LIAM MILBURN: Living with Nature: Reflections on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius 7

Living with Nature:

Reflections on the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius 7

Liam Milburn

7.1

What is badness? It is that which you have often seen.

And on the occasion of everything that happens, keep this in mind, that it is that which you have often seen.

Everywhere, up and down, you will find the same things, with which the old histories are filled, those of the middle ages and those of our own day, with which cities and houses are filled now. There is nothing new. All things are both familiar and short-lived.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.1 (tr Long)

When I was a teenager, the liberals told me that Reagan was the worst thing that had ever happened to America. We’ve never seen this level of greed, corruption, and hate before. It came no worse than this, they said.

A while later, the conservatives told me that Clinton was the worst thing that had ever happened to America. We’ve never seen this level of sleaze, lies, and depravity before. It came no worse than this, they said.

But here’s the thing. Decent people will always be decent people. Scoundrels will always be scoundrels. Whether they choose to be elephants or donkeys makes no difference at all.

For all of our love of progress, the human condition has never really changed, and has never gotten any better or worse, because our nature never really changes, as long as we are still human. It isn’t about sweeping ideals, or about placing people into convenient groups. It’s about individual judgments and choices. At each and every moment in history, there are no inevitable social forces. There are only people, one by one, who decide what is right and what is wrong.

Don’t tell me that the habits of our days are the most terrible, or the most wonderful. I know my history. Don’t tell me that everything is so much worse, or so much better, than it used to be. I know my history.

There has been great virtue, and there has been great vice. It has been that way for many thousands of years, and it is exactly the same way now. Providence and Nature have not failed us. Providence and Nature, I suspect, have something deeper in mind. They are asking each of us, one at a time, to live well, to learn about what is true and false, to discover our own place within the order of all things.

This happens not by conforming to what is popular, or surrendering to the fashions of the age. It happens by a single choice, one that I must make, and one that we all must make. No one can make it for us.

It is all so different, but it all so much the same. The wheel turns. I should worry less about all of the politics, or about all the posturing in tribalism. I need to take an account of myself.

7.2

How can our principles become dead, unless the thoughts that correspond to them are extinguished? But it is in your power continuously to fan these thoughts into a flame.

I can have that opinion about anything, which I ought to have. If I can, why am I disturbed? The things that are external to my mind have no relation at all to my mind.

Let this be the state of your affects, and you may stand straight. To recover your life is in your power. Look at things again as you used to look at them. For in this consists the recovery of your life.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.2 (tr Long)

To think how often I have heard people say that they can’t help but think a certain way, or that they have lost their convictions, or that they can’t find the will for something. Yes, we may feel tired, or discouraged, or disappointed, but while our feelings may come and go, our thoughts and choices are strictly ours to control. They don’t simply happen to us, but are rather things that we make happen.

One of the most frustrating examples of this, I find, is when people engage in a romantic relationship, but then suddenly say “I can’t help it, but I just don’t feel the same anymore.” Such a statement is based on the false premise that love is only an emotion. Love indeed expresses itself with very powerful feelings, but it is more than just a feeling. Love is a choice, a commitment, and a promise. Love proceeds form our thinking, which is always within our power.

If a fire within me is starting to go out, I can always decide to fan the flames. Things will be what they are, but how I judge about those things, how I choose to perceive them as being good or bad for me, is entirely up to me. Nothing outside of me ever makes me think as I do.

If I do not first estimate something to be troubling, then I will not feel troubled. If I do not first consider something to be harmful to me, then I will not feel harmed. If I can only discover what is of benefit within any circumstance, I will always find a way to improve myself.

I will fail to do this only when I am convinced that my mind isn’t strong enough, or that my attitude is unavoidable, or that the impressions things make must determine my own actions. The mind, however, is not ruled by its own objects. It rises above them when it considers them, and when it discerns value within them. It will only be as capable or incapable of ruling its own judgments as it thinks itself to be. The irony is that the mind only fails itself when it decides it will fail itself.

This is the root, I suspect, of all most powerful human encouragement, and the source of recovering ourselves after we have surrendered to the conditions that surround us. I can always stand up again, I can always revive my own character and principles.

Now some people will tell me that I can be whatever I want to be, and that I can achieve anything I set out to achieve. I must add a distinctly Stoic clarification to such a claim. It will most certainly not be within my power to make the world as I would like it, though it is always within my power to make myself as I would like it. The true greatness of any human achievement is never a mastery of circumstances, but a mastery of the self within the face of circumstances.

Nature has made me so that I can be subject to my own reason, and she has made other human beings to be subject to their own reason, and she has made other things subject to their own principles, all under the absolute rule of Universal Reason. Each aspect will play its own part, and I can always be confident that my own part, rightly understood, is completely my own, and completely invincible.

7.3

The idle business of show, plays on the stage, flocks of sheep, herds, exercises with spears, a bone cast to little dogs, a bit of bread into fishponds, laborings of ants and burden-carrying, the running about of frightened little mice, puppets pulled by strings—all alike.

It is your duty, then, in the midst of such things to show good humor and not a proud air, and to understand, however, that every man is worth just so much as the things are worth about which he busies himself.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.3 (tr Long)

Sometimes I will feel proud of an achievement, and sometimes I will feel ashamed of a failure. The cure for either my vanity or my self-pity is always to remember how so many of those things we consider to be grand and noble, worthy of the highest esteem, are actually rather small, petty, and insignificant.

To win wealth, honor, and influence may seem quite praiseworthy, so much so that a good number of us will dedicate every bit of our efforts to their pursuit. Let them come and go, as they inevitably will, but if I think of them within the bigger picture of the order of Nature, and from the proper perspective of what makes a human life happy and worthwhile, they are like straw.

The imagery Marcus Aurelius uses to describe these lesser things is extremely helpful for me. Whenever I find myself impressed by a big name, or a fat wallet, or the posing and posturing of fashion, or the deeds of apparently important men doing apparently even more important things, I only need to go through this list in my own head. My reaction should not be one of disdain or dismissal, but one of seeing things by the right measure.

I have a cat that is horrified by the doorbell. As a toddler, my son’s life seemed to revolve around a fascination with bananas. I once knew a girl who would stop at each and every reflective surface to adjust her hair and pout. Now these are not bad things, and they may even be amusing or satisfying things, but they are hardly important things.

If I can only look at all the false idols and prophets of the world in the same way, I won’t need to worry about what I have won or lost in the game. I can commit myself to better things, to more fulfilling things, to the life of a good man instead of the life of a busybody.

I don’t need to be angry with the self-absorbed and shallow folks, but I can bear them with kindness and good spirits. If I don’t myself obsess about what is trifling, I will not find it troubling.

At the same time, however, I should recognize that the merit of any man is clearly reflected in the things of life he concerns himself with the most. How much grief would I have saved myself if I had not chosen to admire people who sought career over character? How much heartache would I have avoided if I had not chosen to follow people who sadly loved all the wrong things? They say there should be no crying over spilled milk, but I can certainly learn about where to place my glass on the table the next time.

