heavy, and that it will sink. I have weighed it down with worry, with anger, and with despair, all the baggage it should be leaving behind instead of dragging along.

And yet there are still the times, whenever I can focus my mind rightly on who I am and my place within the harmony of the whole, that my soul affirms itself like a perfect sphere. Then it moves in a pattern with all other spheres, each reflecting the light of the other. Then I am myself, precisely because there is balance.

Many years ago, and I hardly remember the entire context, I was waxing eloquently on the soul being like a sphere to a fellow philosophy geek. Please remember that such pompous practices are hardly necessary for a good life, though they can be quite amusing.

“First, do you realize,” she said, “that you are making Marcus Aurelius sound like Leibniz?”

“Ah, dropping names!” I replied. “So what if I am? I hope they would approve!”

“And second, do you realize that you are describing the human soul like a giant disco ball, twirling around, always so happy to reflect the light of truth?”

“I like that image. We shall keep it, you and I!”

Oh, I ended marrying that girl. What else could I do? Who else could possibly put up with me for life?

11.13

Suppose any man shall despise me. Let him look to that himself. But I will look to this, that I be not discovered doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

Shall any man hate me? Let him look to it. But I will be mild and benevolent towards every man, and ready to show even him his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my endurance, but nobly and honestly, like the great Phocion, unless indeed he only assumed it.

For the interior parts ought to be such, and a man ought to be seen by the gods neither dissatisfied with anything nor complaining.

For what evil is it to you, if you are now doing what is agreeable to your own nature, and are satisfied with that which at this moment is suitable to the Nature of the Universe, since you are a human being placed at your post in order that what is for the common advantage may be done in some way?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.13 (tr Long)

I have suffered shattered limbs, had my teeth knocked out, cracked my skull open, and I still have nightmares about squashing my thumb, flattened out as thin as a pancake, after a foolish childhood prank. I woke up one night with a pain in my gut I thought I could not bear, and all I could do was pray for a quick death as I was rushed to the hospital.

All those things hurt, most mightily, especially the pancake thumb thing; I’m surprised that thumb is still there. The cracked skull still gives me sudden agony at awkward and random times, decades later, and it only makes it worse when people ask me as I’m rolling about, “Are you okay?”

And none of that, absolutely none of that, was ever as terrible as the pain I have felt from being hated, betrayed, rejected, or dismissed. They will take you to the emergency room for a broken arm, but if you complain about a broken heart, they roll their eyes, and they tell you to just get over it.

Though it only became clear to me well after the fact, a turning point in my meager attempt at a life came just I had been hit by a pickup truck while I was walking home one night. The truck sped off, and I lay there quite alone, with a leg that wouldn’t work, and a face that felt like putty. I couldn’t see a thing, except for some little shiny stars, until I realized that my eyes were filled with blood from a wound to my head.

Shock and adrenaline can do wonderful things for you. I just started crawling. At one point, I managed to pull myself up and hop on the one leg, holding on the walls and fences along the way.

I got quite dizzy, and I was suddenly excited to see someone ahead of me in my narrow vision. I’m not sure what I said, but I know I called for help. The man looked straight at me from across the road, turned, and kept going on his way.

Right there, I gave up. Forget the twisted leg, forget the head wound, and forget the toothless mouth. A neighbor just decided I wasn’t worth his time. It was all the worse because I knew the fellow. He was the new husband of the lost love of my life.

You see, I could somehow bear my body being broken. My feelings, on the other hand, that I was sure I could not bear.

This is precisely why all of us need to learn concern and kindness. No, though I hated that man more than my other wounds at first, it was never about demanding that he be concerned and kind. That was my mistake. I needed to learn to be concerned and kind for myself.

It was my own resentment that ate away at me, long after my leg had healed, and long after I was given new teeth, and long after I could present my scarred face in public. My anger and despair were my biggest suffering, and I had only brought them on myself.

Don’t just think in abstractions. Think not only of those people who have treated you poorly, but also of those who have taken all you care for in this world, and have brushed you aside while doing so. Look how smug they appear, praising themselves, and pretending that you never existed. Does this hurt? Yes, of course it does, far more than you are probably willing to admit. And it makes you quite angry.

This was a turning point for me. Does he hate me? Well, then let me love him in return. I can only do this if I understand that my life is measured by my virtue and vice, not the virtue and vice of another.

What good will come for me, or for him, by my whining and complaining? I will become more bitter, and he will become more indignant. I will destroy myself, while I will only encourage his own contempt. By giving myself reasons for hating, I give others reasons for hating.

It will only make sense from a Stoic perspective, and from the perspective of all great wisdom, when the value of any life is in what a man does, and not in what is done to him. I must move from a passive view of life to an active view of life.

I honestly don’t prefer the post I have been assigned to by Providence; I dearly wish it were a different one entirely. Nevertheless, it is the one I am given, and the one I am meant to face. When my whole family reached out to that other family to heal our differences, we were quite rudely turned away. But this time we tried from charity, not from any opposition. Our actions, and our responses, were informed very differently than they had been before.

Why am I allowing evil in the heart of another to harden my own heart? Perhaps because I love another, I tell myself, and because I feel so desperately hurt. So be it. Must I also cause hurt in return? Never. Love rejected is no less an expression of love; perhaps it is even more so.

I only make sense of “turning the other cheek” with this wisdom in mind.

11.14

Men despise one another and flatter one another; and men wish to raise themselves above one another, and crouch before one another.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.14 (tr Long)

We see it all of the time, but surely we must wonder why the people who want to bring us down seem so happy to raise us up, and why the people who desire to have power over us appear so keen to grovel before us?

Precisely, I suggest, because the latter tempts us as a quite clever and effective means for achieving the former. We tell others how influential they are, so that we may win influence over them. Of course we don’t like them at all, because we see them only as a means to serve ourselves, though we very much want them to think that we like them. There is the perfect image, the reality be damned.

These are the games we play. We say it is a noble exercise in friendship, collegiality, and professionalism, but it is really just a complex set of smoke and mirrors. You don’t believe me? Consider what happens when you are of no more use to someone else, and see where that will find you.

Again, I don’t think Marcus Aurelius points out these weaknesses of human nature in order to make us despair, or to tell us that life is not worth living. Quite the contrary, he shows us how the abuse of our reason and will should be a warning, pointing us right back to the true excellence of reason and will.

Many people will hate me, and many people will manipulate me, and many people will drop me as soon as I am inconvenient. This is how they have chosen to live, but I must not choose to live in the same manner. For all the spite in this world, there is also much love. Let me embrace the right things, even if others do not do so.

Will flattery get me anywhere? Yes, but only if I am headed in entirely the wrong direction. The flatterer is an abuser, and therefore reveals himself as someone who does not respect you for your own sake. He thinks of you as a vehicle for his own satisfaction.

I am quite wary of fawning praise, having seen so often that it can easily become a way to make me into another tool. Remember: the people who seem the kindest are often the most harmful.

How can I possibly tell the difference between scheming and sincerity? I would often be quite confused, but the answer is fairly simple. Are the fine words matched by fine actions? Is there too much saying, but not enough doing? Are there seductive promises, but no deeds to back it up? It usually becomes totally clear in no time at all.

In my best Epictetus: “The fact that you sigh and pander, speaking nobly but living poorly, shows me that you are not powerful at all; you are a slave.”

11.15

How unsound and insincere is he who says, “I have determined to deal with you in a fair way!” What are you doing, man?

There is no occasion to give this notice. It will soon show itself by acts. The voice ought to be plainly written on the forehead. Such as a man's character is, he immediately shows it in his eyes, just as he who is beloved forthwith reads everything in the eyes of lovers.

The man who is honest and good ought to be exactly like a man who smells strong, so that the bystander, as soon as he comes near him, must smell whether he chooses or not.

But the affectation of simplicity is like a crooked stick. Nothing is more disgraceful than a wolfish friendship, a false friendship. Avoid this most of all. The good and simple and benevolent show all these things in the eyes, and there is no mistaking.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.15 (tr Long)

One of my greatest obstacles has been overcoming an uncanny knack for trusting all the wrong sorts of people, and then finding myself laid low by my misguided commitment.

The first instinct, of course, is to blame others, but they will be what they are, for their own reasons, accountable to themselves. Any harm that came to me was really just the result of my own poor judgment, and the very fact that I was allowing the value of my own living to depend upon the thinking of others.

But can people ever really be trusted? Of course they can. The world is charged with decency and love; I just need to know where to look, and how to look.

I used to sit there, thinking there was some secret formula, but common sense will suffice, as soon as I understand the simple rule that any man is measured by what he actually does.

Used car salesmen get a bad rap, considering that most of the lawyers, doctors, bankers, academics, and politicians do much the same. They tell you one thing, but do something quite different. My mistake was always being impressed by the words, and failing to see the deeds.

If someone assures me, with all sorts of flowery rhetoric, that I should absolutely trust him, I am wise to be doubtful. The more he says, the more I should step back. Words are only as good as thoughts, and thoughts are only as good as actions. Start with the actions, and let the words be what they may.

Not a single word needs to be said at all to prove any degree of character. The kindest things ever done for me were always done without any dramatic monologues, or any demands to be recognized, or any promises at all.

So too, the few good things I have ever done were never advertised, were never demanding of anything in return, and were never part of any transaction.

If my own mind and heart are sincere, I will immediately recognize sincerity in others. I will see it, and I will feel it deep in my bones, because nothing is more apparent about anyone than the presence of true virtue. Once I know what it is, I can’t possibly miss it.

“Trust me, I’ll take care of you!” Say it if you must, but I will only believe you when you show me. Remember, I am completely capable of seeing right through you; you can’t really hide your soul from me.

11.16

As to living in the best way, this power is in the soul, if it is indifferent to things that are indifferent. And it will be indifferent, if it looks on each of these things separately and all together, and if it remembers that not one of them produces in us an opinion about itself, nor comes to us.

But these things remain immovable, and it is we ourselves who produce the judgments about them, and, as we may say, write them in ourselves, it being in our power not to write them, and it being in our power, if perchance these judgments have imperceptibly got admission to our minds, to wipe them out.

And if we remember also that such attention will only be for a short time, and then life will be at an end.

Besides, what trouble is there at all in doing this? For if these things are according to Nature, rejoice in them and they will be easy to you; but if contrary to Nature, seek what is conformable to your own nature, and strive towards this, even if it bring no reputation.

For every man is allowed to seek his own good.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.16 (tr Long)

I sometimes find it puzzling that people will think of Stoicism as being fatalist, because it argues that our circumstances are ultimately beyond our power. I would rather think it fatalist to claim that we must be under the power of our circumstances, which is the implicit assumption we too often make about our lives.

Things will be what they are, according to their own natures, and I will be what I am, according to my own nature. Whatever may happen to me, or whatever another may think or do, these events can stay right where they are, and it is only my own judgment and choice about them that will move or change me.

They will have as much of a hold on my estimation as I give to them, and even if I have previously allowed them to rule me, it remains in my power to put them aside, right here and now. It is within my nature as a creature of reason to do this.

How often have I told myself that I had do something, that there was no choice in the matter, or that my actions were beyond my control? How often have I heard others say that they wish they could act differently, but that their hands were tied, that they couldn’t help it? What lies we tell, what illusions we live under!

It may be the right thing to do or the wrong thing to do, and the pressure of circumstances may feel so great, but as long as I am still conscious and aware, I am forced to do nothing. The weight of all those conditions is the weight I choose to give them.

“I couldn’t help it, that’s just who I am!” No, who I am is precisely what I decide, since as a human being, gifted with mind and will, I can always “help” what I do, even if I cannot “help” what others do.

I used to think this way of living would be so hard to do, and I will still fall into the old habits of dependence upon impressions each and every day, but I learn more and more that the real hindrance to my own liberty, my ability to be completely responsible for myself, is entirely within me. I am the one building the walls, and putting up the misleading road signs, and saying that there is something about ruling and ordering myself that can’t be done.

It becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy, in that by judging it to be impossible for myself I thereby make it impossible for myself.  “My fear, my desire, my anger, my pain are simply too strong!” My fear, my desire, my anger, or my pain didn’t tell me that at all; I told myself that.

“But I have to keep my job, and pay the rent, and keep up my standing!” Come now, I know better than that. I may say I have to, because I still think these things to be necessary for a good life. They are not necessary, however, and so I should be indifferent to them, willing to take them up or to leave them be, as my own conscience informs me. I can learn to be indifferent to circumstances only when I recognize that my good is within my own virtue.

I used to roll my eyes when people did perfectly kind things for no other gain at all, and when I begrudgingly thanked them, they would say, “Oh, it’s no trouble at all!” But they were right; it really isn’t any trouble at all.

11.17

Consider from where each thing is come, and of what it consists, and into what it changes, and what kind of a thing it will be when it has changed, and that it will sustain no harm.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.17 (tr Long)

I’m not sure precisely when it started, because I honestly wasn’t paying attention, but somewhere into the new millennium Stoicism became a trendy thing once again.

The reason I wasn’t paying attention had nothing to do with any disdain for others, or any cynical rejection of the times, but rather arose from the fact that I didn’t see any honest connection between the way I had been trying to live and the way certain others were now trying to live.

By all means, follow the path that you think is best; I simply know that this cannot be my path. I think this goes beyond a difference of preference, to a basic difference of conscience.

A fellow, who was quite successful at working in software over in California, once jumped out of his seat when he overheard me mention Marcus Aurelius during a conversation. He came up to me immediately, and explained how everyone at his company was reading the Meditations, and how deeply it was changing their attitudes.

I was at first quite excited. I babbled something about trying to run a business based on human values, not simply on making money. He looked at me sideways.

“Oh no, we’re making more money than we ever did, and it’s all because Marcus Aurelius helps us to empower ourselves!”

As I often must do, I bit my lip, because otherwise I will just end up saying something rude. But I was only thinking of what he meant by being “empowered”, and I realized that any philosophy, or any way of living, was only as good for him as it made him richer and more important.

“Dude, have you actually taught this shit? I can fly you out to our campus, and you can run a seminar, and I swear it’ll help you get your name out there. Do you have a card? No? Don’t worry man, here’s mine, and I’ll set you up.”

Were they actually reading the same Meditations? To his credit, I suspect he found certain ideas about self-reliance, toughness of will, and overcoming obstacles to be quite inspiring. These are indeed good things to learn. My concern was that it was all outside of the larger context of Stoicism, and that it employed certain virtues at the expense of others. It was intellectual and moral cherry picking.

Look at the passage above. At first, it just seems to be saying that we should make sense of things by breaking them down. Yes, that is certainly good sense, in business or otherwise. But I suggest that Marcus Aurelius is looking to something much deeper, to the Nature of reality itself, and to the nature of the moral choices that ought to inform our awareness.

Where did it come from? From Providence, from the order and design of Divine Mind. This is our highest measure.

Of what does it consist? All things are simply bits and pieces, elements, expressions and aspects of the whole, in and of themselves nothing, all joined together for the expression of everything.

What does it change into? All things change for a common end, and move in harmony with one another. No action exists in isolation from any other action.

How does all of this serve what is right and good? Nothing is in vain. Nothing is lost, and nothing is discarded, and nothing is without meaning and purpose. For me to be a good man is to choose to find my own place within this pattern.

Empowerment for this man meant getting more of what he already wanted. Empowerment for me has come to mean discovering the true needs I had always overlooked. 

I respect you if you may think differently, but I see no use in any Stoic discipline without a Stoic metaphysics. I see no use in being committed if I do not understand what I must be committed to. I see no use in strength without virtue.

By all means, be a successful man if you wish, but first and foremost be a good man. I don’t think that was the message Silicon Valley was getting.

11.18.1

If any have offended against you, consider first: What is my relation to men, and that we are made for one another; and in another respect I was made to be set over them, as a ram over the flock, or a bull over the herd.

But examine the matter from first principles, from this. If all things are not mere atoms, it is Nature that orders all things: if this is so, the inferior things exist for the sake of the superior, and these for the sake of one another. . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

I know a fellow who can’t seem to get over the fact that Marcus Aurelius was one of the most powerful men on earth. I usually respond that I care little for that, and that I think he may well have been one of the best men on earth.

The fact is, of course, that he was both, and the two don’t often seem to go together. I have known many mighty men who insisted that they were good, but I have rarely met mighty men who actually tried to be good, and who took their responsibilities to others so seriously.

Did he sometimes fail? Of course he did, as we all do, and his writings reveal that inner struggle. What always amazes me, however, is his constant sense of reflection, of seeking improvement, of aiming to match his own thoughts and deeds to the order of Nature.

Pontius Pilate washed his hands, and asked, “What is truth?”

Marcus Aurelius disciplined his mind, and asked, “How may I serve truth?”

All things are made to work together. Nature is not a random collection of things. Some parts are smaller, and some are bigger, but all are necessary. The leader may rule the pack, but he is still responsible for the pack, and his own role is to look for the common good, not merely for his own. The lower may indeed serve the higher, but the higher serves the whole.

We say it often, but we rarely do it. For shame!

I am not a ram or a bull, so I must look at this from the bottom up, and not from the top down. To be quite honest, I actually prefer that. I have a hard enough time trying to be virtuous with next to nothing, and I would have a much harder time being virtuous with almost everything; I don’t envy the Emperor.

So the Philosopher-Emperor will offer nine (well, actually ten, but stay tuned) rules of moral conduct here, and with this first one he begins by remembering that we are all made for one another. We will do this in very different ways, and we will serve many different roles, and we will find ourselves at vastly different places in the pecking order. Still, we rise and fall together, because there can be no good over here at the expense of another over there.

11.18.2

. . . Second, consider what kind of men they are at table, in bed, and so forth; and particularly, under what compulsions in respect of opinions they are; and as to their acts, consider with what pride they do what they do. . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

What a relief it can be to practice thinking with someone instead of merely thinking at or against someone.  It is the difference between attempting to understand why he acts the way he does, rather than just feeling contempt for how he acts.

I can observe how he chooses to live from day to day, in the most common of ways, and I can then begin to see what truly motivates him. What perceived needs seem to drive him? What judgments inform him? What does he think is worthy of respect?

This will not excuse another, or remove any wrongdoing on his part, or require that I agree with him. It will simply allow me to consider my neighbor with compassion over condemnation. When I see what he cares for, I will not feel so angry or threatened, knowing that we are all subject to error, even as we are still certain that what we desire is good.

When I can make some sense of why he is hateful, or deceitful, or grasping, he will appear in a very different light. Would I be resentful of a man who does himself harm, or would it be better to show him pity? What good will come from fighting him, when I can perhaps offer him help? This will become possible if I can try to look at the world as he looks at it.

I can certainly not look down at him for taking pride in abusing others, if I only abuse him in return. To think with him allows me to think more clearly about myself.