Let them be, but do not necessarily let yourself be like them. Love your neighbor, but do not necessarily love the same things he loves. Leave the amateur drama, the breadcrumbs, the scuffling of puppies, or the puppet show exactly for what they are, and dedicate yourself to your own human excellence.

7.4

In discourse you must attend to what is said, and in every movement you must observe what is being done.

And in the one you should watch carefully what is the thing signified, but in the other you should see immediately to what end it refers.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.4 (tr Long)

Sometimes we will use words, but we’re not quite sure what we mean by them. Sometimes we will engage in a task, but we’re not entirely sure why we might be doing it. At all times and in all things, I should pay attention to what purpose both speech and action are directed.

Language without understanding is nothing but noise, and deeds without direction are nothing but an empty effort. So I should pick my words wisely, always keeping in mind what truth I wish to convey. I should examine my works carefully, always keeping in mind what good I wish to achieve. What is truly intended? How will it improve my own character? How might it help others to improve their own?

I will shamefully admit that I spend too much of my time frustrated by empty talk and pointless business from others. I should be attending first to myself, however, and managing what is rightly within my own power. I am probably best off saying nothing at all, instead of saying something foolish. I am probably best off doing nothing at all, instead of doing something aimless.

If I examine myself honestly, I see that most of what I say involves mouthing words to fill an awkward silence, or speaking only to produce clever repartee, or yapping simply to make myself feel more special and important. I see that most of what I do has little aim other than giving the appearance of being busy, or trying to impress someone, or just blindly doing what I’m told to do, without any thought or reflection.

It isn’t necessarily that saying or doing less is more, but that saying or doing better is surely more.

As a teacher, I have sadly seen how many of our efforts involve asking young people to parrot language they do not comprehend, and to engage in busywork that provides them with no real benefit. Year after year, I see the newcomers to the vocation, at first on fire with idealism and enthusiasm, becoming quickly discouraged that they are nothing more than “babysitters with a benefits package.”

I can only smile, and suggest to new teachers that they should care less about what the system asks them to do, than to find every possible way to do what they know they should be doing to begin with, whatever limitations the system may try to impose on them. Some rise to the task. Many do not.

Flapping my lips is not the same thing as comprehending. Being always furiously occupied is not the same thing as being productive. Having real purpose in mind makes all the difference.

7.5

Is my understanding sufficient for this or not? If it is sufficient, I use it for the work as an instrument given by the Universal Nature.

But if it is not sufficient, then either I retire from the work and give way to him who is able to do it better, unless there be some reason why I ought not to do so. Or I do it as well as I can, taking to help me the man who, with the aid of my ruling principle, can do what is now fit and useful for the general good.

For whatsoever either by myself or with another I can do, ought to be directed to this only, to that which is useful and well suited to society.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.5 (tr Long)

This text combines two great pieces of Classical wisdom. Every man knows and can do some things well, but no man knows and can do everything well. Join your efforts with others, so that we might better aim for the good of all.

Each of these truths is often ignored or misunderstood. Many of us are convinced that we are the masters of many things, yet humble experience should teach us how little we understand. Many of us reduce knowledge and ability merely to the technical realm, the skills of this or that trade, yet the greater awareness must rest in the moral realm, the achievement of true human excellence. We neglect the end at the expense of the means.

Many of us are convinced that life must be a constant struggle between persons, a war where success for some means failure for others, yet the benefit of all people can only be necessarily joined together. Many of us, while speaking of the common good, assume that what is good for us is merely money, or security, or health, or leisure, yet such things can only exist as a means for our virtue. Again, we neglect the end at the expense of the means.

So we end up with two grave errors we are all prone to falling into: “I can do it all myself”, and “I should do it for myself”. No, we are made to do it together, and we are made for one another.

At first, admitting that I don’t understand something, or that I am not gifted in a certain way, or that something is beyond my ability can be difficult for me to accept. I may feel weak, inadequate, or incompetent. But once I begin to recognize that the whole world isn’t just about me, but about everything working together, each part in its own distinct and unique way, I can come to find comfort in this. I don’t have to be the strongest or the best. I can come to accept myself for what I am, knowing that all things exist in a balance. I am playing my part, and I don’t need to play all the other parts.

We often pay a certain lip service to the idea of the common good, but too often it remains just a vague idea. I somehow know I should be working toward such a goal, but then I get caught up only in myself. It is only when I remember my own purpose in this world, to live with wisdom and virtue, to know what is true and to love what is good, that I can also remember how everyone else is made for this exact same purpose. It isn’t about making people richer, or more powerful, or more gratified. It’s about helping one another to simply become better.

We may not all have the same means at our disposal, but we are all made for the same end. The good for all us isn’t about accumulating more means for ourselves, but sharing whatever means we may have to work for that end.

No man is insignificant, or disposable, or unnecessary. All will play their own part when they work together for the whole.

7.6

How many after being celebrated by fame have been given up to oblivion, and how many who have celebrated the fame of others have long been dead.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.6 (tr Long)

Marcus Aurelius has a handful of themes he returns to time and time again, and though I haven’t done a formal count, I imagine this is one of the most common. Now some people have told me that repetition is a sign of sloppy thinking and poor writing, but all questions of theory and style aside, reiteration serves a very powerful practical purpose. It helps us to remember. It builds a strength of habit. It guides us back when we are diverted.

Stoicism has always been something more to me than just a philosophy of profound reflection. I may turn to Plato, or Aristotle, or Aquinas if I wish to contemplate principles. But I turn to Seneca, Epictetus, or Marcus Aurelius when I need very concrete help in my daily living. And whenever I feel that tug of reputation or status, I remind myself, time and time again, just how shallow and fleeting such a life truly is.

I do not even need to be an old man to see it. Most of what was praised and revered even a few years ago is now almost completely forgotten. When I was a teenager, girls would swoon at the sight of Duran Duran. Now they don’t even recognize the name. Great political heroes have risen, and they have fallen, and they have slipped into obscurity. Perhaps when they pass away, they will be briefly venerated for a moment on the evening news, only to be forgotten again. Each year, children have a new toy they want for Christmas, and the favorite from last year is packed up in a box in the attic.

It works even better closer to home. Do you remember that fellow who was the most popular, handsome, and charming one in the whole class, the one everyone thought would always be the king? I recall his face, but the name seems to escape me. Do you remember that girl who would strut along so confidently, and how your whole life rose and fell by whether she paid attention to you? Now you wouldn’t even recognize her.

Even in that stuffy world of academia, where you’d think time inches along, where the classics are surely always the classics, where nothing every really seems to change, there is still the trendy thinker, or an engaging idea, or a clever argument of the moment, and it is all cast aside when something shinier comes around. I would spend hours and hours in the stacks of my college library, leafing through books no one had opened for many years, if not decades. You’d read some great praise on the dust cover about how this was a text that would change the world. Now it is unknown, much like the name of the once-important scholar who gave the praise.

As soon as I recall how quickly everything passes, it helps me to laugh at myself, to see how ridiculous all of my petty concerns about making my mark, about being important, about being respected actually are. It all has nothing to do with me, and it won’t last.

It turns me back to what has everything to do with me. For however short a time I may be here, I am the master of my own thoughts and deeds. Whether they are admired, or even noticed at all, makes no difference. There is one great aspect of liberation.

7.7

Be not ashamed to be helped, for it is your business to do your duty like a soldier in the assault on a town.

How then, if being lame you cannot mount up on the battlements alone, but with the help of another it is possible?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.7 (tr Long)

My wife and I will sometimes say, only half in jest, that we suffer from abandonment and betrayal issues respectively. This can be a volatile mixture, sometimes amusing, and sometimes disturbing. In either case, for us it means we feel that we’ve been ignored or cast aside once too often, so we find it hard to trust, and we find it hard to accept help. It breeds stubborn suspicions. “I’m fairly sure I can’t count on someone else, so I might as well do it all by myself.”

Yet here following only our passions, loosed from our understanding, will only do us even greater harm. Rational animals were not meant to merely go it alone, because reason is ordered toward being cooperative. Yes, selfish, dishonest, and disloyal people will certainly hang you out to dry. Now learn to trust and commit to the right sorts of people, and leave the scoundrels at arm’s length. Don’t throw the baby out with the bathwater, or let one bad man lead you to assume that all of them are bad.

I might somehow feel like I am stronger when I stand only with myself, when in fact I am actually deciding to let myself be weaker. Yes, every man is only his own master. But many men together, each choosing to assist the other in ruling himself, can support one another in ways that an individual alone can never do.

Now I’ve heard people say that they have my back, and they haven’t always been sincere about it. But when they are sincere, and when I can rely upon genuine friendship, we are now twice, three times, a dozen times more effective in pursuing a shared goal and purpose than we were on our own. That is a wonderful and a beautiful thing, and no disappointments should discourage us from seeking it out.

Sometimes circumstances will indeed leave me with no companions, with no support, and with no one to lean on. In such cases, my own mind and will are all that I have, and I will work with what I have. But if Providence has granted me the chance to stand together with another, I would be a fool to cast such an opportunity aside. People are at their best when they work together.

Sentimental moments are hardly bad things if they are not merely trivial. At the time when I felt the most alone in my life, I came across a family of ducks in the park near my house. I noticed how the drake and the hen carefully kept their eyes on everything around them, while the ducklings tumbled about in the grass. Look at how Nature has made them, I told myself. How odd that seeing a few ducks together could give me strength and encouragement.

The harder side of us may enjoy the inspiration of military images, and the gentler side of us may prefer the image of marriage and family. For me it ended up being ducks.

7.8

Let not future things disturb you, for you will come to them, if it shall be necessary, having with you the same reason which now you use for present things.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.8 (tr Long)

Back in middle school, I was told that another student in my class disliked me intensely. I had no idea why, because I always kept to myself, but bullies don’t need a reason beyond their own issues. I was told, in all the glory and grandeur of gossip, that he was going to beat me senseless. He apparently insisted that bones would be broken.

Yes, I was afraid.

I was informed that the great beating event would happen after school. For a few days, I made excuses to stay at school late. Then I started taking circuitous routes from the building.

Then I finally had enough. If it will happen, I thought, it will happen. I know I’ve done no wrong to this fellow. I will keep thinking that way, and I will stick with it. Let him do what he needs to do. I will do what I need to do.

One day, he and his three friends saw me leaving school, right out in the open, as I walked home. They glared at me, and I glared right back. Wonder of wonders, they walked away. It could easily have ended very differently.

This was the experience of a child growing into a man. I am well advised to keep that experience in mind, at all times, now that I am a man.

Whatever may happen, or especially whatever inevitably will happen, is not within my power to determine. Nor do I know exactly what I may or may not do, or how I may or may not think in the future. Those are choices I am still going to make.

But why should I be so troubled? I can make a commitment right now, and everything I possess right now will be more than enough to manage what may come. I only need to maintain that commitment. I do not need to provide anything more for the future than what I already have at this very point in time.

There are no additional requirements. There are no special tricks. If I can be a good man now, I can also be a good man tomorrow. No situation needs to change that. So I can be decent at this moment, just for this moment, and I can push it forward one moment at a time. The rest will manage itself.

Somehow, I survived my wedding day with absolute confidence. That didn’t come from any arrogance or assumption. It came from an awareness that who I was, at the very moment I spoke my vows, could last for the rest of my life, if only I chose to make it so. Nothing needed to be added. It was all there, and I had to renew those vows, every day, even every hour, even at every moment.

It is all there for me now. Tomorrow can be a continuing of the now.

7.9

All things are implicated with one another, and the bond is holy. And there is hardly anything unconnected with any other thing. For things have been coordinated, and they combine to form the same Universe.

For there is one Universe made up of all things, and one God who pervades all things, and one substance, and one law, and one common reason in all intelligent animals, and one truth.

 So indeed there is also one perfection for all animals that are of the same stock and participate in the same reason.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.9 (tr Long)

Everything is made to work together, within a whole and for a whole. It can feel maddening and saddening, therefore, when people embrace conflict and opposition. I must remember, however, that both the use and abuse of free will, itself a function of our rational nature, exist within the order of Providence. When we choose to get something wrong, proceeding from our ignorance, it is not grounds for despair. It is a challenge to learn to make it right. It is a call to freely and knowingly participate in unity.

We see the struggle in the big picture, when men wage wars for greed, when they engage in crooked politics for power, when they prey on the weak for profit, or when they pose and strut about for their vanity. We also see the struggle in the smaller picture, when we insult one another, gossip, deceive, or ignore our neighbors.

An example I notice quite often, from the youngest of children to the most important of adults, is what I simply call “the snub”. A colleague once refused to speak to me for months because I told him I didn’t prefer the use of PowerPoint in teaching. For no reason we could ever fathom, my whole family found themselves socially cast out at the school my children attended. The person I once considered as my best friend later moved in just down the street from my old family home, and will now look right past me whenever I’m back in the neighborhood.

I suspect this all stems from the mistaken assumption that we only become fully ourselves when we have enemies. Yet we are, of course, doing quite the opposite. When we separate and divide ourselves from others, and when we we deal in contempt and dismissal, we are diminishing both others and ourselves.

All of us live in the same world, are created for same end, and are made to work with one another. Some people find it hopelessly naïve and sentimental, but I will still insist that we are all made to love one another. In a certain sense, I will often say, love does indeed make the world go round, because the shared desire for the good, conscious or unconscious, is what moves all things.

People will insist that those in certain other groups, or creeds, or classes are surely evil, and that they must be cast out or destroyed. Yet dwelling upon particular differences ignores what is universally common, the essence of all of human nature within the harmony of all of Nature.

When someone tells me that my right and his right are at odds, or that my God and his God are not on speaking terms, or that my humanity and his humanity can never see eye to eye, he has only separated us by closing his eyes to what we share.

Someone once told me that we couldn’t be friends anymore, because we disagreed. All I could suggest was that true friends could always work at learning to agree on what mattered more, and were also quite willing to disagree on what mattered less. I often think of the old saying:

In essentials unity. In non-essentials liberty. In all things charity.