I must not even consider all the great existential struggles of this life, as the most mundane problems will serve as ideal examples. So my lawyer is trying to charge me twice for the same work. So my mechanic doesn’t do the job on the car he says he will do. So my neighbor steals a case of beer off of my back porch. The first man is driven by greed, the second is driven by laziness, and the third is driven by pleasure.

Their actions don’t just proceed from nowhere, but follow from a certain estimation, however misguided or selfish, about what they consider to be best for them. Let me, by all means, correct them, but let me correct them as I would wish to be corrected, not with vengeance but with justice, not with hatred but with love.

When I can somehow get into someone else’s head, our shared humanity becomes far more apparent, and I will be all the more hesitant to treat him as a what instead of a who, as a punching bag instead of a person.

11.18.3

. . . Third, that if men do rightly what they do, we ought not to be displeased, but if they do not right, it is plain that they do so involuntarily and in ignorance.

For as every soul is unwillingly deprived of the truth, so also is it unwillingly deprived of the power of behaving to each man according to his deserts. Accordingly men are pained when they are called unjust, ungrateful, and greedy, and in a word wrongdoers to their neighbor . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

As rational animals, we will most certainly decide how we will act, and therefore we will be responsible for how we will live; still, our judgments will proceed from the premise that we always choose what seems to be beneficial. We may desire something harmful, and we may do something harmful, but it is only because we somehow think it is good that we would ever pursue it.

When I do what is evil, I certainly could know better, and I certainly should know better. At the time, however, and in whatever twisted sort of a way, I have convinced myself that left is right, that up is down, that right is wrong. The vice comes across as a virtue. Yes, the harm is seen as necessary, or the lie is seen as convenient, or the lust is seen as fulfilling.

When I come to see this ignorance in myself, I ask to be forgiven, to be taught, or to be helped. I want to become better. When I see it in others, should I not ask for much the same? Ignorance is hardly an excuse, though overcoming such ignorance is the remedy.

At the very least, this will assist me in putting up with others, and at the very best, it will assist me in sharing the burdens of others. It reminds me to improve myself by helping others to improve themselves, to look at wisdom and ignorance as the root causes of virtue and vice, and not merely to boil away with resentment at offensive words and deeds.

Profound and abstract philosophical reflection are not even required to understand this, since we can also see it immediately in the patterns of our daily behavior. Observe how we may do something thoughtless, selfish, or manipulative, but if we are corrected or challenged, we quite easily become defensive and indignant.

We don’t like being seen as wrong, because we so desperately want to be right. We might be terribly unjust, but we become charged with a stubborn sense that we embody everything that is just.

The only way out of the cycle of resentment is to admit ignorance, and thereby being open to learning something new. In this way, good living will always follow from good thinking. I can hardly be a decent man if I don’t really know what it means to be decent, nor can I reasonably expect that from anyone else.

11.18.4

. . . Fourth, consider that you also do many things wrong, and that you are a man like others.

And even if you do abstain from certain faults, still you have the disposition to commit them, though either through cowardice, or concern about reputation, or some such mean motive, you do abstain from such faults. . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

In my worst moments, I simply want to run away; the idea of becoming a hermit suddenly seems quite appealing. I think of this, however, because I am saddened or offended by others. I would not make a good hermit on these grounds, not even one bit, if my reason for being alone is my resentment for other people.

What is it that fuels my anger or despair? It is nothing else than demanding decency from others, just a bit of respect, a glimmer of love and loyalty. When I don’t get it, I will be tempted to do one of two things: I want to erupt in rage, or I want to crawl into a hole.

I am really just making myself the victim, an antithesis of all that is Stoic, and it isn’t that I need to get tougher, but that I need to become more understanding and compassionate. I need to see myself in others, and others in myself.

Why am I so full of hatred and fear? Because someone else has done something wrong? Let me remember how often I, too, have done wrong because of my own ignorance. Once I came to truly understand my error, I could only think of how to become better, and if I am to be consistent, I should also think of how to help another wrongdoer become better.

There is a twisted hypocrisy in my thinking and living when I treat another as I would never treat myself. I will condemn him, and seek to do him harm, while I will have sympathy with myself, and give myself another chance.

Can I be so confident as to claim that I no longer have such faults? I know I can’t, though let me imagine that I could. Even then, am I not just as prone to fall back into error, or perhaps I am doing the right things for the wrong reasons? I should be aware of my own weakness, and I should be critical about my own motives before I put down someone else’s.

“Look! I have been honest, or helpful, or kind, and my neighbor hasn’t been!” But look how easily I could have done otherwise, how fine that line really was, and maybe I was just honest because I was afraid, or helpful to get ahead, or kind to win affection.

I suspect the real hermit will have no disdain for others at all, and will seek solitude not to stew in his hatred, but to do some work on his ability to love.

11.18.5

. . . Fifth, consider that you do not even understand whether men are doing wrong or not, for many things are done with a certain reference to circumstances.

And in short, a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct judgment on another man's acts. . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

Let’s say I can clearly see that an action is harmful, and I can discern from what sort of general principles a man acts. Can I not now judge him confidently, and say with certainty that I am better, while he is worse?

Yet there is still so much I do not understand, and quite possibly will never be able to fully understand. I should not be so hasty. What particular dispositions, habits, conditions, and circumstances affected a decision? What aspects have I overlooked, what factors am I perhaps completely unaware of? While I may see what someone has done, can I see all that was going on that led to exactly why it was done?

Walking in someone else’s shoes is not as easy as it sounds!

If I look at the events that have troubled me the most, I have to remember first that how much I suffered from them was really up to me, and second that I should not immediately assume malice in people’s actions. In many cases, I dwelt upon the pain, and I then found fault with someone else for suffering that pain.

If I consider it more closely, however, there are huge gaps, vast empty spaces, in my awareness of why these things very really done. Many of the actions that have had the greatest impact on my life largely remain mysteries, where I can only guess what was actually going on in people’s lives, and what may have been running through their heads at the time. There was surely much I never saw, and perhaps that I did not need to see.

I will often grow frustrated when people paint a picture I am sure is far too simple, and I will then insist that there is far more going on than they realize. Well, let me insist on much the same for myself. My own motives are never cut and dry, clearly right or wrong, but are often nuanced and layered. I should remember that for anyone’s motives.

I did not know at the time, for example, that a student who I had great respect for, but who clearly disliked me with a great intensity, did so because I reminded her too much of someone who had been a source of great sadness in her life.

Here I assumed she was just being dismissive and rude, when in fact there was something completely different going on. I only learned of this fact many years later, and it now serves as a healthy reminder that I should not judge too quickly what I do not fully comprehend.

Shoes often look very different on the outside than they feel on the inside.

11.18.6

. . . Sixth, consider when you are much vexed or grieved, that man's life is only a moment, and after a short time we are all laid out dead. . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

Here is yet another of those passages that some people find morbid, as if the fact that life is short means that we should be glad it all ends anyway, and that we can simply tolerate suffering for a certain time, in the knowledge that it will soon pass.

Yet even in my darkest moments, when the Black Dog does his worst, I will no longer choose to think of it in such a manner. It isn’t that the shortness of life makes pain more bearable, but that the shortness of life makes virtue so much sweeter. It’s all in the attitude, and in putting circumstances in their proper perspective.

Now I can rightly say, if I have been rejected or cast aside in my life, that this too shall pass. But I can just as rightly say, if I have won the lottery, or made it big in the world of business and politics, that this too shall also pass. This is because neither kind of fortune, the convenient or the inconvenient, is really what defines me.

Does it bring hurt? Don’t worry, because it won’t last. Does it bring pleasure? Don’t worry, because it won’t last.

And the problem we are so obsessed with is making “bad” things go away, and “good” things stay with us. There are two problems here: that we determine things by their quantity instead of their quality, and that we assume the bad and the good are measured by the situation outside of us.

The very nature of human life is a passing thing, and a rather quickly passing thing at that. The measure for the Stoic is always the same: what have I managed to do with whatever I have, for whatever short a time, and in whatever conditions, to live with character?

I come back to this, time and time again. The Stoic essentially rejects the rule of the pack, because he measures his life by the excellence of what he does, not by what happens to him. That moral transformation is essential to a good life.

Pain and pleasure are not evils and goods. Poverty and riches are not evils and goods. Death and life are not evils and goods.

Strut about all you like, and smirk all you like, and draw attention to your importance all you like. You and I will both end up in exactly the same place. By then, it will have become too late to make that past life worth living.

11.18.7

. . . Seventh, that it is not men's acts that disturb us, for those acts have their foundation in men's ruling principles, but it is our own opinions that disturb us.

Take away these opinions then, and resolve to dismiss your judgment about an act as if it was something grievous, and your anger is gone.

How then shall you take away these opinions? By reflecting that no wrongful act of another brings shame on you; for unless that which is shameful is alone bad, you also must of necessity do many things wrong, and become a robber and everything else. . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

If I can begin to embrace the ethical core of Stoicism, that my own happiness proceeds from my own thoughts and deeds, then I can also begin to embrace its corollary, that the thoughts and deeds of others will only have as much power over me as I choose to give them.

If taken seriously, and applied to all aspects of my life with sincerity and conviction, I become a radically different person than I was before. Even as others will perhaps begin to look at me more and more strangely, I will also find myself able to pass through and over many circumstances I once considered completely insurmountable. I will find peace in ways I did not think at all possible, and I will be able to practice decency where before I could only grapple with fear, rage and disappointment.

That it may at first show itself only in small ways should hardly be a discouragement, since I begin to understand that all the obstacles are only as big or small as I make them out to be in my judgment. I learned quickly that half-measures won’t do here; it’s an all-or-nothing kind of deal. Still, if I work on my own estimation first and foremost, the results can truly fill me with awe and wonder.

I only need to consider how deeply rooted my obsession with outside circumstances has been. He made promises he didn’t keep, or she said she loved me and slept around, or I worked as hard as I could but still found myself poor and alone. The assumption in all of those complaints, and they are really just complaints, is that the world hasn’t treated me as I think I should be treated.

But what does any of that have to do with me? The whole wobbly house of cards collapses when I see the foolishness of defining something, anything at all, by everything other than what it is within itself. A man is a happy or a miserable man because he is a good or a bad man, not because another is a good or a bad man.

I at first assume it is impossible, but I only need to make the conscious decision to change what I value, and then I will no longer be so hurt by what I don’t value. Of course other people matter, and as a social animal I should care deeply about what they do and say, but what they do and say no longer needs to determine my own character. I’m the fellow to do that, and I’m the only one who stands in the way of that judgment.

If I know that it does not make me or break me, I will not choose to let it make me suffer, and if I do not let it make me suffer, I will not be resentful. If I allow it to shame me, my reactions will be no better than those of the people I complain about.

So I worry that another has wronged me, when all along I should be focusing my efforts on doing what is right from myself. Am I hurt and frustrated when I am deceived, or ridiculed, or abused? My only reasonable response is to work on my own deceiving, or ridiculing, or abusing.

11.18.8

. . . Eighth, consider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and vexed. . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

A fine Jesuit priest once suggested to me that I try to distinguish between the ideas of pain and suffering. The first was something I felt, he offered, and the second was something I chose for myself.

I didn’t like it at first when he said that, because it made me realize that I was responsible for myself, and that I needed to stop making excuses for being miserable. It reminded that I was not a passive puppet, but an active man.

“But I’ve been hurt!” Well yes, I will confront many impressions, brought about by many external forces acting upon my body, my instincts, and my passions. They are not what make me, however, and it does not diminish their force at all to say that I can still be a master over them. This is why I have reason, and this is why I have a will.

I have always found emotional pain to be far more imposing than physical pain, but I know that some find quite the reverse to be true. Whatever it is that may cut us the deepest, the sensation can seem overwhelming. What can I possibly do to face it?

It isn’t of me, and it didn’t come from me. Now let me manage myself.

Have my passions been offended? Then I should not deny what I feel, but make sense of what I feel, and put that to good use. I am not merely a thing moved, but a mover of my own actions. Let me take the rejection, the loneliness, the despair, and transform myself with it. Let me become better through it.

Has my body been hurt? Then I should not deny what I feel, but make sense of what I feel, and put that to good use. I am not merely a thing moved, but a mover of my own actions. Let me take the grinding of the bones, the weakness of the flesh, the agony that runs through me, and transform myself with it. Let me become better through it.

A medical doctor I knew got quite indignant when I once quoted Ovid:

Endure and persist; this pain will one day do good for you.

“You wouldn’t say that if you’d ever felt real pain,” he said, “like I see with my real patients.”

Now I instinctively wanted to slug him right there, because he thought I didn’t know what real pain was. Perhaps I could show him? Those were my passions speaking, of course, and I managed to tame them after a moment.

What was really most disturbing about his claim was that he reduced people to objects of feeling, and could not conceive of elevating them to creatures of choice. He saw a bag of flesh, not a mind and a heart.

Any pain is so much less than any suffering. The one is given to us, and the other we give to ourselves. The one is within our power, and the other is the surrender of our power. The former is horribly magnified by the latter.

11.18.9

. . . Ninth, consider that a good disposition is invincible if it be genuine, and not an affected smile and acting a part.

For what will the most violent man do to you, if you continue to be of a kind disposition towards him, and if, as opportunity offers, you gently admonish him and calmly correct his errors at the very time when he is trying to do you harm, saying:

“Not so, my child. We are constituted by Nature for something else; I shall certainly not be injured, but you are injuring yourself, my child.”

And show him with gentle tact and by general principles that this is so, and that even bees do not do as he does, nor any animals that are formed by Nature to be gregarious.

And you must do this neither with any double meaning nor in the way of reproach, but affectionately and without any rancor in your soul; and not as if you were lecturing him, nor yet that any bystander may admire, but either when he is alone, and if others are present. . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

It all really comes together in the character of my own judgments, exercised simply for their own sake, and therefore the measure of a good life that no one else can hinder.

I can have an unfortunate tendency to become sullen when I feel disappointed. I may then crawl away or lash out, forgetting completely that my disappointment proceeded only from my own expectations. Or I may grimace, and assume that I must try harder to impress others, forgetting completely that who I am is not determined by what they may do or say.

If I rely upon my own virtue to be happy, I will never be disappointed, and I will be making good use of all the gifts Nature has given me. Of all the external things that people can take away from me, I need to remember that they are just things, and my own internal character can remain completely intact. In fact, I have the option of choosing to become better, when others choose to be worse.

When I work to act with wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice in all that I do, no harm will befall me. Is another acting poorly? Let me show him the respect he denies me. Is another showing me hatred? Let me show him what it means to love. My concern for him should be for the way he hurts himself, because if I only so decide, he is unable to hurt me.

Why do I assume that Nature most operate in constant conflict? Reason can convince, while force can only restrain. Kindness can inspire, while insults can only intimidate. Compassion brings people together, while resentment only drives them apart.

Now I should never confuse decency with pandering; the former seeks the good for the sake of others, while the latter seeks only gratification for oneself. It is hardly virtue at all if its intention is to manipulate, hardly charity at all if it is used to make a fine impression.

I will notice the difference, if I observe rightly: some people speak with you, while other people talk at you. A good man doesn’t ask for the approval of an audience to be good. He acts with love because he knows it is his nature to love, and he asks for nothing else.

11.18.10

. . . Remember these nine rules, as if you had received them as a gift from the Muses, and begin at last to be a man while you live.

But you must equally avoid nattering men and being vexed at them, for both are unsocial and lead to harm. And let this truth be present to you in the excitement of anger, that to be moved by passion is not manly, but that mildness and gentleness, as they are more agreeable to human nature, so also are they more manly; and he who possesses these qualities possesses strength, nerves, and courage, and not the man who is subject to fits of passion and discontent.

For in the same degree in which a man's mind is nearer to freedom from all passion, in the same degree also is it nearer to strength; and as the sense of pain is a characteristic of weakness, so also is anger. For he who yields to pain and he who yields to anger, both are wounded and both submit.

But if you will, receive also a tenth present from the leader of the Muses, Apollo, and it is this—that to expect bad men not to do wrong is madness, for he who expects this desires an impossibility. But to allow men to behave so to others, and to expect them not to do you any wrong, is irrational and tyrannical.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.18 (tr Long)

These rules always suggest to me that being most fully human asks that I take responsibility for myself, that being strong in happiness requires being strong in my own character, and that I need to have mastery over no one but myself to find peace.

I will always, on each and every day that I go out into the world, come across people who are loud, petty, and brutish. Far more often than I might expect, I will also find them to be dishonest, selfish, and cruel. There is the challenge, there is my test. They live in this way because they have reason and choice, just as I do, and they have decided on a different path. Will I allow my own balance to be upset by their imbalance?

Stoicism is often associated with a certain sort of toughness, but it is not a toughness of being insensitive or uncaring toward others. It is the firmness of being willing to rule over my desires and my aggression, and not to permit them to rule over me. It is the courage to stand by what I know to be right.

And what I know to be right is to show concern for my neighbor, to live in solidarity with him, to define my relationship with him through justice and not through force. A strong man is a good man, and a good man is a “gentle man”, in the fullest and proper sense of the word.

Will another not be gentle with me? He may indeed choose to be a slave to his passions, but I do not need to do so for myself. His bluster and boasting are not signs of strength, but actually of weakness. To surrender is not to show reverence for what is good in others, but to submit to what is worst within ourselves.

If there is to be a tenth rule, then, one that is given not only by the Muses but also by Apollo himself, let it be a very practical summation of all of them. I cannot demand that other people treat me well, but I can always demand that I treat them well.

Further, I cannot be willing to accept injustice done to others, if I am not also willing to face it for myself. Let me stop telling other people to “man up” and “get over it”, because those are the words of just another bully, not of an actual man. I will show my conviction and fortitude by living up to my own principles.

11.19

There are four principal aberrations of the superior faculty against which you should be constantly on your guard, and when you have detected them, you should wipe them out and say on each occasion thus:

This thought is not necessary.

This tends to destroy social union.

This that you are going to say comes not from the real thoughts, for you should consider it among the most absurd of things for a man not to speak from his real thoughts.

But the fourth is when you shall reproach yourself for anything, for this is an evidence of the diviner part within you being overpowered and yielding to the less honorable and to the perishable part, the body, and to its gross pleasures.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.19 (tr Long)

To think of all the grief I could have spared myself, and all the grief I might still spare myself, if I only take the time to consider what I am going to think, what I am going to say, what I am going to do.

This does not require the superhuman effort I may think it does; it is in many ways the least I can do, while still one of the most important things I can do. The greatest dangers to my own character will be found at rather unassuming points in the journey, and I will be able to maintain the course when I keep in mind the most basic awareness of what is good.

There, I suspect, is one of my biggest problems, in precisely making the whole affair much bigger than it needs to be, and more confusing than is necessary. If I remember that one and only requirement of living the happy life, of living in virtue according to Nature, and placing all other things relative to that goal, then I won’t get lost so easily. It will only take a brief moment of reflection to know what I must do, casting aside all other diversions.