7.10

Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole, and everything formal is very soon taken back into the Universal Reason.

And the memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.10 (tr Long)

Just as we regularly view humans in opposition to one another, so too we will often see all the things in the world through their distinction and separation. This here is different from that, and so we consider them only individually, not collectively. Yet the matter these things are composed of is of one and the same sort, and the identity these things take upon themselves is from one and the same source. They proceed from a complete unity, and they return back into a complete unity. In and of themselves, they have nothing separate from their universal origin and end.

Time offers the ideal indication of this fact, for however quickly or slowly it may seem to unfold, all particular things are subject to change and transformation. Only the measure of what is Absolute can give meaning and purpose to what is relative, and it is the passage of time that helps us to understand how the contingent exists only as a dependence on the necessary.

I have often felt sadness and regret when the things I have grown attached to pass away. Friends are lost, people I love have died, places are no more, and moments that may still remain in memory are never to be repeated. You can’t take it with you, they say, and you can’t go home again. That can seem to be quite a burden, for some of us too hard to bear.

But I will only think this to myself when I dwell upon the parts at the expense of the whole, of the particulars at the expense of the universal. Yes, this or that aspect may seem to be gone, but it isn’t gone at all, because it has only been modified. Everything that ever was, and all that ever will be, still remains.

I was amazed to meet a family in rural New Hampshire who had lived on the same plot of land for many generations. They would tell stories about how it was old forest when the land was first settled, and then it was cleared as farmland. A swamp was drained, and an outcropping of rock broken down to build walls. As the years passed, and agriculture left the region, the trees began to grow back, and now it was so very slowly returning to what it had once been before.

Parts of their house, along with an old barn, had been rebuilt a few times over, but each time, their story had it, the family would reuse old stone and wood from the previous structure when constructing the new one. They had some very old photos of what it had once looked like, and I could barely recognize the place.

Yet, for them, it was one and the same place, even as it had been repeatedly transformed, and even as those people who were older made way for those who were younger. The amateur poet and philosopher in me found that deeply beautiful. It’s like that other old phrase, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

7.11

To the rational animal the same act is according to nature and according to reason.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.11 (tr Long)

Ah, human nature! We speak of it as an explanation of why we act as we do, for good or for ill, and when we say that something is “only natural” we offer it as a justification or an excuse for how we are living. Sometimes we appeal to it as a thing of great strength, and sometimes we are ashamed of it as a thing of great weakness. So we are proud to speak of our “nature” to strive, to love, or to sacrifice, but we shudder at our “nature” to conform, to hate, or to destroy.

But now I ask myself, what is truly natural for me? As with so many profound terms, I may be quite happy to use it, but hard pressed to understand it. With the whole tradition of Classical wisdom, I can say that a nature in anything is how it is disposed, and to what sorts of actions it is ordered to. This isn’t just a matter of how other things move it, but how it moves from within itself. I can perhaps discern this by first simply asking what something does, and how this reflects its identity and purpose.

Now I have a body, but I share that with any physical being. My nature is surely something more than that. I have a living body, but I share that with any plant. I have senses, and I have instincts, and I have feelings, but I share that with any animal.

What is distinctly my own as human, in addition to all the other powers I possess, is my power of understanding. Because it acts consciously, and not unconsciously, this is a power that may rule over the others and direct them. It is one thing to act, it is another think to act with awareness, which is itself what makes it possible for me to freely choose how I will act.

What is natural for me is to be rational. I am not determined by what I possess, or by what circumstances surround me, or even by what I sense or feel, but rather by how well I think, and by how well my actions proceed from my knowledge of what is true and good.

Now my own nature, like the nature of all things, is in and of itself good, because it is ordered toward what is good. Yet because I am the conscious cause of my own acts, it is within my power to both choose well and to choose poorly.

This is why, I would suggest, we sometimes see what is wonderful in our nature, when we use it for what it was intended. We are made to know and to love. It is also why we see what is terrible in our nature, when we abuse it contrary to what was intended. This happens when we follow ignorance and hatred.

Man can indeed be the greatest of creatures when he embraces his own nature, and he can be the worst of creatures when he rejects his nature. Since he is a creature of reason and choice, which one he becomes will depend entirely upon him.

7.12

Stand up, or be made to stand up.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.12 (tr Long)

I have understood this passage in two different ways, both as an encouragement and as a warning. Which it is at any given moment will, I suppose, tells me quite a bit about the current state of my soul.

Nature will arrange all things precisely as they are supposed to be. She will put a man in his proper place, but because she has given him reason, the power to understand for himself, she also gives him the opportunity to freely participate in that part. By coming to know himself and his world, he may choose to become a joyful and willing cooperator in the order of Providence.

But what if he is unwilling? Surely if he has the right to say yes, he also has the right to say no? Indeed he does. He will still play a role, and he will still be a part of the whole, but that part will now be forced on him from without, not proceeding freely from within. Either a man will choose to live well in service, or he will find himself corrected back into service.

When I’m managing my life rightly, this inspires me to do better, knowing that I am happy to have my own thoughts and actions as their own reward. When I’m messing things up, it is cautionary, reminding me that when I refuse to do right, Nature will make me right. My actions will have very real consequences. This may not always be as pleasant an experience as I would like.

I once worked for a fellow who had a lazy habit of parking his car right in front of the restaurant he owned. The problem was that this convenient spot also happened to have a fire hydrant on the curb, and he received dozens of parking tickets. They would get tossed into a drawer below the register.

One day, a local cop had enough. He didn’t even bother to write another ticket, but promptly called a tow truck. Sensing that the officer meant business, my friend ran out to argue with him. I remember that wonderful sight of a seasoned Boston Irish cop and a Lebanese businessman yelling wildly at one another.

The discussion ended quickly when the cop quite colorfully said, “Listen buddy, this car is not gonna be sittin’ here in this spot in ten minutes. Now you can move it yourself, or I’m gonna move it for you. But you ain’t gonna like what happens when I move it for you. And you sure ain’t gonna like what I’m gonna do to your face if I ever see it parked here again.” I have removed the many expletives to protect tender ears.

My friend did not say another word, promptly moved the car, and never parked by that hydrant again.

To keep it in the spirit of my Boston years, I can choose to be a stand-up guy, or Nature is going to light a fire under my ass. My call.

7.13

Just as it is with the members in those bodies that are united in one, so it is with rational beings that exist as separate, for they have been constituted for one cooperation.

And the perception of this will be more apparent to you, if you often say to yourself that I am a “member” of the system of rational beings. But if you say that you are only a” part”, you do not yet love men from your heart.

 Beneficence does not yet delight you for its own sake. You still do it barely as a thing of propriety, and not yet as doing good to yourself.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.13 (tr Long)

We certainly use terms in very different ways. I find that so many of our disagreements and misunderstandings proceed precisely from this. What I may say, and intend, may not necessarily be what another understands.

There’s apparently a clever play on words in the original Greek here (“melos”, as distinct from “meros”), and it distinguishes between being a member and a part. I am hardly a scholar on the subtlety of the Greek language, but I have understood this as a difference between an active commitment and a passive acceptance. It is one thing to be a willing participant. It is quite another to be an indifferent presence.

Observe any group, of any sort. Some people stand up, and they take it as a joyful responsibility to do their part, with all their hearts, minds, and souls. Others shuffle about, and they only begrudgingly accept their place.

Some are inspired, and some go through the motions. For some it is a blessing, and for some it is a chore. Have I freely joined the club, or did I just inherit my membership? Am I working from what I can give, or only from what I expect to be given? The difference is one of night and day.

So it is with being human. I am a member of humanity when I devote myself to what is right and good for all of us. I am simply a part of humanity when I sit around and do the least that is expected of me.

I notice how many of those we consider to be our worst nevertheless give everything of themselves to be human. Many of those we consider to be our best will still simply go through the motions of being human. We become confused when we mix up how something really is with only how it appears.

I knew a wonderful and truly eccentric fellow who lived out of his van, and who helped me to learn the mandolin for Irish music. He would say time and time again:

Doers are doers, and players are players. Give all of yourself in love, or spend the rest of your life pretending that you love. Take your pick. Live with your choice, and you will also die with it. It’s one of the only real differences there is.

How often have I been sure that I am a member, not just a part, but yet I have not been a doer, just a player?

Love is the law, not as a begrudging obligation, but as a willing dedication.

7.14

Let there fall externally what will on the parts that can feel the effects of this fall. For those parts which have felt will complain, if they choose.

But I, unless I think that what has happened is an evil, am not injured. And it is in my power not to think so.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.14 (tr Long)

Things will happen, and things will hurt. Sometimes they will hurt terribly. I will still feel that my heart is broken once again each and every day, from the very moment I wake up in the morning. I will do all that is within my power to avoid pain and suffering, but I have learned a hard lesson. I can’t always kill the hurt, though I can determine what I make of it.

I have been told by people who mean well, though speaking from complete ignorance, that I can simply will it to disappear. I think of the worst physical pain I have ever felt, and I remember that the agony could not be wished away. I could only wait for it to end. Now imagine that you know it isn’t going to end. There’s the Black Dog at his finest, and at his most destructive.

That may seem quite hopeless, but it is hardly hopeless. Events will certainly not go my way, and people will act with the nastiest of malice or carelessness. Of course that will have its effect on me. Losing my possessions or reputation will make me feel that I have been deprived of my very life. Being treated with hatred or indifference will make me feel that I am the most worthless of creatures. Still, it is not hopeless.

Things have fallen, but I do not need to fall. What has actually been lost? What I think I own has been taken from me, and my sense of pride will complain. It will shout quite loudly. My body has been wounded, and every nerve within me screams. My feelings may feel crushed, and the torment will seem unbearable. I worry that I will end up on the street, cold, hungry, and alone. It could happen right now, as it does to millions and millions of people across the world.

Still, something remains, and that is the only thing within me that is truly mine. My thinking and my choices, how I judge and how I act, however terrifying the circumstances, are always my own. One moment they will be snuffed out, but not at this precise moment, not right here and right now.

I was once trying to run a Twelve Step meeting where a fellow, clearly distraught, described his life like someone holding a gun to his head and just about to pull the trigger. A few members tried to talk him out of the idea, and I was afraid they were just dismissing his concerns. We all closed our fancy mouths when someone spoke up in a deeply Stoic manner:

That can happen, and it will happen. Maybe you can’t pull the gun from his hands, or manage some incredible escape. Imagine how all those folks in all the death camps around the world must feel, or what it might be like when you are dragged into a room where you are about to be executed. You are powerless over that.

But you have complete power over one thing. You can love the man who hates you, and you can forgive him.

Well, that shut us all up. Lesson learned.

An evil done to me will hurt like hell, but an evil I commit will send me straight to hell. The former is beyond me. The latter is entirely up to me. Only my judgments are truly my own, and it is completely right to say that something will only be as evil to me as I choose to make it.

Yes, it may hurt. Now what am I going to do with the hurt? There was a wonderful moment in my life when I realized what it meant to turn swords into plowshares. I must remember that if I think of it rightly, who I am, in my mind and heart, is invincible. You can’t take that away.

7.15

Whatever anyone does or says, I must be good, just as if the gold, or the emerald, or the purple were always saying this:

Whatever anyone does or says, I must be emerald and keep my color.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.15 (tr Long)

If the philosophy of Stoicism is asking me to live according to Nature, it is asking me to always be completely human in the ways that I think and act.

This does not need to be a vague and mysterious concept, or the pursuit of some impossible task. It is simply asking me to be who I was made to be, to live in harmony with my very identity as a creature designed to know and to love. This responsibility always comes first, and all other wants or circumstances must be ordered toward it.

An emerald should keep its color. A man should keep his virtue. Anything less is an abandonment of who and what I am. Yes, other people will change their tune, or pull away from their promises, or speak in one way and then act in another. Yes, others may sadly make their excuses, but I do not need to do so.

I will fail at my task when I allow a change in how others live to modify the way that I choose to live. We may not speak of it much in our time, and that perhaps tells us something, but the remedy is the virtue of constancy, of being enduring, reliable, and committed, even when others are fickle, slippery, and unfaithful.

Whatever someone else has said and done, I do not need to define myself by what he has said and done. I do not need to respond in kind to the way I have been treated, and I do not need to become what I must of necessity confront. I can be good, I can be an emerald, and I can keep my color.

Likewise, when I have failed to be the man I should be, I may well expect wrath and indignation in return. I may well receive it, but it remains up to me to make it right. I will see that I have fallen short, and then it is my job, and mine alone, to correct my error. Someone else who is being resentful or vindictive never excuses me from the requirement of never being resentful or vindictive.

I will grow weary of the games, of the lies, of the abuse, and of the betrayals. Only one judgment will fix this. Let it all be as it is, but I will be something rather different.

I meet a good friend most every week for a cup of coffee, and he worries about the state of the world. “People can just be so terrible,” he says. “I can’t keep up with it.”

And I tell him, time and time again, that he doesn’t need to keep up with them. He only needs to keep up with himself. He needs to keep his own color, and not anyone else’s.

7.16

The ruling faculty does not disturb itself.

I mean, it does not frighten itself or cause itself pain. But if any one else can frighten or pain it, let him do so. For the faculty itself will not by its own opinion turn itself into such ways.

Let the body itself take care, if it can, that is suffer nothing, and let it speak, if it suffers. But the soul itself, that which is subject to fear and to pain, which has completely the power of forming an opinion about these things, will suffer nothing, for it will never deviate into such a judgment.

The leading principle in itself wants nothing, unless it makes a want for itself, and therefore it is both free from perturbation and unimpeded, if it does not disturb and impede itself.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.16 (tr Long)

I have read about and heard about all sorts of different philosophical accounts on what makes us human, and about what defines awareness, and about how we can explain the nature of choice. All of those classroom years, and all of that time spent with the most fancy of scholars, were not entirely wasted.

Some of the books and teachers told me that I was a creature of pure reason, intended only for the most abstract and purest of contemplation. Those were usually the Kantians, or Hegelians, or quite often also the stuffiest of Thomists. I was a mind, made to ponder. I was to ignore all of the rest.