Are my thoughts completely ordered toward the highest human good, or is my judgment distracted by misleading impressions? Remember, my thinking is mine to rule, and does not need to be enslaved by circumstances.

Am I disposed in such a way that I always think of how I am in solidarity with my neighbor, or am I tempted to division and conflict? Remember, there is nothing I must ever do that requires my own good to be at the expense of the good of another.

Am I speaking clearly and honestly, or am I hiding behind various forms of flattery, duplicity, and treachery? Remember, whatever comes forth from me should directly reflect the truth that is within me.

When I feel doubt or guilt about how I have chosen to live, do I work first on improving myself, or do I simply look the other way, vainly hoping that the inconvenience will disappear? Do I recognize the disorder within me?

To keep on my guard against the weaknesses in my soul, to strengthen my power to think, speak, and act well, doesn’t require a whole regiment equipped with a vast armory. It requires only care and concern at each step along the way.

11.20

Your aerial part, and all the fiery parts that are mingled in you, though by nature they have an upward tendency, still in obedience to the disposition of the Universe they are overpowered here in the compound mass of the body.

And also the whole of the earthy part in you, and the watery, though their tendency is downward, still are raised up and occupy a position that is not their natural one.

In this manner, then, the elemental parts obey the Universal; for when they have been fixed in any place, perforce they remain there until again the Universal shall sound the signal for dissolution.

Is it not then strange that your intelligent part only should be disobedient and discontented with its own place? And yet no force is imposed on it, but only those things that are conformable to its nature. Still it does not submit, but is carried in the opposite direction.

For the movement towards injustice and intemperance and to anger and grief and fear is nothing else than the act of one who deviates from Nature. And also when the ruling faculty is discontented with anything that happens, then too it deserts its post; for it is constituted for piety and reverence towards the gods no less than for justice.

For these qualities also are comprehended under the generic term of contentment with the constitution of things, and indeed they are prior to acts of justice.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.20 (tr Long)

This is the sort of passage that elicits dismissive gestures from many, those who insist that the ancients have nothing to offer us about understanding the natural world, and that modern science makes such accounts quite obsolete. I do see the temptation of throwing out the old in favor of the new, but at the same time I try to remind myself that we can use very different language, and very different models to describe and explain, while still approaching the very same truths.

Speaking in terms of the four elements, of earth, water, air and fire, may seem quite naïve, given what we say we now know about chemistry and physics, yet the root principles really remain much the same. We see that different types of matter behave in different ways, and will act upon one another in different ways when brought together. Describe these as you will, though the Greeks and Romans worked with immediately sensible qualities like light or heavy, hot or cold, wet or dry.

When all of these constitutive parts, however we may wish to speak of them, are joined into one thing, we must observe that the composition of the whole will rule the tendencies of these parts. The elements “wish” to go one way, while the binding form will redirect them to quite another.

Individually, and left only to themselves, all the components of my body would do one thing, and disperse according to their own natures. United for a single purpose, however, they exist in a harmony. This is true not only of any creature, but for the whole Universe itself.

As usual, Marcus Aurelius works from this observation to make a deeper point about our own moral worth. All other things will automatically defer to the power of a higher order, yet the mind of man will so readily resist and reject its place within the whole.

Why should this be so? For the very reason that it is our very nature to reason, and therefore also to freely choose. We have it within ourselves to judge and act with or against other things. My own happiness or misery hinge upon that freedom.

When my intellect and will decide to act contrary to who I am, to my place as a part of the whole, they also act contrary to the order of Providence. Hence a vice of any sort is both a denial of my own humanity, and a denial of the design and harmony of the Universe.

When I treat my neighbor with disrespect, I am removing his good from my own. When I am selfish and lustful, I make everything else subject to only my own desires. When I am angry, I refuse to accept things as they are, and wish them only to be as I am. When I am despondent, I expect only to receive, and never to give. When I am terrified, I reject the fact that everything happens for a perfectly good reason.

My poor character is a denial of my responsibility to live in balance and cooperation. It is no longer about me with the world, but me against the world. I cannot be a just man if I live in conflict with my neighbor, and I cannot be a pious man if I am in opposition to what is Divine.

Let me learn to be happy by accepting that circumstances are precisely as they should be, at this particular moment, in this particular way. To abandon my own post would be as if earth refused to work together with water, or air turned its back upon fire. Just because I can be stubborn, hateful, and resentful hardly means that I should be so.

11.21

He who has not one and always the same object in life, cannot be one and the same all through his life.

But what I have said is not enough, unless this also is added, what this object ought to be.

For as there is not the same opinion about all the things that in some way or other are considered by the majority to be good, but only about some certain things, that is, things that concern the common interest, so also ought we to propose to ourselves an object that shall be of a common kind, social and political.

For he who directs all his own efforts to this object, will make all his acts alike, and thus will always be the same.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.21 (tr Long)

It’s all a question of aim. It will hardly matter if I string the bow and I have no target. It will hardly matter if I am moving and I don’t know where I am going.

This is why I always say that philosophy is a necessity, not a luxury. In one sense it must be the greatest necessity, because everything else will be determined by the highest purpose I have in mind. Who I am, from day to day, will be defined by what I consistently and without condition hold to be dear to me. This is the sum of my character.

And it isn’t enough to pick just any goal, but to discover the best one, the one that brings with it genuine contentment. I may have a personal preference for this or that, but I am looking for something that is greater than my own preference. I will come across all sorts of popular ways of living, quite trendy with the crowd of the moment, but I am looking for something that does not merely conform to the vulgar.

It isn’t just about me alone, and it isn’t even about the will of the many. It is rather about what absolutely all of us share together by our very nature. Let me look beyond the appearances to the shared human content.

Accordingly, I can know right away if my goal is true or false, by asking whether it is a good common for all, or only useful to some. A true purpose, social and political in the noblest sense, can never make one man expendable for another. All of our individual differences aside, we are in this together, because we are all designed to live and work together.

I should strive to be the same man throughout my life, in that I keep the same good in sight, however much I may be twisted and turned around by my circumstances. If I can do this, I will also be treating both others and myself with the same dignity, recognizing that we are all social creatures, made for justice and compassion, precisely because we are creatures of reason.  We are all here for that same reason.

11.22

Think of the country mouse and of the town mouse, and of the alarm and trepidation of the town mouse.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.22 (tr Long)

Whenever an author refers to another author, I always feel the need to look up at that reference, and to make some sense of the original meaning.

I do this, however, not to be like a fancy scholar, who can cite chapter and verse for anything and everything; I do it in an attempt to become a decent person, one who can learn understanding and love for anything and everything. There is indeed a real difference.

How many people have I known, clever and astute in all the ways of higher learning, who turned out to be the most dismissive and hateful folks? They certainly knew their books, while knowing so little of right and wrong. Please, don’t let me be that sort of fellow. I have no need to be the town mouse, and should be quite content to be the country mouse.

I actually jump up and down for joy a little bit when I see Marcus Aurelius refer to Aesop. I was raised with these stories, and as I have gotten much older, the lessons within them have become all the more important to me. Here’s the version of the tale I grew up with:

Now you must know that a Town Mouse once upon a time went on a visit to his cousin in the country. He was rough and ready, this cousin, but he loved his town friend and made him heartily welcome. Beans and bacon, cheese and bread, were all he had to offer, but he offered them freely.

The Town Mouse rather turned up his long nose at this country fare, and said: "I cannot understand, Cousin, how you can put up with such poor food as this, but of course you cannot expect anything better in the country; come you with me and I will show you how to live. When you have been in town a week you will wonder how you could ever have stood a country life."

No sooner said than done. The two mice set off for the town and arrived at the Town Mouse's residence late at night. "You will want some refreshment after our long journey," said the polite Town Mouse, and took his friend into the grand dining room. There they found the remains of a fine feast, and soon the two mice were eating up jellies and cakes and all that was nice.

Suddenly they heard growling and barking. "What is that?" said the Country Mouse. "It is only the dogs of the house," answered the other. "Only!" said the Country Mouse. "I do not like that music at my dinner."

Just at that moment the door flew open, in came two huge mastiffs, and the two mice had to scamper down and run off. "Good-bye, Cousin," said the Country Mouse. "What! Going so soon?" said the other. "Yes" he replied:

"Better beans and bacon in peace than cakes and ale in fear."

11.23

Socrates used to call the opinions of the many by the name of Lamiae—bugbears to frighten children.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.23 (tr Long)

As a child, I was actually quite terrified of the bogeyman, in whatever form the story was told. My Austrian family had a number of wonderfully frightening versions, old traditions I sadly suspect will soon be lost to future generations. They all had a certain moral lesson behind them, and could be quite effective in scaring us away from all sorts of mischief.

My favorite was “Der Wassermann”. Do you know that gurgling sound you hear when water goes down the sink? That is the cry of the “Water Man”, who lurks in the pipes of your house. Will he do you any harm? Only if you play around with water carelessly, and then he will suck you down the drain.

“Das Gankerl”, a sort of imp or goblin I suppose, would live inside all the mirrors of the house. He was quite friendly, as long as you didn’t stare at yourself vainly too often, at which point he’d drag you through the glass, never to be heard from again. I swear to this day, after testing my luck once to often, that I saw his face peering back at me in my parent’s bedroom.

The Greeks had their Lamia. They say Hera cursed her to eat children, after she was caught up in yet another one of Zeus’ many trysts. It became a fable to scare children into behaving, and eventually also referred to a creature that seduced young men who could not control their passions. Oh, and she apparently would also eat them after the fact.

I at first wonder how popular opinion could be like the bogeyman, but then a moment of reflection shows me how it can be one of the most dangerous things of all, for people both young and old. It is thoughtless, when we should be thoughtful. It tempts us to be rash when we should be prudent. It appeals to everything base, and neglects everything noble. It seduces us away from temperance.

I don’t see this as any sort of snobbery, as some might, because the problem isn’t just that many people may think this way, but rather that too many people simply choose not to think for themselves at all. It is too easy to conform without actual awareness, where the force of submission numbs our sense of personal accountability.

Good things might be popular, but things are hardly good because they are popular. As soon as I am moved by the voice of the mob, I am no longer myself. I have entered into a willing slavery, where I lower my eyes, shut off my mind, and become no more than an animal in the herd. I should be more than that, better than that.

Yes, I may indeed then deserve to disappear into the sewers for my foolishness, or get lost in the mirrors of my vanity. This is the sort of bogeyman I should truly fear, ceasing to rule myself.

11.24

The Spartans at their public spectacles used to set seats in the shade for strangers, but themselves sat down anywhere.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.24 (tr Long)

My first proper exposure to history in the classroom, as distinct from the usual cookie-cutter textbooks with their platitudes and sound bites, was reading Herodotus and Thucydides. We weren’t permitted to be lazy with these texts, and I soon struggled with disentangling different points of view, backing up a claim with an argument, and understanding how historical events revealed the depths of human nature. Years later, I would inflict that same suffering on my own students; it was the least I could do for them.

Many of us grew fascinated with the Peloponnesian Wars, and that powerful contrast between the Athenian and the Spartan minds. At the time, assuming I had to pick sides, I admired Athens, and was quite dubious of Sparta. As the years passed, however, I developed a profound respect for many aspects of Spartan values, and I noticed that a good number of ancient philosophers, not just Platonists but also Stoics, thought along similar lines.

I would no longer see just a cold militarism, but a noble sense of courage, not merely an oppressive oligarchy, but a passionate commitment to duty. They had their strict social codes, and practices that could easily appear brutal, yet beneath it all one can sense that they were moved by moral character as the highest expression of human excellence. All else could fall away, and it would only matter if virtue remained. In this regard, at least, the Stoic within me could look on with admiration.

I was quite moved by the tale about Lycurgus, who is claimed to have taken a young man who blinded him, and instead of exacting revenge, taught him as his own son.

When Xerxes tried to bribe Leonidas with rule over all of Greece, Herodotus says he gave this reply:

If you had any knowledge of the noble things of life, you would refrain from coveting others' possessions; but for me to die for Greece is better than to be the sole ruler over the people of my race.

There is also a story from the Battle of Thermopylae, where Dienekes was warned that the arrows of the Persians would be so numerous as to block out the light of the sun. Instead of being afraid, however, he responded that this was a good thing, as it would allow the Spartans to fight in the shade.

And here, Marcus Aurelius relates another wonderful account. We all know how the important people like to take the best seats, offices, or parking spaces; they do this because they want their status to be seen. But now imagine if we saved the best seats in the house for complete strangers, people we don’t know at all, and who have absolutely no standing in our pecking order.

This reveals a respect for others that goes far beyond the borders of the tribe, and a decency that treats people well simply for being people. It surely mirrors the old Greek custom of always showing hospitality and kindness to strangers, regardless of who they might be.

For the Stoic, it can also reflect that universal sense of human solidarity, the fact that we are all, regardless of class, race, or creed, brothers and sisters to one another. We should never look down on anyone, because we must first be citizens of the whole world.

11.25

Socrates excused himself to Perdiccas  for not going to him, saying, “It is because I would not perish by the worst of all ends; that is, I would not receive a favor and then be unable to return it.”

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.25 (tr Long)

It was either King Perdiccas, or his son Archelaus, who invited Socrates to bring his philosophy to Macedonia. Why would Socrates refuse such an offer? Besides his love of his home, Athens, it seems he was afraid of being in the debt of someone so powerful.

I have come to understand this on two levels. In a more pragmatic sense, one should always be wary of being in another’s debt, especially someone who has so much. To be in his debt is to depend upon him, and to depend upon him is to be more under his rule, and less under one’s own. What, pray tell, may he ask in return for his favors? It may well be far more than one is able to give, or willing to give in good conscience.

In a deeper moral sense, it hardly seems right and proper at all to receive without offering in return. For the Stoic, our merit is in what we do, not in what is done to us, so we do not become better by what we get, but by what we give. Accordingly, do not accept anything that you cannot turn around and give back, that you cannot transform into an expression of your own virtue.

The return of a gift is not merely the paying off of some debt; it is further the giving of kindness for kindness, love for love, where the gratitude itself becomes yet another gift. In this way, decent folks can avoid jealousy, resentment, or greed, because they look first to the dignity of their own actions, and are satisfied with this first and foremost.

When my daughter was little, and I would smoke my pipe in the backyard after dinner, she would run around and collect dandelions and buttercups for me. It sounds terribly sentimental, but the look of joy on her face as she handed them to me was always a necessary reminder for me that people are made to be good. We thrive when our own actions are just, compassionate, and merciful.

I notice how many people nevertheless choose to measure their worth by what they are given, and in turn they hardly even own what they think they own. The debtor wants to get something out of the creditor, and the creditor wants to get something out of the debtor. How different it would be if each of us chose instead to think of giving over taking, to measure an investment by the good done for another, to make virtue a more valuable currency than wealth or fame.

It may sound like it comes off a Hallmark card, but the genuine exercise of charity could continue on and on. Even if others are greedy, we could still continue to offer of ourselves, and still be quite content with that, asking for no more. That would be human growth.

11.26

In the writings of the Ephesians there was this precept, constantly to think of some one of the men of former times who practiced virtue.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.26 (tr Long)

When I was younger, my heroes were usually those who impressed me with their style, their wit, or their charm. As the years have passed, I find myself instead drawn to those who move me with their courage, their wisdom, or their character. It was necessary for me to learn something of the difference.

A few decades in education led me to a similar change of perspective. Despite so many claims to the contrary, we treat education as a primarily passive affair, where understanding involves mouthing the right words, imposed by memorizing a certain set of rules. What is so desperately needed is recognizing that learning is built by doing, and that teaching is most effective through example.

A man does not become better by looking fancy as he gets applause for jumping through hoops. A man becomes better by building his own habits of living well, inspired by seeing others who already practice living well.

This insight has never, of course, been of much use to me if I only treat it as a profound abstraction. After all, if it is only an idea, this defeats the whole purpose of a life embodied in concrete action.

I would often complain that I found it impossible to change my ways, that I wasn’t “strong” enough to do it any other way, that other forces were pushing and pulling me here and there. Taking the advice of the Ephesians to heart can make a world of difference. I can do it quite literally, not just as a theoretical reflection. Then there can be commitment in my will, a spring in my step.

I can focus on an individual who had proven in his life that he was able to walk the walk. Such a person does not need to be famous, because virtue trumps fame. Such a person can have faced struggles similar to my own, helping me quite specifically on my own path. Such a person should be kept consciously in the front of my mind, ready whenever I confront an obstacle.

You can find your own hero. Of all the people I deeply admire, Blessed Franz Jägerstätter became mine. At first he overcame his own restlessness and intemperance, and then he gladly gave his life for his new principles. There is no reason I cannot do the same, because unlike becoming rich and famous, where circumstances rule, my virtue is entirely up to my own choice.

11.27

The Pythagoreans bid us in the morning look to the heavens, that we may be reminded of those bodies that continually do the same things and in the same manner perform their work, and also be reminded of their purity and nudity. For there is no veil over a star.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.27 (tr Long)

Daily life will often seem without purpose, and things will often appear confused and unclear. Many philosophers have made their names by insisting that the way of the world is precisely that there is no way, and many average folks have resigned themselves to their lot. Accept that there is no meaning, they say, and grab whatever gratification you can, while you still can.

It doesn’t have to be that way, not just because we might want to deserve better, but also because Nature herself reveals something very different. If I observe the motion of the stars and planets, the pattern of the tides, the changes of the seasons, or the delicate balance between all living things, I will not be so quick to say that everything is muddled and pointless.

Each part has a purpose within the whole, every piece exists within a greater harmony, all things go around and then come around again. I cannot possibly look at the sky and see only chaos, if I only choose to look with care. Is it a mystery precisely how and why things unfold the way they do? Certainly, though the mystery is to be unraveled in my understanding, while Nature always remains herself, clearly and completely.

It is not things themselves that are uncertain and adrift, it is my own estimation of things that is uncertain and adrift. To deny order, structure, and design within Nature is much like a child who insists that something does not exist because he has covered his eyes with his hands.

“Well, that all sounds wonderful in theory. . . .” Actually, I don’t approach it as a matter of theory at all, but as an immediate immersion in practice. I have, at many times in my life, felt overwhelmed by human noise, the yelling, the boasting, the snickering, the crying, and I have wanted to surrender, to give up on trying to make any sense of it at all.

That I am still here is proof that I somehow recovered a part of my sanity, and in each and every case it helped me to turn my attention to the unity, the structure, and the beauty of Nature at work. It could be a starry sky, or a thunderstorm, or a bird’s nest. Then it was no longer noise, but a song, and everything danced.

Yes, even all that human hustle and bustle was part of the dance. I just hadn’t noticed it, because I hadn’t looked past my own selfishness to the bigger picture. All the little bits, that seemed to be racing about with no rhyme or reason, were charged with purpose. They mattered, as everything matters.