Others told me I was a creature of passion, motivated by my drive to be gratified, to possess, or to conquer. On the milder end were the Utilitarians and Humeans, on the harsher end were the Nietzscheans. I was a powerful piece of desire. I was to ignore all of the rest.

I was especially fascinated by those who told me I had no identity at all, and that I had to make up my own sense of self. Thank you to all of those Existentialists and Phenomenologists. Life has no inherent meaning, they told me, so we create it. I was to ignore all of the rest.

I know this will get me in trouble, but they were all right, and they were also all wrong. Yes, a man is made to think. Yes, a man is made to feel. Yes, a man is even made to form himself. Yet he is none of these things on their own. He is all of them, all joined together, but only in the right and proper order. You cannot cut a man into pieces, or dissect him, and only examine one of the bits on your table. You must look at the whole, as he is living, breathing, and doing.

Welcome to Stoicism, a philosophy of practical living, not only of abstract reflection, which considers the relationship of these layers, from the exterior to the interior, from the lesser to the greater.

Yes, I am thrown into a world, and I am born with no sense of myself. It is something I must find.

Yes, I am gifted with powerful emotions, and I learn that they drive me this way and that.

Yes, through it all, I realize that I have a mind, not merely to consider abstractions, but to make the most concrete of judgments and choices.

I need to make those choices each and every day, and they are not just about fancy ideals. They are about the most immediate needs. I want this, and I want it now. Should I have it? Why, or why not? What might make it worth my time?

Look what I have just realized, and how truly wonderful it is.

I am confused by my situation, and I have strong emotions about it all. What happens to me is beyond my power. I feel that I would like to make it all mine, but I cannot do so. Now what remains for me?

I do not make the world as it is, and I do not make my passions as they are. They are both an essential part of what forms me, but they do not define all of me. I am more than what happens, and I am more than what I feel.

Good grief, I am, at my core, within all of those other layers, what I think. What a realization, both frightening and liberating. My thinking doesn’t make the world to be what it is, but it makes the world to be what I will make of it.

Let me observe all of the ways that the world can act upon me. Now let me observe all of the ways that I can act upon the world. There is only one difference, and only one, between those two factors. My own judgment, and my own choice.

Look at all the ways that you can influence me, or change me, or force me. Now look at the one way that you can’t. I will only commit or submit if I so think, or if I so choose. It is only my estimation that is immovable. That is the essence of tranquility.

7.17

Happiness is a good spirit, or a good thing. What then are you doing here, O imagination?

Go away, I entreat you by the gods, as you did come, for I want you not. But you are come according to your old fashion. I am not angry with you, only go away.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.17 (tr Long)

I understand imagination here not in the broad sense of creativity, but in the more specific, Classical sense of the apprehension of our impressions. In other words, Marcus Aurelius isn’t telling us that we shouldn’t, as we now like to say, “think outside of the box”, but rather that we shouldn’t allow our lives to be ruled by the power of appearances.

This can be quite confusing, because we are so familiar with the idea that happiness is about how things feel. Yet the Stoic, in a manner similar to the Aristotelian and in contrast to the Epicurean, seeks happiness through virtue, the excellence of our thoughts and actions. The value of how we feel is in turn only relative to the merit of how well we live. Happiness is therefore a fundamentally active principle, not a passive one, and is measured by what we do, not by what is done to us.

Let me look beyond the appearances, which can be so confusing and disturbing, and which can toss me here and there, to a clear and calm understanding of the nature of things. Let me move through the image to the reality, from the realm of seeming to the depth of being. I should consider any impression of sense, and any of my own passions, only from the perspective of what I was made to do in this life, to know what is true and to love what is good, and to direct all of my judgments toward that end.

That is happiness, a commitment to the actions of living well. The rest is fantasy and illusion.

I should never resent the power of my imagination, even as I leave its effects to be for what they are. It helps me to remember all of the ways that impressions, taken only in their own right, have been an occasion for me to let myself be misled. Great pleasures or great pains have clouded my judgment. Ugly things masquerading as beautiful things have led me to hasty action, and beautiful things seeming like ugly things have led me to deep neglect. As an old friend of mine liked to say, “Look behind the veil!”

Was I impressed with someone because he was rich, or did I fall in love with someone because she was charming, or did I act only to pursue gratification and avoid hardship? How often have I taken right for wrong and wrong for right, because I chose only to be pulled by feelings, not motivated by judgment?

I will face people every day who tempt me, or who put up some sort of hindrance to me, or who enjoy, as they say, to simply push my buttons.

Let them be. Accept them, even love them, but do not follow them.

So it is with my impressions. They weave about, always changing, sometimes enticing, sometimes terrifying.

See them in their rightful place, and do not hate them, but do not let them lead you. Ask them politely to be on their own way. Do not be afraid to ask Providence to assist you in that task.

It isn’t at all that I shouldn’t be feeling, but rather that I should be doing something so much more than only feeling.

7.18

Is any man afraid of change? Why, what can take place without change? What then is more pleasing or more suitable to the Universal Nature?

And can you take a bath, unless the wood undergoes a change? And can you be nourished, unless the food undergoes a change? And can anything else that is useful be accomplished without change?

Do you not see then that for yourself also to change is just the same, and equally necessary for the Universal Nature?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.18 (tr Long)

My own dislike of change probably has less to do with my fear of what is new than my attachment to what is old, and such a sense of nostalgia seems to be rooted in a desire for something stable. What I am forgetting, of course, is that change is itself a type of stability, because it is always ordered toward becoming good, and directed at the progress of improvement. Life may not be stable in its conditions, but it can well be stable in the way we aim for the mark.

The Universe itself is always in action, and such action is always in the form of moving from one state to another. What is left behind is not lost, but is transformed into something new, and in this sense we might say that what is good is always striving to become better.

Nor does such a process ever entirely have a termination, since change will express itself in the form of cycles, where the end of one thing continues into the beginning of another. The better found in an ending is the very fact that it will have a new beginning.

As a child I was fascinated by the life cycles of a frog or of a butterfly, and I recall being taught that each of these occurred in four stages, from egg to tadpole or larva, to froglet or pupa, to frog or butterfly. Each stage had its own distinct characteristics, and served its own distinct purpose within the whole.

I drew out an example of each kind of cycle for myself, and I realized I couldn’t just represent it as a line. It had to be a circle. The frog and the butterfly were not in and of themselves the final, or even the best, stage, because they in turn existed to produce new eggs. Was human life all that different?

When I look outside at all the changes that make me feel nervous or apprehensive, I might be best served by trying to transform that uncertainty into hope. Even more importantly, I should surely think the same thing when I look inside at myself. I am hardly doing any good at all by expecting to sit by idly, like a bump on a log.

No, the log came from a tree, that came from a sapling, that came from a seed. The log may become part of a house, and a man may live in it, and he may plant a new seed, and from it may grow a new tree. That’s not frightening at all. It is beautiful. 