11.28

Consider what a man Socrates was when he dressed himself in a skin, after Xanthippe had taken his cloak and gone out, and what Socrates said to his friends who were ashamed of him and drew back from him when they saw him dressed thus.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.28 (tr Long)

What a delightful story! I have no idea if it ever happened, and I don’t know where the tradition came from, but I can imagine it right now. It reminds me of a country music song by Vince Gill, where the wife hides the husband’s car keys to keep him from going to the honky-tonk, but he outwits her by taking his John Deere tractor instead.

Xanthippe, Socrates’ wife, is only mentioned rarely by sources like Plato or Xenophanes, and she is usually described as loving and faithful to her husband, but also occasionally as stubborn and headstrong. I see no contradiction between the two, as I married a fine woman with much the same qualities. I wouldn’t have it any other way.

Sadly, many later accounts describe her as a nagging and jealous shrew, and her very name is often associated with that unfortunate label.

Yet I suppose Xanthippe is hardly the point here, is she? I should look rather at what Socrates did, and not be so shallow as to blame it all on his wife. He was quite glad to go out of the house, dressed rather improperly, and looking like a fool. What did his companions say to him? What did Socrates say right back to them?

I would consider the question a truly worthy exercise in philosophy, and at one point I even assigned it as a paper topic to some reluctant college students: “Offer an account of the conversation between Socrates, wearing an animal skin out on the town, and his rather embarrassed friends.”

That, I think, is the sort of thing philosophy should be about. I was met only with vacant stares, and after some students complained about the unorthodox assignment, my Chairman told me to never do anything like that ever again.

I created my own faux Platonic dialogue in my own head, and I remain convinced that any thoughtful and creative person is able to offer a fine reflection on what might have been said. Perhaps one day I will write it down, and it will gather dust, along with all my other attempts at writing.

“What am I wearing? Is a man what he wears? Is worth to be found on the outside, or on the inside? If the former, leave me at the bar without a ride, because you are ashamed. If the latter, be my friend, and care nothing for how I look. . . .

“Oh, you worry about what other people will think of me? Or are you really worried about what other people will think of you, because they associate you with me? If you believe, as we just discussed, that merit is in the man, and not in his trappings, you will surely care little for such vanities. . . .

“Now don’t you roll your eyes at me, young man!”

11.29

Neither in writing nor in reading will you be able to lay down rules for others before you shall have first learned to obey rules yourself. Much more is this so in life.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.29 (tr Long)

I have soldiered on as a barely competent teacher of philosophy, literature, and history, but every so often I am asked to teach other subjects, like Latin, or algebra, or one of the natural sciences. This fills me with dread, and I will resist the requests, which often become firm demands, as vigorously as I am able.

I do this not to be contrary, but rather because I’m not confident I will do a decent job at it. I can hardly be expected to explain a subject to others when I lack a basic mastery of it myself, and it seems a dishonest disservice to claim to teach what I do not really know.

Take Latin. I can muddle my way through most texts, often with the help of a dictionary and a grammar reference, but I was a terrible student of the language, and I simply don’t have all the tools I need ready at hand.

We can surely recognize when we have made a good habit of something, and when the principles behind it have become like a second nature. I feel rather filthy preaching what I have not yet been able to practice.

Similarly, how can any of us teach about the principles of a good life, if we are not managing to live them for ourselves?

Now I am all for what they call “character education”, and I would indeed claim that this is the most important sort of learning to which we can ever aspire; all other things in life are relative and conditional to our moral merit. Yet no fine language, no noble displays, no fanfares and parades will make any difference at all, if we do not first live the values we claim to admire.

I am quite wary of anyone who tells me that he will teach me virtue, and I wonder why he feels the need to tell me this at all. Will not his very example, through all the grind from day to day, already reveal to me what is within him?

When it came to the Latin, they often told me just to teach from the text, use the answer keys in the back of the teacher edition, and stay one chapter ahead of the students. I’m sorry, but I find that terribly sloppy. As they say in academia, that is just passing from the notes of the teacher to the notes of the student, while passing though the minds of neither.

Please don’t tell me you will make me a master of other men, as this shows you do not understand what is important about being human. Please do not even tell me you will make me a master of myself, when you are not yet a master of yourself. Help me to become my own good man by being your own good man.

11.30

A slave you are: free speech is not for you.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.30 (tr Long)

I have unfortunately never been able to find any other reference for this quote, and so I am unable to consider it within a larger context. Perhaps Marcus Aurelius is citing a certain philosopher, or poet, or playwright? Taken only on its own, however, I still find it fascinating. I do wonder how I am intended to understand it.

My own thinking takes me along two different, yet complementary, paths. One part of me reads it in a conventional manner, looking at human nature as most of us will do from day to day, taking life as defined by circumstances. The Other part of me reads it in a Stoic manner, looking at human nature from a very different angle, taking life as defined by our own judgment and character.

In the first case, I might imagine a man of great wealth and power, speaking to another man whom he effectively “owns” lock, stock, and barrel. The big man may possess the small man’s body as property, as in chattel slavery, or the big man may control all the worldly conditions of the small man, as in wage slavery. Whatever the case, the big man calls the shots, and he tells the small man what he must do, and he even tells him what he is permitted to say.

In the second case, I might imagine only myself, in a moment of completely honest awareness, recognizing that I am enslaved because I have surrendered my own freedom. I allow myself to be ruled by the racing impressions, by the force of passions, by the push and pull of each and every little thing that flits about me. I jump through hoops like a trained animal, desperate for the treat of some gratification at the end of the routine. I am not thinking for myself, I am not acting for myself, so I cannot even speak for myself.

Which if these is the more terrible bondage? The conventional view tells me that nothing is worse than having someone else enslave my body. The Stoic view tells me that nothing is worse than allowing my own passions and circumstances to enslave my mind.

Perhaps another man tells me how I may speak, but he cannot tell me how to think. When I bow down to what is lesser than me, I have even given up that right to think.

I may well be reading far too much into this brief statement, but in a case like this that concerns my very freedom, I’d rather err on the side of having too much reflection over too little.

11.31

And my heart laughed within.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.31 (tr Long)

I believe Marcus Aurelius is here referring to a moment in Book 9 of Homer’s Odyssey, when Odysseus takes pleasure in having outwitted Polyphemus the Cyclops. Odysseus had identified himself to his captor as “Nobody”. When Polyphemus is stabbed in the eye, he cries out in pain, and the other Cyclopes ask him what has happened. “Nobody did this to me!” says Polyphemus, and his friends walk off, shaking their heads and shrugging their shoulders. Odysseus is quietly content with his cleverness.

Again, I don’t know why the Philosopher-Emperor jotted down this particular phrase, though I hope I am perhaps in good company. I still have whole notebooks full of quotes I read or heard here and there, and they spoke to me in some helpful way at the time.

Two things come to mind for me here. First, more generally, genuine happiness is always to be found from the inside, and not from the outside. Having order in my thoughts, commitment in my convictions, and peace in my feelings proceeds from the content of my own character.

My contentment never requires any grand outward displays, does not need to be proven to anyone, and becomes no better if it is paraded about to be recognized by others.

I notice how many people assume that happiness is all about frantic and boisterous expressions. By all means, let the effects of joy show themselves in my demeanor, but let the causes remain, tranquil and calm, within my mind and heart. Greatness does not need to be displayed.

Second, more specific to the story, I wonder if Odysseus’ play with words can also have something of a Stoic application. “Nobody, my friends, is killing me by violence or treachery!” Indeed. Who can truly harm me? People may make all sorts of attempts to do me wrong, but in the end only they can do wrong to their own souls, and only I can do wrong to my own soul.

In the end, nobody really hurts the inner me. I hurt myself. This follows from the Stoic principle that virtue is the only true human good, and that all other things are relative and indifferent.

How often have I said that others have done me some awful injustice, and so I am terribly wounded and scarred by their deeds? They may have done evil, though I do myself a further evil by embracing my own failure to do good in return. They may be masters of my circumstances, while I still rule my response to them. Don’t blame people, do right by people.

Then my heart can laugh within. Nobody else is ever my downfall.

11.32

And virtue they will curse, speaking harsh words.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.32 (tr Long)

Marcus Aurelius takes this from the poet Hesiod’s Works and Days. It may at first sound like some terrible prophecy of dark future times, when the living shall envy the dead, yet we will surely find it as quite a common occurrence, on each and every day of our lives.

I need not see this as the end of the world, but rather as a calling for me in this world. It can remind me of what I must do, even as others may do otherwise. That some, perhaps very many, will decide to reject their highest good is a consequence of the fact that we are gifted with reason and choice. Providence has deemed it that Nature should unfold in this way, that freedom permits both what is good and what is bad, so that out of it can come greater good.

If virtue is only a noble word, a pleasant label we attach to whatever we might desire, then vice will hardly trouble us; we will simply disguise it. Observe how many speak of integrity, of charity, of professional ethics, while they continue to lie, steal, and cheat. If I take virtue seriously, however, and aspire beyond the word to the task, I will face many struggles, and fight many uphill battles.

On the one hand, I will find people who mock what I care for, and I will be tempted to discouragement, constantly bombarded by doubt. They will tell me I am not playing by the right rules, that I am only causing trouble, perhaps even that I am dangerous. At the least they will laugh at me, at the most they may want to destroy me.

On the other hand, my own worst instincts will rise up within me, made all the stronger by the sense that I am all alone in this. It will seem easier to submit instead of stand, more convenient to seek pleasure over pain, more rewarding to receive wealth rather than live with character.

It will not be easy to take this path. Then again, of course, nothing good comes to us easily. The obstacle can be inspiring instead of intimidating. I am willing to confront all sorts of hardships and take many risks to become comfortable and rich, so should I not be all the more willing to tough it out so I may become decent and just?

Yes, vicious people will curse me, and they will curse me all the more when I start living well. That can be a good sign for me, not a bad omen, telling me that I am doing at least something right. I am now reminded to meet their hatred with love, to make something better out of their opposition.

11.33

To look for the fig in winter is a madman's act. Such is he who looks for his child when it is no longer allowed.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.33 (tr Long)

Marcus Aurelius here begins to offer a number of observations by Epictetus. Now some Stoic sayings can sound quite harsh to a sensitive soul, or to someone who is unfamiliar with their deeper moral context, and Epictetus may sometimes come across as especially rude. This passage is a perfect example.

It seemed heartless to me when I first read it as a young man, and it seemed downright brutal to me when I read it again as an older man, after I had lost a child. I felt offended that someone would dare to tell me what I was or was not allowed to look for!

I was free to look for whatever I wanted, of course, but my mistake was in somehow thinking that the way of the world would stop and start according to my whims. Just as I will come and go, so all the things of this life are made to come and go; I have my time and place, and they have their time and place. What vanity to think that they are there to serve me, to be there only when I want them.

I may say I have “lost” many people, places, and conditions that I preferred, but they were hardly mine to begin with. For the time they were in my presence, they hardly made me any better, even as I could choose to make myself better through them. Once they are gone, any regret I may have is about my failure to do right while they were still here. Let me then improve myself as I face a new circumstance, and not bemoan the absence of the old.

A loved one is gone. Perhaps he has died, perhaps she has turned away, perhaps he is beyond my reach. Opportunity gave me a moment, however brief, to offer love. Did I take it? What held me back? What can I learn about being a better man here and now, having experienced that ebb and flow of the world? I must learn to embrace what is, not what is not.

“But there is nothing else left!” There is always so much left, more than I may be willing to admit.

I always seem to want strawberries the most when they are out of season. The trick should be enjoying them all the more fully when they are in season.

11.34

When a man kisses his child, said Epictetus, he should whisper to himself, "Tomorrow perchance you will die."

But those are words of bad omen!

"No word is a word of bad omen," said Epictetus, "which expresses any work of Nature; or if it is so, it is also a word of bad omen to speak of the ears of corn being reaped."

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.34 (tr Long)

There are few things more powerful than the love between people, the real love of absolute giving. It is only at this very moment that I can be guaranteed to have the chance to show it. There is no promise of it later in this life. Now is all that there is.

An old drinking buddy of mine liked to loudly tell everyone that a proper relationship was all 50/50, or as was said after a few, “fitty fitty.” No, I would reply, it’s 100/100. He would stare at me in complete confusion.

See, he thought of it it as a business arrangement. For him, it was a matter of getting a fair return on his investment. For me, it was about complete commitment being its own return. We never saw eye to eye on this.

Well, I never really saw eye to eye on this with most people. If you think of love as being about what you get, I would say you are far off the mark. Give it. Oh, there is none in return? Continue to give it. Do not let yourself be abused, or taken advantage of, or treated like a fool, but continue to give. This is within your power.

I have lost people from death, and I have lost people from rejection, and most often I have lost people from my simply no longer being useful to them. In every case, the loss burned me. And in every case, I have learned that my own merit had nothing to do with what they gave, but with what I gave.

Now is the time to give, not tomorrow. Circumstances may take away far more than I expect.

Now is the time to forgive. There may be no later.

Now is the time to say, “I love you”. I may have no other chance.

Now is the time to say, “I’m sorry”. I think of all the missed opportunities.

The wheat will be harvested, and we will all go away. Do it now.

11.35

The unripe grape, the ripe bunch, the dried grape, are all changes, not into nothing, but into something which exists not yet.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.35 (tr Long)

I will often find change frightening, because I perceive it as the ending of something, to then be left with nothing. This can be a powerful illusion, built upon an attachment to particular circumstances. Dependent on this state of affairs for my security, I am in dread of any other state of affairs.

The fact, of course, is that change is not a cessation, but a transformation. Things do not simply stop, they rather become something else. This arrangement has passed, and there is now a new arrangement.

The anxiety grows from a sense that there will now be a huge absence in life, and what I am failing to see is that there is always a presence, that any condition at all offers me the opportunity to live well. It may not be what I expect, or what is most convenient, and it hardly should be. It is about moving forward, not standing still.

There are these moments scattered about in my life that may have felt perfect; they often seemed quite rare, or they passed so quickly. So I get nostalgic and melancholic, wondering how I can bring them back. I can’t bring them back, nor should I want to bring them back. Let me keep them in my memory, though not to dwell upon them, but to teach me how to do things right for this moment.

And at this moment, as things move along around me, there will be times when I feel lonely, when I can’t foresee any hope, when it appears to be the end of the road. What possible options could remain, I ask myself? Perhaps just one, but it is more than enough, charged with everything necessary to live in peace: let me do right, whatever I face, and that is a life completely well lived.

It doesn’t matter what stage of life I am in, or what strange new situation may arise. Whatever it may be, I can be certain that it offers everything I need, as there is never a time when a man cannot be kind, and decent, and loving, and just. Success, in the deepest human sense, is always possible, as long as I decide upon it.

This is hardly possible if I define myself by my circumstances, but a Stoic mindset makes it quite possible, where I define myself by my own judgments and actions. “Stop looking out there, that’s not where you’re going to find it!”

The grape grows on the vine, it ripens, it is harvested, it is dried. Perhaps I may now make it a part of my meal, and that meal gives me some strength of body to live another day. In that day I can now act, and as I act I continue to pass myself into yet other things, even if I die, and the chain is never really broken at all.

11.36

No man can rob us of our free will.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.36 (tr Long)

“Yes, but they can rob me of everything else! What use is my free will, if I can’t eat, or clothe myself, or have a place to live? If no one loves me, if I am in pain, what is the point? What’s the purpose in choosing, if I have nothing good to choose?”

Referencing Epictetus here once again, Marcus Aurelius does me a great favor. He reminds me of what a spoiled brat I am. As the wife likes to say: “First World problems!”

Notice the premise behind all of my whining. I think I have nothing, because nothing comes to me that I might prefer. I completely overlook the fact that my value as a person has nothing at all to do with that, and everything to do with my own virtue.

“Idiot! How can you have virtue when you’re alone, or poor, or homeless, or sick, or even dead?”

Quite readily, as the obstacles give me so many more chances to live well. All circumstances are an opportunity to do something right, and to find peace in it. Dying? Well, that will happen in any event; how about those bits that happen to go on before the actual dying?

Change the attitude, and I change the measure. I will no longer want what I do not need, and I will no longer fear losing what cannot be taken from me.

“What good is your freedom then, when you have nothing else?”

No, I still have everything, everything that is really mine, the only thing I ever really had. Even then, it was just lent to me for a moment by Providence. Let me use it well while I have power over it, for whatever time is given to me.

“They can still break your body, and then they will take your will as well!”

No, they can just break my body. When the will can no longer act, then my own life is not present. That is no longer a “me” at all. That is a husk, a discarded shell.

“Please yourself. I refuse to live in chains.”

As do I. We only differ on which chains actually matter the most. You worry more about the ones other people place on your hands, and I worry more about the ones I place on my own judgment.

11.37

Epictetus also said, a man must discover an art with respect to giving his assent.

And in respect to his movements he must be careful that they be made with regard to circumstances, that they be consistent with social interests, that they have regard to the value of the object.

And as to sensual desire, he should altogether keep away from it.

And as to avoidance, he should not show it with respect to any of the things that are not in our power.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.37 (tr Long)

I would often sit and wonder about the secrets of life, about how I could somehow tap into all those profound truths that only the most enlightened of sages could hope to access. The wisdom of it surely must be hidden, I thought, or otherwise so many of us out here in the world wouldn’t be so terribly miserable. It had to be arcane and esoteric, since common sense clearly wasn’t doing it for the rest of us.

Take a ride home on the subway during rush hour, and you will immediately see the plight of man. If he could, he would certainly do better than this. If it were within his power, he would find a way out of this.

But it is well within my power, and it demands no initiation into mysteries. I have not failed to acquire any cryptic principles of life; I have only overlooked that most basic of rules, that I should look before I leap.

The art of living well is not just reserved for the special folks. Let reason guide over passion, and let understanding give purpose to desire.

Good habits of life come from practice, and good practice comes from action, and good action comes from reflection. It doesn’t require thinking about it for a long time, but rather thinking about it well. Thinking more will rarely help me, while thinking more thoroughly always does. A moment is enough.

When should I say “yes” to anything? When I grasp the actual conditions I am facing, instead of just spouting elaborate principles and platitudes. Grandstanding will not do. Let my values serve the actual situation. Does it make me a better man, or only a richer, more gratified, or more popular man?

By what measure should I decide what to do? When I show love to others, to all others, and without any exception to that requirement. Must someone else be abandoned, rejected, or cast aside? Then I am choosing poorly. It amazes me how many people say they have done right, while at same time doing wrong to others.

How should I face my passions? Let me by all means enjoy life, but let me not be ruled by my enjoyment. Am I doing it only because it is fun? There is that very leaping, all without the looking. There is action, divorced from thought. There is desire, separated from responsibility.

Are there things I should avoid? Yes, but not the things I usually think of as harmful to me. If they have nothing to do with what I can make better from my own character, I am called to let them be. I will not run away from your mockery, or your abuse, or your hatred. Do what you must; I will do what I must do to improve myself.

None of these values are special, or secret, or obscure. They come from looking at a human being the right way up, with mind giving order to the body, the higher directing the lower.