7.19

Through the Universal Substance, as through a furious torrent, all bodies are carried, being by their nature united with and cooperating with the whole, as the parts of our body with one another.

 How many a Chrysippus, how many a Socrates, how many an Epictetus has time already swallowed up? And let the same thought occur to you with reference to every man and thing.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.19 (tr Long)

I was always terrified of water as a child. It always did things I didn’t want it to do.

At the age of six, I swallowed seawater when we were at the beach, and I panicked.

At the age of eight, I almost drowned when a bully of a swim instructor dropped me in the deep end. He laughed at me while I struggled.

At the age of twelve, a similar sort of fellow, at a Boy Scout camp, told me that I was a “pussy” and a “faggot” because of my fear. “Real men learn how to swim real easy. Only losers fail.”

At the age of twenty, a girl said that her supposed Hawaiian lifestyle demanded that I learn how to surf, and that she was ashamed of me. “How can I introduce you to my friends and family if you can’t board?”

Yes, I was quite the loser. I was never able to conquer that fear. I don’t think that the advice of moral monsters made it any better. People still laugh at my condition, and they still think it amusing that I am so afraid of water.

It was never dying that bothered me, but it was the power of water that bothered me. Shoot me in the head, bludgeon me to death, or strangle me, but please don’t let me drown.

So when Marcus Aurelius describes life as a furious torrent, I am ready to run off screaming.  I intensely dislike that image.

My own preference, however, is not the same thing as the truth. As much as it may disturb me, the torrent of water will indeed wash me away. It washes away all of us, even the very best. All the greatest people in this world, even people like Socrates himself, were washed away. I will soon be much the same, in the company of men and women far better than myself.

I did what I could do, while I was here, to share love. Did no one notice? It is of no matter. The torrent takes us all, including those who love, and those who hate. The river is the great equalizer.

7.20

One thing only troubles me, lest I should do something that the constitution of man does not allow, or in the way which it does not allow, or what it does not allow now.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.20 (tr Long)

It is so easy to become distracted by all sorts of competing expectations, winding this way and that, pulling me in one direction and then another. Everyone seems to have a different set of suggestions about what life should really be about. Go ahead, just have fun. Work hard, so you can make some money. Influence other people, and you can have them eating out of your hand. It can seem a bit confusing.

I may indeed prefer pleasure to pain, wealth to poverty, or strength to weakness. Yet I need to remind myself that none of these things, in and of themselves, really mean anything at all. They are just varying circumstances, changes in the landscape. Whatever I may have to work with, or wherever I find myself placed, I should seek to live well only by the measure of my human nature. Nothing else is necessary, so I need concern myself with nothing else.

Am I doing the right thing, in the right way, and at the right time? The standard I require is to follow virtue, and avoid vice, in all my thoughts and deeds. The rest is merely an accompaniment, because man is made for action that proceeds from understanding what is true, loving what is good, and seeking what is beautiful. I can know this by pulling away all the externals, and looking only at what it means to be human.

Ever since I have been a child, I have loved walks in the woods, the deeper and darker the better. I will sometimes have to pace myself, as I am so eager to see what will be around the next bend or over the next rise.

It is quite easy to get lost, however, and I need to keep track of where I am. Sometimes the path seems to disappear, and I may have to retrace my steps to find it again. Sometimes the path will split, and I will have to make a choice. Finding my way means knowing where I came from, being aware of the landmarks around me, and staying focused on where I am going.

There’s a good reason we will also speak of a path in life, as an expression of a sense of direction and purpose. We may stray to the left or to the right, become distracted and confused by whatever surrounds us, and maybe we even find ourselves going backwards or walking in circles. Sticking to the path means not being discouraged by any of the upsets.

I notice how many of things I worry about the most are hardly of any worry at all. I will fret about what may or may not happen to me, or what other people may or may not do, or even what they may or may not be thinking, when I should commit myself only to the dignity of my own actions.

This is, after all, the only thing I can control, and there is hardly any use in worrying about what is beyond my control.

7.21

Near is your forgetfulness of all things, and near the forgetfulness of you by all.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.21 (tr Long)

Memory is such a tricky thing. People, places, things, or events seem to become bigger or smaller, better or worse, more wonderful or more terrifying, simply by how they exist in our memories. It is difficult to accept that memory is not always the same thing as reality, just as any perception is not always the same thing as what truly is.

I know I once did a bad thing when I was a young pup, but I really have no memory of doing it. I only know I did it because of the later effects. I wasn’t drunk, or high on anything. I somehow blocked out any awareness. I told all the important people who were involved that I had no idea of what they were talking about. I was completely sincere. They looked at me sideways.

It took me quite some time to realize that my memory played games with me. I tend to remember pleasant things, but I somehow suppress unpleasant things. I will immediately recall, for example, all the wonderful moments with the lost love of my life. I have to consciously burrow into my mind to remember that she was also consistently a liar and a cheater.

Whenever I think of her, I have this image of us holding hands, and swearing unconditional love for one another. It takes longer for me to come up with another far less pleasant image, seeing her legs wrapped around another man at a drunken college party.

See, that hurts, and I try to remove it from my memory. Many of my memories hurt like hell. I wish they would all go away.

And you know what? They will go away. I am not the burden of my past. I am not the worry about my future. I am only who I am right now, the only thing ever guaranteed to me, the only thing that is immediately within my power.

My awareness of myself, as I am right now, will soon end. I will become something else, only God knows what, but the rest will cease. What I remember will cease. What others remember will cease. None of that will matter, not one bit.

I was, thanks to the kindness of Nature and the grace of Providence, given a chance. That chance was but a moment. That moment lasted far longer than I ever deserved. I messed it up so often, but I was somehow given an opportunity to do it again. Many people don’t have that opportunity. They can’t take it back.

So when I sit and mope, and when I complain about my horrid memories, I need to keep in mind that I am not what I once was. I am what I am right now, and that is entirely up to me right now. What I remember doesn’t matter. Who remembers me doesn’t matter.

It will pass. The only thing to worry about is being good and decent at this very moment.

7.22

It is peculiar to man to love even those who do wrong. And this happens, if when they do wrong it occurs to you that they are kinsmen, and that they do wrong through ignorance and unintentionally, and that soon both of you will die.

And above all, that the wrongdoer has done you no harm, for he has not made your ruling faculty worse than it was before.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.22 (tr Long)

It is a beautiful thing when I can manage to love someone who has hurt me.

I had all sorts of grand plans for my life, but I am actually left with only one task still in progress, that will perhaps make my life worthy.

I married a fine woman, and I gave her all that I could. I tried to raise two children, and I gave them all that I could. Both the wife and the kids will tell you how I sometimes botched it, but I still did my best.

No, the last remaining thing I sense I need to do is this, and only this: I will not allow my resentment for another person to destroy me. I will not try to hurt another person. I will not seek vengeance on another person. I will not pursue any grudge against another person. If I can pass away, and I have somehow managed to live up to that promise, I will die a halfway decent man. I will be happy.

Love is easy when all of the circumstances fall into place. Love is hard when things don’t go our way. We learn the hard way that it isn’t love, after all, if we disappear once the situation changes.