Being crammed into the subway train isn’t even the problem. Making something of myself, by building the habit of conscience, is the solution.

11.38

The dispute then, he said, is not about any common matter, but about being a madman or not.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.38 (tr Long)

A friend and I were once walking through a fancy part of Boston, the one they now call the Financial District. There were skyscrapers packed with stockbrokers and lawyers making big money, and also streets packed with poor folks looking for spare change. My buddy tripped over the foot of a homeless man, and he got quite upset.

“You piece of crap, get a job! Man, you must be insane to live like you do! Insane! Insane! Insane!”

See, I did not at all like what he said, but I bit my tongue. Still, what he said stuck with me for years, and I would often ask myself: who was really insane, the suits in the offices, or the bums in the gutter?

Some people debate and argue to help them understand, but most people debate and argue to show how important they are. Usually, we debate and argue about petty things, about the outliers, about questions of partisan policy. It’s all quite mundane.

Do I really think that Mr. Who or Ms. What, from the Hippo Party or the Rhino Party respectively, are any different in their values? They smile, they pander, and they get donations at dinner parties. It will make absolutely no difference in my common life if one or the other wins this popularity contest.

Tax rates, worries about which wars we should fight, and the many ways to save the polar bears are all distractions from the deeper questions. Don’t give me a list of all the trendy things you will do. Tell me what you think is true and false, right and wrong, straight to the core. Reveal your character to me. Get naked for me, not in your body, but in your soul.

Show me whether you are sane or insane.

That is the only question that matters. Sanity and insanity are not about whether you wear a suit or wear rags. Sanity and insanity are not about whatever chemical imbalance the pharmaceutical companies are currently selling a product for. Sanity and insanity are not about holding a view that is popular or unpopular.

No. What makes us sane is not our obsession with flighty opinions, but a moral compass guided by sound reason. Know right from wrong, do right instead of wrong.

I recognize the sane man because he looks me in the eye, and he gives me a straight answer. There is no bullshit.

I recognize the insane man because he distracts me with trivialities. He doesn’t even understand himself. I can smell him from a mile away.

Who is truly insane, the homeless man, or the heartless man?

11.39

Socrates used to say, what do you want, souls of rational men or irrational?

“Souls of rational men.”

Of what rational men, sound or unsound?

“Sound.”

Why then do you not seek for them?

“Because we have them.”

Why then do you fight and quarrel?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.39 (tr Long)

If I am being so reasonable, why am I being so petty, so small-minded, and so vindictive? Why am I thinking and acting as if understanding requires conflict? When did I start assuming that I was already born wise, instead of having to put some effort into learning it?

How tragic, how dangerous, when what I call the sensible solution is the one that ends with the most tears.

The ambiguous way we sometime use words hardly helps me here. A “good” argument can be a chain of reasoning that leads me to the truth, or a “good” argument can be an exercise in raising myself up by putting other people down.

I shudder to think of the times I felt proud inside, not because I had expressed something with insight and clarity, but because I had said it in the most clever and dismissive way possible.

This was the reason I was never fond of formal debates, and why I was never cut out for politics. It was taken for granted that being right or wrong required there being winners and losers, and that the winners were distinguished from the losers by a popularity contest.

There will indeed be disagreement in life, but wouldn’t it be better if disagreements were resolved instead of compounded? I never could grasp why opposition was seen as being so much nobler than cooperation.

Perhaps it boils down to the difference between being right as something that is shared with others, and being right as something that gives us power over others. Solidarity appears quite rational to me, because respect proceeds from understanding others for who and what they are. Dominance appears quite thoughtless to me, because control proceeds from making others subject only to my gratification.

Acting out of love seems one of the most reasonable things one can do, acting out of the hate one of the most unreasonable.

12.1

All those things at which you wish to arrive by a circuitous road you can have now, if you do not refuse them to yourself. And this means, if you will take no notice of all the past, and trust the future to Providence, and direct the present only conformably to piety and justice.

Conformably to piety that you may be content with the lot that is assigned to you, for Nature designed it for you and you for it.

Conformably to justice, that you may always speak the truth freely and without disguise, and do the things that are agreeable to law and according to the worth of each. And let neither another man's wickedness hinder you, nor opinion nor voice, nor yet the sensations of the poor flesh which has grown about you; for the passive part will look to this.

If, then, whatever the time may be when you shall be near to your departure, neglecting everything else you shall respect only your ruling faculty and the Divinity within you, and if you shall be afraid not because you must some time cease to live, but if you shall fear never to have begun to live according to Nature—then you will be a man worthy of the Universe that has produced you, and you will cease to be a stranger in your native land, and to wonder at things that happen daily as if they were something unexpected, and to be dependent on this or that.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.1 (tr Long)

The difficulty is never in how long it may take, or how much blood and sweat may happen to go into it. The difficulty is in a single choice, in one act of conviction, and in the moral courage necessary to maintain that conviction, renewing it calmly, day by day. There are no profound secrets; there is a simple decision.

I am the only fellow who is able to stop me. There are no other obstacles at all. I might like to blame her, or to point fingers at him, or to insist that those folks brought me down. No one ever brought me down, and no one ever tripped me up. I remain my own worst enemy, and I also remain my own best friend.

What has happened cannot be changed, and it will be a burden if I choose to carry it further. What will happen will most certainly be, and it will be a burden if I fail to see that whatever is, is so for a perfectly good reason. The most basic fact remains: choose to act with character, and the rest takes care of itself.

How is this possible? No altered external circumstances are required. Altered judgment is required.

Will it bring pain? Very likely. Will I be dragged in the dirt? Quite possibly. Will I be left with no possessions? Be prepared for it. Will my life end before I would like? Roll the bones.

That will only seem unbearable if I measure my life by what is done, not by what I do, if I am the victim instead of the agent. Rebuild the man, and you rebuild the whole bag of expectations, forgetting all the garbage coming in, and working on all the merit coming out. Redefine the nature of the reward.

Be pious. I can explain it however it works for me, but I should know that I am a part of a whole, to which I am in service, and which is also in service to me. Respect the order of Creation, and the purpose behind it all.

Be just. I can express it however it makes sense to me, but I should know that I am made to love others. Am I not getting what I think I deserve? Yes I am, because I am giving what I am meant to give, and my reward is already within my own excellence.

No vice from another will destroy me; only my own vice will do that. Let the rest take care of itself.

Lonely? Confused? Frustrated? Yes, all of the time, because it doesn’t always go as I prefer. Allow all of that to be itself, and then I can learn to be myself.

12.2

God sees the minds of all men bared of the material vesture and rind and impurities. For with His intellectual part alone He touches the intelligence only which has flowed and been derived from Himself into these bodies.

And if you also use yourself to do this, you will rid yourself of your many troubles. For he who regards not the poor flesh that envelops him, surely will not trouble himself by looking after raiment and dwelling and fame and such like externals and show.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.2 (tr Long)

Philosophers do like their profound discussions about the distinction between soul and body, the differences between mind and matter, and I will be the first geek to be enthralled by such an inquiry. After all, it asks nothing less than what we are made of, and how we are put together.

At the same time, I am always wary of being too concerned with dividing our existence, at the expense of appreciating its unity. The Stoics generally avoided the temptations of dualism, of making two worlds out of one, and so often spoke of all existence as different expressions of the very same matter.

My mind is not over here, and my body is not over there, two separate things barely touching, or perhaps even in conflict with one another.

All things share in one existence, and all things proceed from one act of being. Yet the mind behaves very differently than the body, and in its actions rises above the limitations of any unknowing matter.

In being self-aware, it is not merely moved, but moves itself. Mind embodies being more perfectly, precisely because it embraces meaning and purpose; that which is lesser is informed by the awareness within that which is greater.

While necessarily joined and intermingled together, mind and body reveal the different degrees with which Nature expresses herself. I can only make sense of the latter through the direction of the former.

All subtle metaphysics aside, what does this mean when I look at myself? It is the conscious mind within me that is the center of my humanity, that around which all my other layers of flesh and blood, of passions and possessions, of power and fame, must revolve.

What is most dignified about me? It is that which most fully reflects the Divine within me, the power of reason and will.

Once I grasp this, I will not care so much for how handsome I look, or how strong and healthy my body is, or how many pretty things I can own, or how many other people I can impress with all these flashy appearances. My worth will be in my character, not in the accessories I attach to myself.

There I can discover what is truly beautiful about a person, that depth of wisdom and virtue, the willingness to face all things with understanding and love. Whatever state my body may be in, it must be subject to my soul.

Am I really looking for the true, the good, and the beautiful in myself, and in others? It will be found deep down inside, where the soul touches God. There I will learn to love myself, and to love my neighbor, looking beyond what only gratifies my gut.

12.3

The things are three of which you are composed: a little body, a little breath of life, and the intelligence.

Of these the first two are yours, so far as it is your duty to take care of them, but the third alone is properly yours.

Therefore if you shall separate from yourself, that is, from your understanding, whatever others do or say, and whatever you have done or said yourself, and whatever future things trouble you because they may happen;

and whatever in the body that envelops you, or in the breath of life, which is by nature associated with the body, is attached to you independent of your will;

and whatever the external circumfluent vortex whirls round, so that the intellectual power exempt from the things of fate can live pure and free by itself, doing what is just and accepting what happens and saying the truth;

and if you will separate, I say, from this ruling faculty the things that are attached to it by the impressions of sense, and the things of time to come and of time that is past, and will make yourself like Empedocles' sphere,

"All round and in its joyous rest reposing;”

and if you shall strive to live only what is really your life, that is, the present—then you will be able to pass that portion of life that remains for you up to the time of your death, free from perturbations, nobly, and obedient to your own daemon, to the god that is within you.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.3 (tr Long)

I can be quite foolish. Yes, I will gladly laugh along with your jokes. I arrogantly tried to go straight to the Greek here, thinking I could somehow “improve” Long’s version, in order to avoid that terrible run-on sentence. Even a desperate appeal to other translations didn’t help me. I will save it all for someone far more gifted.

Still, the meaning becomes quite clear, requiring only a bit of squinting and squirming.

I may say that three things are mine: my body, my life, and my thoughts. That is already quite an improvement upon the usual illusion, that my property is mine, or that my reputation is mine, or that my credentials are mine. They have nothing to do with me, of course, and even my body and my life are only lent to me; I am given care over them, and I do not actually possess them.

No, only my mind and will are my own for now. That sounds quite wonderful in theory, but how can I possibly live my life in practice, without all the other bits and pieces people insist must define me?

Well, I don’t have to live how they tell me I must; I can live as I know that I must. I should strip away everything that is extraneous, and reveal who I truly am, beneath all the bluster and the noise. If I don’t really care for the trappings, they won’t trouble me.

I know full well how the priests, the politicians, and the businessmen lie to me. I have been their fool all along, and I knew it all along. I played along, only in the hope of becoming one of them. Then there is that moment, when it’s time to clean all the accumulated crud off of my glasses.

Love others, but do not care what they say about you. That isn’t you.

Learn from your mistakes, but do not let others shame you about them. You can now be a new man.

If they tell you to worry about your future, know that they are playing you. Your merit is immediately in your present.

Are you weak, or sick, or dying? Are they trying to corner you by selling you magic cures? These are not the cures you need.

The situation seems hopeless, but your merit isn’t about your situation. Your merit is about your choices, in whatever circumstances you may find yourself.

Wait, they want you to lie, to cheat, and to steal for them? You are better than that, and you are more than that.

You feel hungry, despondent, lonely, and abandoned? There is your chance, what a wonderful chance, to be everything they tell you that you cannot be, to be everything they choose not to be. Be human, even as they deny their own humanity.

You are finally about to go. Yes, it comes to us all. So die with dignity, and without any shame. Stand up.

We assume that the winners die with the most toys, yet the best people die with a good conscience. The difference is like that between night and day.

Perhaps the scoundrels have found a way to sleep well at night; I know only that I must find a way to live well right now, removing all the external obstacles to my inner peace. Cast aside anything and everything that gets in the way of first and foremost being a good man. Dispose of the residue.

Replace the impression of glory with the substance of decency. It will be a joyous rest, indeed.

12.4

I have often wondered how it is that every man loves himself more than all the rest of men, but yet sets less value on his own opinion of himself than on the opinion of others.

If then a god or a wise teacher should present himself to a man and bid him to think of nothing and to design nothing that he would not express as soon as he conceived it, he could not endure it even for a single day.  So much more respect have we to what our neighbors shall think of us than to what we shall think of ourselves.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.4 (tr Long)

I have spent most of my life ignored by others, and I have responded with either wild resentment or peaceful acceptance. Every so often, I have found myself ridiculed or cast aside by others, and I have responded with either wild resentment or peaceful acceptance. Whether I was happy or not depended quite a bit on the choices I made about what came to me.

Now one might think that this would, at the very best, teach me a bit of healthy self-reliance, or, at the very worst, drag me down into some rather unhealthy isolation. Oddly enough, I usually still felt the need to crave approval. I wanted so desperately to be recognized, and if there were some occasions when I was recognized, I wanted so desperately to be recognized well.

I believe that instinct to be perfectly natural, to desire being a part of something, to have a place within the whole, and to have that place be confirmed by those around me. My mistake was always in thinking that the approval made me good, instead of seeing that what was good could then be worthy of approval. The instinct was not tempered by reason.

As in so many things Stoic, my priorities were flipped; the cause was confused with the consequence. No man is ever made to be alone, but sometimes he will find himself in solitude. Indeed, he is never alone if he lives well, looking to his conscience first and foremost; then he is working with and for all things, for all his neighbors, for every part of creation, even if he is not given any trophies, or awards, or further bonuses.

Should I care what other people think? Yes, of course, because they are my brothers and sisters. Should I make who I am dependent on what they think? No, absolutely not, because then I am hardly myself.

The Stoic Turn requires working from the inside out, not from the outside in. The mentality of the herd demands working from outside in, not from the inside out.

Once I look to anything beyond my own wisdom and virtue as the measure of my life, I have also surrendered the mastery of my life. Many folks will tell you that they are powerful, precisely because they are loved by others. No, they are actually weak, precisely because they have not first loved others.

What have I received? That’s a crapshoot. What have I given? There’s the golden ticket.

12.5.1

How can it be that the gods, after having arranged all things well and benevolently for mankind, have overlooked this alone, that some men, and very good men, and men who, as we may say, have had most communion with the Divinity, and through pious acts and religious observances have been most intimate with the Divinity, when they have once died should never exist again, but should be completely extinguished?. . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.5 (tr Long)

I have offered myself three answers to this question, at different times. The first is from the oldest me, the second from the middle me, the third from the newest me.

I cannot claim to know precisely why Marcus Aurelius asked this. At first, I would take the question quite literally, and ponder the injustice or tragedy of it all. Later, I would see it as a rhetorical question, and find within the question itself the very problem within my own thinking.

First Stage: Damn straight, how did God get this one thing wrong? There should surely be a reward for being just, for being pious, for trying to rise above all of the muck and the filth. Why do the virtuous die with nothing, often well before their rightful time, while the vicious live with everything, often well beyond their rightful time? It all seems quite unfair.

Second Stage: Maybe it isn’t wrong for something to cease to be? Providence doesn’t get things wrong at all; I just don’t see it right. Living longer or shorter is neither good nor bad. Having more or else is neither good nor bad. I have misunderstood what a good life really is. Yes, I will die, as will everyone else, and the only thing that matters is how well my time was lived, not how long I lived, or how much “stuff” I acquired.

Third Stage: Wait, does anything really cease to be at all? Nothing ends; it only becomes something else, something different, and thereby continues on in the order of Nature. Is it the same? Of course not, and it would hardly be part of a process if it merely stayed the same. Will “I” still exist? In some sense, though it isn’t for me to determine how that expresses itself. I am quite content to let God, or the Divine, or the Logos, or the Absolute, decide what that will be.

Faith, which is nothing but trust, is hardly so unreasonable in the end.

The order of things isn’t messed up at all. My estimation of things is what is messed up. The very way I ask the question reveals my first principles, and the answers come from my own growth in truth.

Perhaps my answer, and even my way of asking the question, will evolve again as I move along, and before I breathe my last. I not only suspect that will happen, I actually hope it will happen. Nothing created stands still.

12.5.2

. . . But if this is so, be assured that if it ought to have been otherwise, the gods would have done it. For if it were just, it would also be possible; and if it were according to Nature, nature would have had it so.

But because it is not so, if in fact it is not so, be convinced that it ought not to have been so. For you see even of yourself that in this inquiry you are disputing with the Deity; and we should not thus dispute with the gods, unless they were most excellent and most just. But if this is so, they would not have allowed anything in the ordering of the Universe to be neglected unjustly and irrationally.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.5 (tr Long)

Whenever I am butting heads with Providence, I inevitably find that my own estimation is the problem.

I expect the world to conform to my own passions and preferences, instead of learning how my own passions and preferences can best work in the world.

I am thinking only of what I wish to receive, not of what I am able to give.

It becomes about me being against other things, quite forgetful of my part within the harmony of the whole.

If it happens as it does, I can learn to accept that it happens as it does, and that it is rightly meant to happen as it does. Each piece has played a part, and now it only remains for me to play my part.

If I cry and complain, I am hardly making the situation any better, and I am only making myself worse. If I commit myself to the good in my actions, I am perhaps helping to improve other things, and I am most certainly improving myself.

My knowledge that the world unfolds this way for a reason must begin with humility, with an openness to Nature, with a sense of reverence for a greater order and purpose. It does not have to be about my good suffering for the good of other things, and can instead become an awareness of how all things fit together.

False dichotomies will always get me into trouble.

Accordingly, when I face loss, pain, or uncertainty, I should first look to myself. Am I perhaps expecting something that I don’t need to expect? Am I thinking imperfectly about my own good, from my circumstances instead of my character? Am I separating what I want from who I am really meant to be?

I do not need to understand all the mysteries of Providence to work with her; it is sufficient to simply know that I have acted with virtue, according to my particular human nature, and that other things have acted according to their particular natures.

My problem is always expecting more than I should, failing to be content with myself, and doing less than I should, failing to find the excellence that is already within me.

Why am I arguing with God, if I don’t somehow already know that there is a meaningful design playing itself out? I have been given a mastery over myself, and so if I want justice I am called to be just myself. Everything else is fulfilling that calling as well, in its own way, and in its own time, even if my own mind does not immediately perceive all ends.

12.6

Practice yourself even in the things that you despair of accomplishing. For even the left hand, which is ineffectual for all other things for want of practice, holds the bridle more vigorously than the right hand; for it has been practiced in this.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.6 (tr Long)

For a good number of years, one of my old professors would kindly send out a recommendation letter whenever I applied for a job. Now I hoped he had something decent to say, or I assumed he would otherwise never have agreed to write it for me.

I eventually saw a copy of that letter in my file at work. I suddenly realized that the letter had been a mixed blessing. It spoke about certain strengths he thought I might possess, yet it also contained an interesting statement:

“Dr. Milburn is often slow in learning new concepts, and in acquiring new skills. Yet when he gets there, he easily outshines most of his peers, ending up far more proficient than the rest.”

Now which part of that statement do you think any prospective employer read? Yes, the “slow learner” part. The man meant well, and I hold him no ill will, but that certainly didn’t go over well in a world where we are expected to immediately do the best job, as quickly as possible, and with no questions asked.

I am quite admittedly not the sharpest tool in the shed, or the fastest horse on the track. I’m the ugly but reliable hatchet, the ungainly draft horse.

I do indeed take my time, not because I am lazy, but because I would prefer to do it right. I ask a lot of questions, perhaps more often than is comfortable. I try it again and again, perhaps more often than is efficient. I work slowly to work well, perhaps to the annoyance of others. I would, however, prefer to be the best worker, not the flashiest worker.

As a fine fellow I know, an expert machinist, likes to say: “Do it hastily, or do it well, but there’s no having it both ways.”

Simply wanting to do it well will not make me do it well. Simply engaging the task with confidence will not get the job done. I may want to impress, though it will not make me excel.

What will make the difference? I hate to say it, because it sounds like such a platitude, but it is just practice. Yes, practice makes perfect. Yes, virtue is a habit. Doing it once won’t cut it, while doing it over, and over, and over again, will make it like a second nature. It not only becomes effortless, it also becomes pleasant to do something well.

Did it seem impossible at first? Do you realize it is more than possible when you dedicate yourself to some annoying repetition? It is like this in all aspects of life, and it is like this in the absolutely most important aspect of life, the building of moral character.

I was born left-handed, but a teacher once insisted that I had to write with my right hand. One day, I decided I would teach myself to write with my left hand again. Did I do it? Yes. Was it easy? No. How long did it take? Far longer than I would like to say.

I often worry that I can’t resist this or that desire, or overcome this or that pain, or face the fact that this or that preferred circumstance will never come to me. Do I wish to become better? It starts with conviction, and continues with commitment; the latter becomes possible through the former. If it’s worth it, it will take time to do it right, and if it’s noble, it will take some elbow grease.

Yes, practice makes perfect.

12.7

Consider in what condition both in body and soul a man should be when he is overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.7 (tr Long)

It is not only the though of death that can be deeply uncomfortable for us, but any sort of reminder of our weakness, our frailty, our tenuous hold on all that we hold so dear, the prospect that all of our grand efforts will be as nothing in the scale of things.

The fact that we will most certainly die is disturbing enough, but then we must also face the fact that our bodies, our minds, and all of our circumstances are fragile and breakable things, completely beyond our power to retain, and that when it is all over, the memory of us will pass almost as quickly as we did.

We nervously look away, pretending it isn’t real, being all the more attentive to our glittering playthings and our petty schemes, like a fellow constantly checking his watch to avoid making eye contact with the girl who broke his heart. Maybe a clever rationalization, or a comforting superstition, will distract us from the dread.

“Well thanks, now you’ve really depressed me.”

But see, it doesn’t have to be that way. Yes, I will only be here for a short time, and that is as nothing compared to the vastness of creation. Yes, my health, my possessions, or my achievements really don’t amount to much of anything at all. Yes, even if I’m so lucky as to have someone thinking about me now, no one will be thinking about me at all fairly soon.

But why is this even bothering me? It will only be as troublesome as I allow it to be, and I will only care about all these diversions if I judge them to be important. I don’t need to live forever. I don’t need to be indestructible. I don’t need to be recognized. I simply need to possess myself, for the fleeting time that I have. I need to be charged, however briefly, with wisdom and virtue, with awareness and love, and the rest then becomes trifling.

Make it small in my estimation, and I can now turn to the true task at hand. The illusion has been dissolved. Lift your head up, look that girl straight in the eye, and smile with kindness, because all the other trappings don’t matter.

And so Stoicism turns it all around, taking what seems so terrible and transforming it into a glorious reminder of all that is good within us. By all means, contemplate death, and the corruption, and the insignificance of pleasure, and power, and fame, but don’t contemplate this to dwell on your loss. Contemplate this to point you to what you can now gain.

12.8

Contemplate the forms of things bare of their coverings; the purposes of actions; consider what pain is, what pleasure is, and death, and fame; who is to himself the cause of his uneasiness; how no man is hindered by another; that everything is opinion.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.8 (tr Long)

“Pay attention! Why aren’t you paying attention?”

How often did I hear that phrase, first when I was in school, being told what was expected of me, and then when I was a worker bee, being told once again what was expected of me? How often did I get that very message, when I watched an advertisement on television, or when I listened to powerful and important people?

Most everywhere I turn, people are telling me to pay them heed. I am fairly certain they are doing this because I have something they might want. It is not necessarily just my money, of which I have little, or even just my loyalty, which will be of no real use to them, but perhaps only my submission, which makes them fell all warm and comfortable.

By all means, pay attention. Consider. Contemplate. Seek to understand. Yet what matters isn’t the attention itself, but what we might actually consider worthy of attention.

“Buy my product!” No, it doesn’t interest me.

“Vote for me!” No, you are playing a game.

“Worship at my altar!” No, you are selling idols.

Cut through all of that, go straight to the bone, and contemplate what is at the core of life. Do not be diverted by playful illusions and siren songs, do not be distracted by whatever appeals to the lesser part of you.

What is its nature, beneath all the appearances, whether appealing or frightening? Why is it here, and for what end does it exist? Why does this one thing seem to hurt, while this other thing seems to be pleasant? What is so frightening about death? Why do I feel the need to win any recognition at all?

Strip all the clutter away, and I will then understand why I am so uneasy. I have paid attention to the outside, not to the inside, to the style, and not to the substance.

I have forgotten something most important: I am not made by all these conditions that you insist demand my attention. You know full well that I will forget who I am, as soon as I have become obsessed with everything I am not.

How I form my own judgments will determine everything else about the value of my life. Do not try to draw me away from this, because I choose not to be your plaything.

12.9

In the application of your principles you must be like the pancratiast, not like the gladiator. For the gladiator lets fall the sword which he uses and is killed; but the other always has his hand, and needs to do nothing else than use it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.9 (tr Long)

In the gladiatorial games, a man’s life would depend upon keeping a hold of his weapons, but in the pancratium, a sort of no-holds-barred form of wrestling and boxing, where only biting and gouging were prohibited, a man would depend solely upon his own skill and strength. 

There is a similar difference in life, between those who rely on the tools given them by circumstance, and those who rely on the tools within their own nature.

Notice how certain people are happy to inform you that they are “self-made”, that they built it all up from nothing, and that all their rich rewards as truly merited.

Now you should already be suspicious when they feel the need to tell you this, somehow craving your approval, but you should also look more closely at what they have actually done. For all of their abilities, notice how their good fortune depends mainly on taking advantage of specific conditions. Yes, they were quite clever or daring, but without a certain state of affairs having conveniently unfolded as it did, they would still be as nothing, and they would have nothing to brag about.

Other people, however, don’t even define themselves by how much fortune and fame they have acquired, and they simply manage to be good people, regardless of whether they became rich or poor, revered or rejected. Their opportunities flow from within, not from without.

Now I may wonder what they have actually done, since they don’t seem to have any real spoils to show for it. There, however, is the heart of the matter. What is the greatest victory? What does it actually require of me? Will I need something in the world to fall into place for me, or will it be enough to merely master myself?

One sort of man needs to pick up a sword in order to be victorious, while the other sort of man needs only his own hands.

12.10

See what things are in themselves, dividing them into matter, form, and purpose.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.10 (tr Long)

What is it made of? How are these pieces joined together into a single nature? What does that very nature tell me it exists for, and what it is meant to do? All other questions are quite secondary, and will divert me from the task of living a genuine human life.

There will be all forms of doubt, all degrees of skepticism, tempting me to abandon the task of understanding my world and myself. What I find that so many share in common is the error of making something far more complicated than it needs to be. I tell myself, time and time again, that it doesn’t have to turn into rocket science.

Observe it carefully, and calmly, and impartially, whatever it is. What is it doing, and how is it behaving? What does this, in turn, tell me about what its action aims for, the end for which it is made?

This will often demand that I must take my time, that I must squint at it from all angles, that I must not let my assumptions get in the way of what I am seeing. It is most certainly what it is, in and of itself, and it is only my hasty judgments that will get in the way. To do it right, I must strip away all presumption, I must look at with new eyes.

Let me look at myself, or let me look at my neighbor. What do I see? The model of “human resources,” of man as homo faber, as an instrument of labor, tells me that a human being is good or bad by how efficient he is at making a product. This is quite a common perception, but does it describe what a person truly is, as opposed to only how a person can be useful and convenient to me?

A person may make a widget or sell a doohickey, may be tall or short, fat or thin, a man or a woman, black or white, living here or there, possessing this or that. These are indeed qualities he may have, but they do not define who he is, or why he is here. To say he is or is not a worker who is efficient for making money completely misses the mark.

There is no deep mystery here; just look behind the accidents to the essence. He has a body, one that has life, and one that has instincts and feelings. He is also able to understand, and he is therefore able to freely choose, and this makes him quite different from other animals.

Can a man design and build a rocket? Of course he can. But he is not just a homo faber, whatever he builds, but a homo sapiens, a creature of reason and will. That he can reflect upon himself in this way is proof enough of his rational nature. The rocket he designs and builds shows me that he is able to form his own sense of meaning and purpose.

That we build rockets isn’t what makes us aware, but that we are aware makes it possible for us to build rockets.

12.11

What a power man has to do nothing except what God will approve, and to accept all that God may give him.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.11 (tr Long)

“And here you thought it was all about you.”

I’ve never enjoyed it when people remind me of my vanity, of my foolish desire to make myself supreme, but when someone once said it to me in that way, at a certain time, under a specific set of circumstances, I had one of those moments. You know, one of those moments where you will never be quite the same again. Something has clicked, something that should have clicked long ago.

I cannot relate to a version of Stoicism that begins and ends with the self, because while Stoicism is about self-reliance, I can only understand it within the context of the whole of Nature, under the rule of Providence, manifest through the Divine. I would often become frustrated with people who so easily dismissed others, or who so hastily shunned any openness to God, until I realized how my own resentment was a symptom of the very same arrogance.

My own power is not absolute, and even my own power over myself is subject to the Nature of which I must necessarily be a part. My mind can reach out to infinite being, and my heart can reach out to infinite love, but I am not the center. I am not the measure, but a thing measured, as Fulton Sheen taught me all those years ago.

“There you go with your God again! You are limiting me, restricting me, telling me what I can or cannot be!”

No, He is not my God, He is the very order of all being, in fact Being itself. We are talking past one another, because I only know that there is the Absolute, and I do not claim that it insists on borders and limitations. Quite the contrary, it transcends all borders and limitations.

For me, it isn’t about me against God. It is about me within God, through God, an expression of God. When I fail to see this, I am not thinking big enough. There is never even a “me” without the whole that contains me.

There is nothing I can do that is somehow “outside” of such a totality, just as I must learn how everything that happens serves its purpose within such a totality. I am made to do what I can do, and other things are made to do what they will do.

The peace that comes from a mastery of self must also include a joyful acceptance of a Universe that makes that very self possible.

12.12

With respect to that which happens conformably to Nature, we ought to blame neither gods, for they do nothing wrong either voluntarily or involuntarily, nor men, for they do nothing wrong except involuntarily.

Consequently we should blame nobody.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.12 (tr Long)

Most of my resentment will follow from blame, and so where I can overcome my sense of blame, I can better master my resentment.

Whenever something has happened, it helps me to know how and why it happened, but it does not help me to find fault, or dwell upon what is wrong.  It seems easy to accuse, but it only drains the life from me; it seems harder to understand, but it restores the life in me.

Providence gets its right, because it knows what’s best. People can get it wrong, but only because they don’t know any better. Pointing my finger at God or at my neighbor is misguided and fruitless, since I fail to see that their actions could not have come to pass in any other way.  God does not do any harm, and my neighbor did not mean any harm.

Put another way, if some event takes place, however it may first appear to me, I can be certain that it exists for the sake of what is good, however mysteriously, and invariably offers me the opportunity to go good.

If I see another person act poorly, I can also be certain that he only did so falsely thinking it was good, and therefore it gives me the opportunity to respond with compassion instead of condemnation.

“But he could have known better!” Yes, perhaps he could, and none of this negates the principle of personal responsibility. But to cast blame only compounds the error.

Ignorance was the condition that misled him, and so ignorance is what needs first to be cured. Teach him, correct him, and improve him where you can, and teach yourself, correct yourself, and improve yourself where you cannot.

I don’t know where the phrase came from, but at some point it got stuck in my head:

Blame no one. Expect nothing. Do something.

Pointing the finger only distracts me from my own responsibility. Demanding an outcome only reveals my own vanity. Acting with an informed conscience is what makes it better.

12.13

How ridiculous and what a stranger he is who is surprised at anything that happens in life.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.13 (tr Long)

Some people like to get angry, and some people like to be offended, and some people like to feel outraged. A few years back, a colleague stormed into my office, threw down an open book, and pointed excitedly at a photograph on the page.

“See? See? That’s what happens when whites, males, Christians, and fascists are allowed to run things! You should be ashamed!”

I looked down at the picture. I had seen it before, and I have seen many hundreds like it.

“Aren’t you shocked by this? Did you ever think something like this could really happen? On your watch? From your people?”

No, I was not shocked by it, and yes, I had always known that things like this happen. They happen all the time.

The photograph was from the early 1900’s, of a forced laborer, essentially a slave, in the Belgian Congo. He sits there, looking down at the severed hand and foot of his butchered daughter. The story has it that this was a punishment from his overseers for not meeting his harvest quota.

Is this horrific, vicious, and barbaric? Yes. Is it that uncommon? No. That people can be brutal is never an excuse, but it is hardly a rare thing in this world.

Am I moved to the deepest sympathy, even to tears, by such a sight? Yes. Am I surprised by it? No. Human nature will go from the highest highs to the lowest lows.

Where have you been not to know this? Why do you further assume it must be the act of one class or another, instead of seeing it as a weakness we all share, each and every one of us, regardless of our race, culture, or creed? Give a man freedom, and give him some power, and he can make the absolute best of it, or the absolute worst of it.

I am grateful I did not live at that time or in that place, though my own time and place have shown me so much that is very similar. The injustices may differ in degree, or they may take on different forms, or they may attack either the body or the spirit, but they are really no different in kind.

I once stood by helpless as a bunch of boys pinned down the arm of a crying victim, and one of them repeatedly pounded that arm with a baseball bat.

I once knew a girl who hung herself in her dorm room, after years of being mocked, ridiculed, and shunned by her peers.

I once stumbled across an important priest, raping a young boy in a bathroom stall.

I once quivered, shaking with rage, when I overheard a fancy doctor speak about my dead son: “Thank God we’re rid of that one!”

There is much indifference, hatred, and abuse in this world. I know this simply because I too am human. It does not surprise me.

There is also so much concern, love, and justice in this world. I know this simply because I too am human. It does not surprise me.

Yet as soon as I insist on attacking my perceived group of enemies, then I too choose indifference, hatred, and abuse, instead of choosing concern, love, and justice.

I choose not to be surprised by either good or evil, and I choose not to become indignant. It is within each of us, individually, to decide by what measures we will live. That is as perennial as the grass.

12.14

Either there is a fatal necessity and invincible order, or a kind Providence, or a confusion without a purpose and without a director.

If then there is an invincible necessity, why do you resist?

But if there is a Providence that allows itself to be propitiated, make yourself worthy of the help of the divinity.

But if there is a confusion without a governor, be content that in such a tempest you have in yourself a certain ruling intelligence. And even if the tempest carries you away, let it carry away the poor flesh, the poor breath, everything else; for the intelligence at least it will not carry away.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.14 (tr Long)

There might ultimately be an unfriendly order, a friendly order, or an unfriendly disorder. A friendly disorder presumably excludes itself, since there can hardly be concern where there is no intention.

The traditional model of Stoicism is, of course, the second option of a kind Providence, but Marcus Aurelius reminds us that even if the world were somehow structured differently, a good life would still be quite similar.

I do sometimes wonder if many of those who espouse Stoicism are actually more Epicurean in their thinking, though that too can lead to the practice of virtue.

If it must happen in a certain way, and the Universe cares nothing for my part, then it should not change my acceptance of these circumstances, bravely facing my situation, and expecting to be given nothing different.

If it must happen in a certain way, but the Universe encourages me in my own part, then I will also gladly embrace the benefit of being permitted to participate in my fate, of having my own choices become a very piece of the grand design.

If it could happen in any possible way, and there is no rhyme or reason to the Universe, then there may be no certainty in things at all, but there can still be meaning and value in how I choose to live, regardless of the chaos around me.

In all these cases, one thing remains constant: the power to make something of myself, according to my own judgment, whatever way the wind may blow. This can stand as the greatest comfort, through thick or thin, in wealth or in poverty, in sickness or in health.

However the Universe plays itself out, by whatever rules it unfolds, or even in the complete absence of such rules, whether I am given grace or faced with cold indifference, I am still in possession of myself.

Do I sometimes worry that there is no greater love, or no greater plan? Yes, quite often. Still, if that were the case, I can remain my own man.

12.15

Does the light of the lamp shine without losing its splendor until it is extinguished?

And shall the truth that is in you, and justice, and temperance, be extinguished before your death?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.15 (tr Long)

A flame will shine as long as it burns, as is in its nature. Will I also shine as long as I live, as is in my nature? Unlike the flame, I possess judgment, and whether I express the humanity that is within me will be decided by my own choices.

First, of course, I must understand what my nature tells me I should do. That the flame will produce light and heat seems obvious enough, but what am I made to produce?

Some tell me it is to receive pleasure, or to acquire possessions, or to make a name for myself. That, they say, is success, and that, they say, is what it means to burn bright. Yet none of that has much of anything to do with my nature, but with the nature of other things. What is my own excellence?

As a creature with a mind, it is the power to understand, and as a creature with a will, it is the power to love. There is my light, and anything else is not the source of my light, but what I may cast my light upon.

Let me be informed by wisdom. Let me be filled with courage. Let me master myself with temperance. Let me do all things with justice. If I strive for these, I can be indifferent to anything else.

The only thing that will extinguish my light is when I permit myself to be smothered by impressions and diversions. I have seen it many times, the fellow who speaks so nobly about how virtue burns within him, but he is only producing smoke. At the lowest points in my life, I have been that very person. I do not wish to be him again.

One day, the oil in the lamp will be exhausted, and the flame will go out. One day, the strength in my body will be exhausted, and my life will go out. That is at it should be, but it would be the greatest tragedy if my struggle for character, for my very humanity, were to be exhausted well before my body.

Then I would be just a shell of a man, still walking, and talking, and going to critical meetings, and taking fancy business trips, and telling clever jokes at dinner parties, even as I am no longer living the life of a man.

I am burned out when I have surrendered my will to do right, not when I cease to be considered an efficient producer and consumer.

Let all the important people say whatever they want, but do be concerned if the decent folks start noticing that your lights are out, and nobody’s at home.

12.16

When a man has presented the appearance of having done wrong, say this:

How then do I know if this is a wrongful act? And even if he has done wrong, how do I know that he has not condemned himself? And so this is like him tearing at his own face.

Consider that he who would not have the bad man do wrong, is like the man who would not have the fig tree to bear juice in the figs, and infants to cry, and the horse to neigh, and whatever else must of necessity be.

For what must a man do who has such a character? If then you are irritable, cure this man's disposition.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.16 (tr Long)

“I don’t understand why he did such a terrible thing!” For the very same reason I have done terrible things.

“I hope he rots in Hell, he deserves to suffer!” Perhaps he is already suffering more than I know.

“If only he hadn’t done that, my life would be so much better!” Yes, my circumstances may well be different, but that isn’t what will make my life better or worse.

How often have I insisted another has done the wrong thing, and yet it turned out he actually did what was right? Easily as often as I have insisted I have done the right thing, and yet it turned out I had done what was wrong.

How often have I thoughtlessly and heartlessly wanted to punish someone else? Surely as often as I have forgotten that my own vices were my own worst punishment.

How often have I despaired over all the greed, and lust, and treachery in this world? Probably as often as I have ignored what it must mean to be truly human.

I will regularly expect the world to act according to my preferences, revealing my deepest vanity, and for people to always do right by me, revealing my deepest ignorance. I do not understand human nature, or its place within Providence, if I do not see that people will act according to their own judgment, for better or for worse.

Sometimes they will choose well, and sometimes they will choose poorly. It could be no other way in a Universe where rational creatures are trying to discover themselves, to find their own paths. Demanding that a man should never be able to choose what is bad for him is like demanding that a fire should never be hot.

If I am despondent or angry about wrongdoing, it is fruitless to ask that it go away; it is here for a perfectly good reason, a part of Nature unfolding as it should. It is better if I turn my thinking around, and ask what good I am called to do in reply.

If I am confronted with someone who has actually done wrong, nothing of benefit will come, for either of us, by dismissing or hating him; he has done what he thinks is best, however confused he may be. It is better if I turn my thinking around, and ask how I can help him to understand and to love.

I see more clearly, day by day, that a Stoic Turn requires more than just forming a conscience, or even treating virtue as the highest human good. It further asks for the deepest transformation, where old assumptions about what was true and false, good and evil, are shaken to the core.

I am given reason precisely so I do not need to be ruled by what happens to me, and I am being quite unreasonable when I deny that very gift to others. It is only by improving myself that I can ever help another to improve himself.

12.17

If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.17 (tr Long)

I have been around the block enough times now to have seen all sorts of glimmering appearances and elaborate displays. Corporations will say that they care about you, and politicians will say that they are fighting for justice and decency, and scholars will say that they only want the truth.

A few may really mean it, but most of them are playing you. The corporations want your money, the politicians want your vote, and the scholars want to look important.

I don’t even need to look at the big picture, since the people right around me will do just as well. How often have I heard noble assurances of friendship, of honesty, of commitment, only to watch it all fall down when the breeze changes direction?

We are drawn to mouthing the fine phrases, but when the rubber meets the road, we make excuses and look the other way. This is because words without actions feel easy, theory without practice is cheap, and appearances seem more convenient than realities.

A sure sign you are being played is when all sorts of conditions and exceptions are added to a promise, like those contracts you sign where the fine print actually tells you that the guarantee is not really a guarantee.

The ends suddenly justify the means, because we apparently “have to” hurt some people to benefit others, or a deception is really just a harmless “white lie”, or it is necessary to “bend the rules” to get something done.

And the contradiction behind it all is the claim that we can ever achieve something good by doing something bad, or that to speak the truth we must tell falsehoods. Left is right, and up is down, and things can become better my making things worse. War is peace. Freedom is slavery. Ignorance is strength.

I could get quite cynical about life when I see the posturing and the hypocrisy, or I could learn something helpful from it. Now I know who I can trust, and now I know how not to do it. People who do everything sideways are hardly good company, and I am hardly a good man if I don’t move beyond my own hemming and hawing.

If I am a creature of reason, I am made for virtue, and there is no getting around that. Being virtuous will only be hard for me if I fail to genuinely and sincerely change my priorities.

If I am a creature of reason, my speech should reflect what is true and good, and there is no getting around that. Honesty will only be hard for me if I have some other intention in my heart.

As those wise bards of the 1980’s, The Fixx, told us: Do what you say, say what you mean.

12.18

In everything always observe what the thing is which produces for you an appearance, and resolve it by dividing it into the formal, the material, the purpose, and the time within which it must end.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.18 (tr Long)

There is the way something at first looks to me, the way something smells and tastes to me, the way something feels to me, and then behind all of that is the way it is, in and of itself. The difference between the appearance and the reality can be quite great, even as the former is produced from my estimation out of the latter.

At many times, I have assumed that I can’t get beyond the way my own passions affect my perceptions. This is a statement of despair, an act of surrender to my lesser side, because in addition to my desires and inclinations, I am also gifted with my greater side, my reason. As frustrating as it may seem, it is a matter of discernment, of separating, slowly but surely, what is presented to me from what I am adding out of my preferences.

She was so seductive, though the seduction was in my own desire, not in her. If I had considered more closely, I would have understood how the outside image revealed an inner sickness.

He was so charming, though the charm was in my own thinking, not in him. If I had considered more closely, I would have understood how the outside presentation revealed an inner vice.

It was so tempting, though the temptation was in my own hopelessness, not in the circumstance. If I had considered more closely, I would have understood how the outside allure revealed an inner emptiness.

That same pattern will play itself out, again and again, until I look behind the mask.

What is it? Be warned, it is not always how it first come across.

What is it made of? Looking at the humble parts often discloses the illusion of the appealing whole.

Why is it here? What end does it serve? What I may want from it is not the same as what it is made for.

How long is it meant to be? It speaks to me as timeless and complete, though it is passing and broken.

As long as I am only feeling instead of also judging, I will remain forever an intellectual and moral infant.

12.19

Perceive at last that you have in you something better and more divine than the things that cause the various affects, and as it were pull you by the strings.

What is there now in my mind—is it fear, or suspicion, or desire, or anything of the kind?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.19 (tr Long)

There was a time when the Stoic claim that my own thoughts and decisions were within my power seemed quite confusing, because my mind would seem to race here and there, following a pattern I could not seem to understand, influenced by a barrage of changing images.

Show me one thing, and I might feel desire, and then my very thinking would be occupied with how to find gratification. Show me another thing, and I might feel fear, and then my very thinking would be consumed by terror. My thoughts just seemed to go their own way, following after various appearances and associations.

It has only been slow practice, and the gradual building of habit, that has allowed me to gain more mastery of myself, much like the repeated exercise of a muscle builds its strength.

I am, unfortunately, very far from being as proficient as I need to be, and a lapse of attentiveness can easily find me giving in to anger, or lust, or despair. Yet the key, I have found, is in recognizing that I am the one who chooses to give in, to surrender, and to allow myself to be pushed and pulled by my impressions.

The only things that will “happen” to my thinking is whatever I allow to happen. Once I know that I have complete possession of my own judgments, I also know that I am the only obstacle to rightly exercising them.

Of course I will be confronted with many feelings, with extremes of pleasure and pain, but I am also able to leave them exactly where they are. Let them speak, as is in their nature, but let my mind decide what to make of them, as is in its nature. I am a creature of instinct and of passion, but I am also a creature of intellect and of will.

Watch people with their dogs in the park, and you will notice that some of them are walking their dogs, while others are being walked by their dogs. Don’t blame the poor dogs, but look to the owners, hardly masters at all, who haven’t learned to tame the beasts.

“I feel like I can’t keep my thoughts on a leash!” Yes, I can, but it will be a self-fulfilling prophecy if I already start by assuming that my mind is not inherently mine to direct.

12.20

First, do nothing inconsiderately, or without a purpose.

Second, make your acts refer to nothing else than to a social end.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.20 (tr Long)

Yes, I might dismissively say, this is obvious advice. I should think about why I am doing something, and I should think about whom I am doing it for. Tell me something I don’t already know.

Well, I am being quite complacent, because I should take notice of how many times I completely fail to take that very advice.

I should take notice of how many other people around me will totally disregard it, even as they nod their heads in agreement.

I should take notice of how many of our problems arise from not even knowing what we are doing, let alone why we are doing it, or who ought to benefit.

Am I making it my purpose to act according to my own nature as a human being? In other words, am I making my moral worth my highest worth?

Is that purpose in cooperation with the purpose of other human beings, and with that of Nature as a whole? In other words, am I respecting the moral worth of others?

It turns out I’m not always being as a considerate as I would like to claim. Being considerate, after all, isn’t just about appearing decent, but about being decent.

Let me consider quite carefully that I am a creature defined by my reason and choice, by the power to know and to love, yet I am still treating wealth, pleasure, and power as if they were somehow ends.

Let me consider quite carefully that others are made for precisely the same purpose as myself, to know and to love, yet I am still treating their good as if it were somehow in conflict with my own.

Simply “winging it” in life is hardly a plan. It’s all nice and well to have my career and finances figured out for the next forty years, but it will mean nothing if I don’t have my sense of right and wrong figured out for right now.

12.21

Consider that before long you will be nobody and nowhere, nor will any of the things exist that you now see, nor any of those who are now living.

For all things are formed by Nature to change and be turned, and to perish, in order that other things in continuous succession may exist.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.21 (tr Long)

A phrase I remember quite commonly in my younger days was “being somebody.” I honestly did not understand what was meant. You already exist, and you are already a somebody, so what is it that you are supposed to add to yourself?

Will you try to become a better man, perhaps wiser, kinder, gentler, more loving, or more committed to being just? No, that wasn’t what they meant. They were talking about making themselves more important, and by that they meant making a spectacle of themselves. They would be seen, they would be admired, and they would be remembered.

And all we had to do to understand the vanity of this was to actually study history, not as an academic discipline, but as the concrete practice of learning from those who walked the very same path we are now walking.

None of it lasts, and yet it was the lasting that was wanted. None of it gratifies, yet it was the gratification that was wanted. Not a one of the players will care for us after we are no longer useful to them, yet the names and legacies were expected to remain.

Someone I loved very dearly once told me why she would not join me in a life of quiet contentment, completely unknown, owning very little in the world, while still owning ourselves. “No, I’m making a name for myself. And you’re a loser if you won’t keep up.” Ouch. Those words still hurt.

A name? What’s in a name? It’s a label, and nothing more. Look to what it points toward, and consider that. There is a feeble body, strong and beautiful for but a moment, and there are all sorts of shiny toys to be bought, to be abandoned as soon as our flighty attention passes, and there are fancy titles to be attained, to be forgotten as soon as the next great hero comes around.

And then there are the things that can be completely mine, right now, and do not require any greater permanence. They are also gone in the blink of an eye, but they give glory for the brief time they are here: the openness to understand, the conviction to do right, the discipline to be my own master, the willingness to love my neighbor.

Everything, absolutely everything, in this life will pass. It is right for it to do so, because this makes it possible for something else to come into being. All that remains is “being somebody” with conscience and with character, just for a minute, and being grateful that someone or something else will take its turn after me. There is no need to ask for more.

12.22

Consider that everything is opinion, and opinion is in your power. Take away, then, when you choose your opinion, and like a mariner who has doubled the promontory, you will find calm, everything stable, and a waveless bay.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.22 (tr Long)

Relativists love this passage, and many others like it, because they think it means that Stoicism denies that there is any objective truth. They are free to think so, of course, that all propositions are both equally true and false, but I would suggest that this is not what Marcus Aurelius intends.

It isn’t that there is no truth or falsehood, or any right or wrong, or that we can never know anything with certainty. It is rather that how we think about things, our opinions, estimations, or judgments, will directly shape how we live, and that by changing our thinking we can determine whether we find happiness or misery.

It is my own thinking that will bring me closer to Nature, or make me drift further away from it. All is opinion, because that is the only thing that will make or break me. It isn’t my circumstances that make me troubled or content, angry or accepting, hateful or loving. Conflict or peace are not states given to me, but something I make of what is given.

Having spent most of my adult life accompanied by the Black Dog has often felt like a curse, something no one, not even my worst enemy, should ever have to endure. Yet I have also, in a rather odd sort of way, learned to turn it into a blessing. I have sat down and talked it through endlessly with fancy professionals, I have been on all sorts of pills whose names I can’t pronounce, and I have tried to exorcise my demons with prayer.

Yet the Black Dog never went away, and over the years he actually seemed to become bigger and stronger. No matter, let me make good use of him, as much as he claws, and bites, and blocks my light. He is as important to me as I make him out to be.

Does it hurt? Good, let me learn some compassion from it. Does he fill me with doubt? Good, let me struggle all the harder to find certainty. Does he tell me I should surrender, that my life is not worth living? Good, let me live all the more. Let me smile through my tears, and let me wash myself clean with them.

The only thing that ever kept the Black Dog on his leash was the way I thought about him, and how I decided to understand what was happening to me. He never went away, but he doesn’t have to. I have used him to become better. What little kindness and decency I have in me actually came from having him around.

I won’t find that calm and peaceful bay somewhere out there, but only within myself. I will do this by using my reason, that little Divine spark within me, that can find meaning and purpose in anything and everything. I can keep what benefits me, and leave what harms me.

12.23

Any one activity, whatever it may be, when it has ceased at its proper time, suffers no evil because it has ceased; nor he who has done this act, does he suffer any evil for this reason, that the act has ceased.

In like manner then the whole, which consists of all the acts, which is our life, if it cease at its proper time, suffers no evil for this reason, that it has ceased; nor he who has terminated this series at the proper time, has he been ill dealt with.

But the proper time and the limit Nature fixes, sometimes as in old age the peculiar nature of man, but always the Universal Nature, by the change of whose parts the whole Universe continues ever young and perfect. And everything that is useful to the Universal is always good and in season.

Therefore the termination of life for every man is no evil, because neither is it shameful, since it is both independent of the will and not opposed to the general interest, but it is good, since it is seasonable, and profitable to and congruent with the Universal. For thus too he is moved by the Deity who is moved in the same manner with the Deity, and moved towards the same thing in his mind.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.23 (tr Long)

Even as I continue to make many terrible mistakes in daily practice, I am encouraged to see certain habits of Stoic thinking take hold, slowly but surely. My immediate responses are no longer always measured only by my desires, or by the weight of my circumstances, but are informed more by a sense of right and wrong. I begin to see what is good and what is bad in very different ways than I did before, in ways I would once not have thought possible.

There was a time when my first reaction to an insult was only resentment. My thoughts can now more easily be about compassion.

There was a time when my first reaction to pain was only self-pity. My thoughts can now more easily be about self-mastery.

There was a time when my first reaction to loss was only despair. My thoughts can now more easily be about acceptance.

Loss has always been the most difficult situation for me to come to terms with. Surely, I have assumed, if something is good, then it should continue to be there? Why does it have to go away? Shouldn’t the best things last forever?

But for created things to act according to their specific natures, within the order of all of Nature, it is fitting that they both come to be and pass away. This is not contrary to what they are, but essential to what they are. The quantity of time for which they are here should never be confused with the quality of excellence they possess while they are here.

The parts will come and go, so that the whole can be forever rebuilt and renewed. Decay is no more an evil than growth, falling no more an evil than rising, death no more an evil than birth. Each thing has its distinct time and place, and it makes way so that the next thing will have its distinct time and place.

As I grow older, I see more and more of death. I see more people I love disappear, and I become increasingly aware that I will also soon disappear. For the longest time, I could only feel the deepest sadness when I thought about those who were gone, and I could only feel the deepest fear when I thought of my own end.

Yet something seems to have changed in me. Only the other day, I thought of my departed uncle, and I was surprised by the absence of any grief. In its place was gratitude. Instead of feeling sorrow for his loss, I felt an urge to live right now, as he would have wanted me to live.

He had suffered much, and he had carried many burdens, but he was a profoundly good man, one of the best I have had the privilege of knowing. There was nothing evil at all about him dying, because he had done well in his living. It was unnecessary to add anything more to who he was.

Why should I need to live any longer, if the very point of my living was in the content of my character, to know the true and to love the good for the time I was given? In this I have consciously shared in the design of Providence, and I will then have done what I was meant to do. No encore is required, because the job is complete, and the watch has now been passed to another.

12.24.1

These three principles you must have in readiness:

In the things that you do, do nothing either inconsiderately or otherwise than as justice herself would act; but with respect to what may happen to you from without, consider that it happens either by chance or according to Providence, and you must neither blame chance nor accuse Providence. . . .

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

Let me look at what I have too often falsely considered to be justice: getting as much as I want, and giving as little as I must. I will only give, of course, if it helps me to get what I want.

“Oh no, I’m not that way at all!” I won’t speak for you, as I can only speak for myself, but I know I have done this far too many times, always, of course, with the best of intentions.

It required a total rewiring of my thinking to change any of that, to see that there was no difference between “you” and “me”, that what I expect to be given can never be any different than what I expect to give. You and I are the very same, and we are both called to the very same respect for one another. That is a matter of sound reason, not of sticky sentiment.

“But the world treats me unfairly!” Does this excuse my acting unfairly? And am I so sure it is unfair? Another may have acted poorly. Does this change the merit of my own actions? It is always within my power to respond to injustice with justice.

There is always a way to make the wrong things right. It is completely in my way of thinking.

Perhaps the world works by random fate, or perhaps it works by the fate of Providence. Perhaps it happened for no reason at all, or perhaps it happened for the most profound of reasons. Either way, none of that, absolutely none of it, can stop me from being a decent fellow for myself. Why am I always complaining about what has been done, even as I neglect what I might do?

Casting blame is nothing more than dodging my responsibility to myself, and forcing it upon someone or something else.

“But I lost my job, my money, my home, my health, my family! It was wrong for me to lose them!”

Yes, these things can go away in a moment. Yes, someone else may have unjustly taken them away. But here is the most important point: none of these things are me. If I learn that, I avoid all the turmoil and agony.

The me behind it all is about my own ability to live well. Nothing ever takes that away. Change the expectations, and you change the outcome.

12.24.2

. . . Second, consider what every being is from the seed to the time of its receiving a soul, and from the reception of a soul to the giving back of the same, and of what things every being is compounded, and into what things it is resolved.

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

Remember, it always looks more powerful and intimidating than it really is. Part of my own personal Stoic exercises, quite useful at many frustrating times during the day, involves mentally breaking things down. What are they really made of? What were they before? What will they very soon become? When I can do this, I am suddenly not so troubled. I can whistle my way past the highwayman.

“You’re not so big!” my little daughter would often say, standing up as straight as she could, whenever she came across something frightening.

I can do this when the circumstances of the world seem to be rolling over me. They are what they are, and I still remain what I am. Bodies crash into me, and my thinking can still remain intact.

I can do this when I see that someone else is making himself appear to be the king of the hill. He clothes himself in images, while beneath them he is just another fragile animal with a brief spark of mind, no different than myself.

I can do this, most importantly of all, when I begin to take myself far too seriously. I’m not all I make myself out to be. Most of what I fret over does not matter one bit, and I recognize it when I break myself down.

It is all from the same matter, and to the same matter it will return. In the meantime, it adopts a certain form, a temporary arrangement of that matter, and I therefore take it to be far more than it actually is. I am impressed by the vanity, but I should remember what is base. This vanity is something I add in my own estimation, and not what is actually there.

I still have a very vivid memory of some of my students, having just attended Ash Wednesday Mass, sitting about before class, and bragging about how special this made them.

“It’s so sad that more students didn’t receive the ashes! They don’t know how blessed it would make them!”

I tried to bite my tongue, but I said it in any event. “You do know what the ashes represent, right?”

“Of course, it’s a sign that we’re Catholic, and that we should be proud of our Faith, that we are chosen.”

“Memento, homo, quia pulvis es, et in pulverem reverteris.”

“What?”

Didn’t you just hear those words at Mass?”

“Well, I don’t know Latin, so. . . “

“Remember, man, that you are dust, and to dust you shall return."

I was met only with empty stares.

“Yes, you may be special, but you’re also just made of dirt.”

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.

12.25

Cast away opinion: you are saved.

Who then hinders you from casting it away?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.25 (tr Long)

We’ve all heard the conversation, and we may well have been on the receiving end of the challenge.

“I desperately wish I could be happy!”

“What’s stopping you?”

Now I may assume that the person telling me to take control is only being dismissive and rude. Perhaps he is, or perhaps he is actually trying to be helpful. In either case, what he says is completely true. I am the only obstacle to my own happiness.

Am I frustrated, discouraged, despondent, angry, offended, or jealous? There is someone or something I am concerned about, but the concern rests within me. The situation will be as it is, but I will decide what I will make of the situation.

If I can change it, I have no reason to be worried. If I can’t change it, the worry won’t do me any good either. My judgment will make all the difference.

If it is my thinking that gets in the way of being at peace, then let me alter my thinking. If an opinion about this or that is dragging me down, then let me rid myself of that opinion.

It may not be easy to change my mental habits, and it may not happen overnight, but at least I know where the work needs to be done. No one stands in my way but myself.

Bad thoughts lead to bad actions, and bad actions lead to bad character. I have just made myself a miserable man, because I have made myself a morally empty man. Solve the problem at the root, I remind myself, and dispose of those bad thoughts. I do not need them, and so I will throw them away. I can now be free of all sorts of burdens.

I was always an odd and eccentric fellow, but as the years have passed I find that I simply do not see the world as most people around me do. I have felt lonely, I have assumed that I don’t belong, and I have been tempted to surrender.

Yet if I am certain, being as sincere and humble as I can be, that this is the right way for me to live, then this is how I should live. My doubt comes only from my confused opinions, opinions that are still rooted in a thinking of conformity and appearance. Cast away those opinions, which are entirely of my own making, and I have saved myself from myself.

12.26

When you are troubled about anything, you have forgotten this, that all things happen according to the Universal Nature;

and forgotten this, that a man's wrongful act is nothing to you;

and further you have forgotten this, that everything that happens, always happened so and will happen so, and now happens so everywhere;

forgotten this too, how close is the kinship between a man and the whole human race, for it is a community, not of a little blood or seed, but of intelligence.

And you have forgotten this too, that every man's intelligence is a god and is an efflux of the Deity;

and forgotten this, that nothing is a man's own, but that his child and his body and his very soul came from the Deity;

forgotten this, that everything is opinion;

and lastly you have forgotten that every man lives the present time only, and loses only this.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.26 (tr Long)

I am as tempted to cherry picking as anyone else, all the more so when it comes to matters of meaning and value. I may remember what I find convenient, and forget what I find inconvenient. In doing so, by stressing one part at the expense of the whole, I am confusing truth with preference.

When I am “forgetting” in this way, it comes from deliberately looking away, from failing to apply the good practice of thinking. Through such neglect, the pieces are scattered, and no longer make any sense in relationship to one another. I am thinking of myself in opposition to the world, and not in harmony with the world.

Stoicism works as a complete system, because it follows from a model of Universal Nature. There can be all sorts of ways to summarize the basic principles of Stoic ethics, for example, but I will often return to this passage from Marcus Aurelius, especially when my memory has been too selective.

I may have my own particular wording, but I try to recall the same lessons:

All things act together, each for its own reason, under the design of Providence.

The way another may do wrong must never hinder me from doing right.

Whatever is taking place for me now is a process shared with everyone and everything else, past, present, and future.

I am never alone, because I possess the very same human nature as all of my fellows, every single one, and we are all ordered to the same good.

As a creature of mind, I participate in the very Mind that gives all meaning and purpose.

I am nothing in and of myself, but everything by working with and through the whole.

What is good or bad for my own life, what makes me happy or miserable within that whole, will be formed by my own judgment, not merely by what happens to me.

The merit of my life is mine to determine at this moment, free from the weight of what has been, or by the fear of what will be.

12.27

Constantly bring to your recollection those who have complained greatly about anything, those who have been most conspicuous by the greatest fame or misfortunes or enmities or fortunes of any kind: then think where are they all now?

Smoke and ash and a tale, or not even a tale.

And let there be present to your mind also everything of this sort, how Fabius Catellinus lived in the country, and Lucius Lupus in his gardens, and Stertinius at Briae, and Tiberius at Capreae, and Velius Rufus; and in fine think of the eager pursuit of anything conjoined with pride; and how worthless everything is after which men violently strain; and how much more philosophical it is for a man in the opportunities presented to him to show himself just, temperate, obedient to the gods, and to do this with all simplicity.

For the pride that is proud of its want of pride is the most intolerable of all.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.27 (tr Long)

Look at the people who have always impressed you, intimidated you, been better and holier than you.

Now look again. They are nothing more than you at all, and nothing less than you at all. They were born alone, and they will die alone. They are no different from you.

They pretend they are better, of course, because they play games of smoke and mirrors. They tell you that the right people won, and the wrong people lost, even as they have no idea of what it even means to be right or wrong.

Notice how they boldly brag about their achievements when life goes their way, and vigorously complain about the injustices when life doesn’t go their way. See those who make more of themselves because of where they were, and see those who make less of others because of where they were not.

“Well, that’s not me at all!” That makes it even worse. Now you are both a player and a liar. You know it within yourself, because you know that your words don’t fit your deeds.

Here’s the trick: stop being where you are, either rich or poor; start being who are you are, either good or bad. 

All of those who work so hard for their fame and glory now have nothing whatsoever. They live here or there, in this fancy neighborhood or another, drive the best of cars, and go on the finest of vacations. Still, if this is what they work so hard for, they have nothing, because there is nothing within them. Everything they value is outside of them.

In one sense, an old abandoned house will make me feel sad, because I wonder about the fate of those who had lived in it. In another sense, that some wreck gives me comfort, because I know that no human vanity will ever last.

Do you remember those names in the passage? Would it even matter if you did? Imagine how much care they must have given to their mansions, their food, their clothes, their reputations, or their many gratifications.

Their fancy homes are now just ruins, their names of no relevance at all. Become a decent man, ruled by wisdom and virtue, and you will care nothing for old piles of brick. You will learn to understand, not to be shallow. You will learn to love, not to be important.

12.28

To those who ask, where have you seen the gods, or how do you comprehend that they exist and so worship them, I answer, in the first place, they may be seen even with the eyes.

In the second place, neither have I seen even my own soul, and yet I honor it.

Thus then with respect to the gods, from what I constantly experience of their power, from this I comprehend that they exist, and I venerate them.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.28 (tr Long)

There was a time when a fiery debate about the existence of God would consume my attention, because I saw that if there was no question more ultimate, then there could be no question more important. I am still convinced of that, but I also see that many people, if not most, who enter into such discussions aren’t really interested in a reasoned argument, and they aren’t really interested in the importance of God either. They are already beginning with their conclusion, and they are interested in their own importance.

So I will now usually keep my thoughts to myself, while trusting that a genuinely open mind will look to the evidence of Nature, and will come to understand for itself, in its own time, and in its own way. No amount of posturing, or yelling, or dramatic speeches will change that. If I have a sincere respect for the truth, I commit a great disservice by trying to force it down someone’s throat.

Some will insist that the Divine is just a fantasy, a blind acceptance of something invisible and unknowable. But why do they assume this is the case? Are we to simply dismiss the direct experience of God, however we may understand or express it?

And can things not also be known indirectly, by means of their effects? If I already don’t wish to see something, if I choose to turn away, of course I won’t accept it. I need to take off my blinders if I wish to perceive the fullness of reality around me.

I will never be open to a direct experience of the Divine if I take it for granted that it is something separated and distant from my world. Could it be something immanent and immediate?

Even if I do not see it right in front of me, I need to consider how so many of the things I know are only known through other things. I see smoke, and I think fire. I see symptoms, and I think of the disease. I see a kind deed, and I think of love, though I have never seen love in itself, only how it acts upon others.

I remember the Buddhist story of the skeptical monk, who refused to acknowledge anything he couldn’t see with his eyes, until his master pointed out that surely he believed in the wind.

Fighting about God seems so pointless to me. Might it not be better to first look and listen?

12.29

The safety of life is this, to examine everything all through, what it is itself, that is its material, what the formal part; with all your soul to do justice and to say the truth.

What remains, except to enjoy life by joining one good thing to another, so as not to leave even the smallest intervals between?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.29 (tr Long)

As a rational animal, I am made to seek wisdom, to look beneath appearances to the nature of things themselves, and I am made to strive to do what is good, in such a way that it is always at the center of my purpose.

This is all that I will need for a decent and happy life, assured that there is nothing that can hinder me from simply being human. If I can work to be constant in keeping my attention on these ends, I will find the peace and contentment I so desperately seek.

I find myself distracted, however, because not too many people around me may choose to see it this way. Yes, they may sometimes mouth the noble words, but too often I see manipulation taking the place of prudence, and I see gratification taking the place of justice.

Perhaps I now tell myself that if my neighbor won’t do it, then I don’t need to do it. Perhaps I now become discouraged from doing what is right, when I must face what is wrong.

Why am I making it more difficult than it has to be? Why am I compromising my own character because of the judgment of others? Let them make their own way, in their own time, and let me be my own master.

They may choose pleasure, or wealth, or power, or reputation as their goals, and I can choose something very different as my own. They may or may not notice what I am trying to do, but that is neither here nor there, as long as I am sincerely trying to do it well. Am I not receiving the respect I think I deserve? It is of no matter, since I can still decide to give such respect.

There will be times, especially at first, when I struggle mightily to do something even slightly fair or decent, even as I am still filled with frustration and resentment. Then, sometimes quite unexpectedly, I will find the deepest joy in doing the smallest of things, not because they will win me anything else, but just because they are the right things to do.

To find happiness in this life is not, I regularly remind myself, to go out and conquer the world, but just to go within and conquer my own thoughts and deeds. The rest will fall into place around that, as the worth of the rest for me is only measured by my own wisdom and virtue.

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.

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.

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.

12.33

How does the ruling faculty make use of itself? For all lies in this.

But everything else, whether it is in the power of your will or not, is only lifeless ashes and smoke.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.33 (tr Long)

I have learned that there is a difference between being clever and being wise, or between being efficient and being good. For some people, their thoughts and actions are only steps to improving their circumstances. For other people, their circumstances are only steps to improving their thoughts and actions. This man is trying to get something for himself, while that man is trying to make something of himself.

The difference is quite real, like night and day.

Everything for me really hinges upon how I choose to shape my own judgments, and the value of all other things for me will proceed from that estimation.

Is it good, or is it bad? Many people will say something is better or worse depending on all sorts of attributes, like whether it is pleasurable or painful, or whether it will make them richer or poorer, or whether it helps them appear in one light or another.

But I realize more and more that a few other people don’t see it that way at all, and those are the people who should inspire me. It is not the event, or the situation, or the condition itself that is good or bad for me, but rather how to put that event, or condition, or situation to good use.

I could gain money, or I could lose it. Either can help me to be just. It will be in my own thinking.

I could receive gratification, or I could face suffering. Either can help me to be temperate. It will be in my own discipline.

I could be surrounded by friends, or I could be completely alone. Either can help me to be brave. It will be in my own conviction.

I could be healthy and strong, or I could be sick and weak. Either can help me to live well. It will be in my own awareness.

I may think of all sorts of analogies: the material is only as good as the artist, the dirt is only as good as the farmer, or the ingredients are only as good as the chef.

And so it is in all of life. Whatever happens to me, that which comes and goes, is in itself without life for me. I will decide whether I give it such life, by how I inform it with my own measure of meaning and purpose. It will become for me what I make of it.

12.34

This reflection is most adapted to move us to contempt of death, that even those who think pleasure to be a good and pain an evil still have despised it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.34 (tr Long)

I once liked bickering about ideologies, because the thought of being right made me feel more important. What I completely misunderstood was all about what it even meant to be right.

Being right isn’t about holding the supposedly correct view, while ridiculing and condemning anyone who holds the supposedly incorrect view. Being right is about making myself better, and never about making anyone else worse. Once my own right is at the expense of another, it immediately ceases to be right.

In philosophy, religion, or politics, we love to hate the “other”. You surely see the problem. There is no real love where there is any presence of hate.

Let me fix my own problems, and exorcise my own demons. Then, and only then, let me help others fix their own problems, and exorcise their own demons, on their terms, and not just on mine. Helping is the key, not forcing.

Have you ever come across a stubborn mule? That is how you treat the man you now so proudly call your enemy. He will not change one bit, unless you treat him with the respect he deserves.

“But he’s just a mule!”

No, he is a man like you. Treat him as you would like to be treated. Anything less, and suddenly you are now the animal, not him.

In Rome, the two major conflicting philosophies were Stoicism on the one hand, and Epicureanism on the other. The former preached about providence and virtue, and the latter preached about randomness and pleasure.

Yet, in an odd sort of way, they both ended up teaching that a good man would have to be wise, brave, moderate, and just. They simply came at it from very different angles.

That difference of principles is deeply important, even as the shared sense of human decency is more important. The Stoic is not unfeeling, and the Epicurean is not gluttonous. Work with that to begin with, and find the common ground. The conflicts can only be resolved through what is universal.

Virtue or pleasure? Yes. Both. The priority is what we are fussing about.

Here is something shared: neither the Stoic nor the Epicurean has any fear or worries about death. They both understand that life will end. They both understand that life should be lived well. They both understand that how we live matters far more than how long we live, or when we die.

Marcus Aurelius reminds us that we can find at least one thing that binds us together. Begin with that, and a sense of solidarity can then perhaps follow.

“You filthy Epicurean! I’ll kill you now!” You stopped being a Stoic when you said that. He fears death no more than you.

12.35

The man to whom that only is good which comes in due season, and to whom it is the same thing whether he has done more or fewer acts conformable to right reason, and to whom it makes no difference whether he contemplates the world for a longer or a shorter time—for this man neither is death a terrible thing.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.35 (tr Long)

“This is good. Give me more!”

But if it is so good, why can’t I enjoy what I already have? If I need more to make it better, how good was it to begin with?

I would roll my eyes when my betters told me to seek quality over quantity, and would snidely reply that I wanted both. I was failing to see that if I actually possessed something of genuine quality, I wouldn’t even be thinking about the quantity.

It is that way with a fine meal, where eating more is not better. There will be the portion that is just enough, and doubling or tripling it will only make me sick.

It is that way with the love of a true friend, where multiplying it will add nothing. There will be joy in sharing what already is, and asking for no more.

It is that way with the duration of life itself, where living well is not the same as living long. There will be contentment in having done right in this opportunity, not in demanding another.

Let me find happiness in what Nature has given to me, knowing full well that it is completely sufficient, precisely because she has given it to me. Let me do it right once, treating that moment as if it were all moments. Let me appreciate this, and I will have no longing for that.

The end of my life does not need to be a sad thing, just as the last page of a good book should not be a disappointment. It can just as easily be the happiest thing, where it all comes together, and I can walk away totally fulfilled, satisfied with a job well done. Do I still feel dissatisfied right now? Well, I can fix that right now, if only I so decide. No more is required.

More pleasure, more money, more praise, more hoops to jump through, and, above all else, more time. This is the sign of a man who chooses not to find peace simply in who he is, right here and right now. Like the glutton, he thinks that if he consumes more he will be more, and like the glutton, he gets fatter as he becomes more miserable.

12.36

Man, you have been a citizen in this great state, the world; what difference does it make to you whether for five years or for three? For that which is conformable to the laws is just for all. 

 

Where is the hardship then, if no tyrant or yet an unjust judge sends you away from the state, but Nature, who brought you into it? It is the same as if a praetor who has employed an actor dismisses him from the stage.

 

"But I have not finished the five acts, but only three of them!" 

 

You speak well, but in life the three acts are the whole drama; for what shall be a complete drama is determined by Him who was once the cause of its composition, and now of its dissolution: but you are the cause of neither. 

 

Depart then satisfied, for He also who releases you is satisfied.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 12.36 (tr Long)

I don’t know in what order the Meditations were originally written, or how they somehow ended up formatted in the way they were. I have been told that Marcus Aurelius never intended them for publication, and I understand that completely, having been writing for most of my life, and never expecting anyone to read a single word.

My own thoughts are not even close to the value and dignity of the Philosopher-Emperor, but I like to imagine that he wrote down his ideas for the very same reason I did: to improve himself, not to impress anyone. He did it better, and I just followed.

I do appreciate this passage as a final one. Might he have been writing this as he knew his own life was coming to an end? What a wonderful way to go!

Look at what has been given to me, a chance to live a life of awareness and choice, a chance to determine my own dignity. I was not made as a rock, or as a tree, or even as a dog, but as a man. Thank you. That, in and of itself, is more than enough to offer gratitude to Providence.

That same Providence also gave me the time and opportunity to grow, to learn, to become myself as fully as I possibly could. There was a second gift. I made so many mistakes, and I cringe even to think of them, but each moment of my life was a new chance.

“I need more time!” No, I really don’t. What was provided was quite enough, far more than I even needed. Even as I wanted more, I always needed less than I thought. Three acts? Five acts? No difference. Now is enough. I was never entitled to it, but I received it nonetheless. It was God who gave it, and so it is right when God takes it away.

I was put on this little blue ball, at a certain time, in a certain place, and under certain circumstances. The time, or the place, or the circumstances did not make me; I chose whether I would make something of myself, whether I would be a man or a shadow of a man. Thank you.