I can love someone else, even when he has hurt me. I can understand that he meant no harm in itself, and whatever he did came from his own misunderstanding. He thought, in his own way, however ignorant or foolish, that he was doing something good. I can still love him.

And the biggest part of it all, as difficult as it may be to accept, is that any wrong done to me, however severe, has never actually harmed me at all. It may have hurt my feelings. It may have taken away my paltry possessions. It may have made me look the fool in the eyes of others. It may threaten my survival itself. Still, it never did me any harm, because it never touched the one thing, and the only thing, that is exclusively mine.

It never took my own judgment, or my own choice.

It seems so hard to love when I am filled with anger. Once I remove the anger, because I understand that there is nothing to be angry about, I am suddenly free to love without any condition. The problem was never within another person. The problem was always within me.

7.23

The Universal Nature out of the Universal Substance, as if it were wax, now molds a horse, and when it has broken this up, it uses the material for a tree, then for a man, then for something else, and each of these things subsists for a very short time.

But it is no hardship for the vessel to be broken up, just as there was none in its being fastened together.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.23 (tr Long)

Metaphysics, or what I like to jokingly call high-octane philosophy, is the profound reflection on being itself, considering the very problem of what it means for something to exist. I have seen it bring people to the edge of madness.

In one sense, it ought to be one of the most concrete aspects of philosophy, because the world doesn’t come any more basic than what “is”. In another sense all the theory behind it, with all the fancy terms and the incessant pondering, can drive people away from philosophy. It is not for everyone, and one must come prepared.

All the subtle distinctions, concerning the one and the many, immanence and transcendence, or mind and matter do make a real difference, just as all true wisdom makes a real difference. Yet when I am faced with the most practical of questions in life, the ones about making it through the day, there are two principles of Stoic metaphysics that have helped me the most:

First, everything is far more united than I might think. Second, everything is far more fluid than I might think.

I am prone to separating and dividing most anything I come across, and there is certainly a sort of comfort in putting everything in its own box, different from every other thing. My wife and I used to call it the Theory of the Nut Piles, but that is probably a story best saved for another time.

Yet, regardless of all the details on what we might really mean by pantheism or panentheism, I must remember that there is one Universe, within which all things are made of the same Substance, and given their specific forms by the same Nature. I can consider these ideas in isolation, but in immediate existence they are inseparable.

I am also prone to making things as permanent for me I can possibly make them, and there is also a certain comfort in relying on what is lasting, or even a certain misery in bemoaning what is lasting. My wife and I used to call that the Theory of the Immortal Duck, and that is certainly a story best saved for another time.

Yet, regardless of all the details on what we really mean by constancy and change, I must remember that form is never static, and matter is always in action. Nothing stays the same, because in its very existence all of it is a constant relationship with other things. It is moving even as I consider it, and my consideration is itself a form of action.

To see difference at the expense of what is common, and to see only one moment of change at the expense of the whole process of change, will keep me from seeing all of the parts within the whole. I will be staring at a tree, and missing the forest. I will assume a struggle between various aspects of life, and I will lose track of the fullness of life. I can hardly live in harmony with Nature, when I have no sense of how Nature is ultimately one.

That something comes to be, and ceases to be, is an effortless part of that unity and fluidity. I will only find difficulty and suffering within it when I ignore what is Universal.

7.24

A scowling look is altogether unnatural. When it is often assumed, the result is that all comeliness dies away, and at last is so completely extinguished that it cannot be again lighted up at all.

Try to conclude from this very fact that it is contrary to reason. For if even the awareness of doing wrong shall depart, what reason is there for living any longer?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.24 (tr Long)

I will sometimes worry about how I come across to other people. The fact is that I am not usually noticed at all, as I manage to slip under the radar. This is not necessarily bad at all. When I am noticed, I am told conflicting things. A person once told me that while I rarely spoke, I was still always smiling. Another person once told that I always seemed to be deep in thought, which made me intimidating. I don’t know what to make of any of that.

My concern, however, shouldn’t be about how I appear. When I bother myself with that, I am defining myself by how I seem, not by who I am. No, it isn’t about what others choose to make of it. It’s about what I make of myself, and the attitude within my own heart and mind. Resentment, or condescension, or even indifference, towards others doesn’t need to be in my thinking or acting. Scowling has no place.

I once knew someone who had two, and only two, expressions. An artificial glowing smile for the camera, which would last for but a forced moment when required, and a general smirk for the rest of the time. I have done my best never to become that way.

When I act out in a way that is cold, or careless, or dismissive, this action on the outside affects my soul on the inside. If I keep it up, my external hardness takes on the form of habit, and that hardness seeps into me. That habit may become so strong, that I may never be able to recover a sense of joy and compassion. I know I was made to be better than that.

So l try to teach myself to express kindness and friendship, even when, and especially when, it seems to so hard to do. Of course I fail at it, and that quite often. There’s a certain stern look that runs for generations in my family, and I dislike it when I see it in those I love, so I do my best to avoid it. It’s never about impressing anyone, or making anyone approve of me. It’s about being good in how I come across: not merely in the seeming, but in the doing.

I am made to understand, and so I am also made to love what is good in what I understand; it is reasonable for me to show care, and to express compassion. My own personal disposition may not be built quite right for it, I know, but I make the effort. I would prefer to simply nod with respect, or make the slightest gesture of sympathy with my hand, than pretend to play in the biggest opera as a pretense.

I know precisely what happens to me when I fail to do this. Heartless actions are the reflection of a heartless soul, and a heartless soul loses all sense of right and wrong. Indeed, why even live, when I have lost my very conscience?

7.25

Nature, which governs the whole, will soon change all things that you see, and out of their substance will make other things, and again other things from the substance of them, in order that the world may be ever new.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.25 (tr Long)

“Feed the fish.”

Few phrases have had as many meanings in my experience than this. Sometimes it just means exactly what it says. Some use it as an expression about getting so sick on a boat that you need to vomit over the side. Others use it as a clever way to talk about getting stoned.

Most often, I’ve heard it as a representation of death. That was used in some of the mob movies, and in the part of the country where I grew up. “You wanna feed the fish?” A common variation involved “sleeping with the fishes”. It was never a courteous invitation to sprinkle some flakes in a goldfish bowl. It was a threat. It was much like asking if you wanted to wear a pair of concrete boots.

Even then, I have heard that old Boston phrase, with that exact same morbid meaning, used in two completely different contexts.

A man I knew, only slightly more unstable than I was at the time, once slammed down his empty pint glass and confidently said, “Time for me to feed the fish!” I assumed he was using it in yet another way, taking a trip to the restroom. No, he walked out the front door of the pub, quite calmly, and made his way to the pier at the end of the block. We followed and stared, quite confused. Then he simply jumped into the water.

Another fellow, far braver than I, jumped in right after him, and dragged him back. He had intended to take his own life, right then and there. Years later, I sat with him one day, no booze or misery to be found between us, and he told me quite clearly that he had wanted to die that night.

He had used the phrase as an expression of complete despair.

A different man I knew, far better than I was at the time, was serving a life sentence without the possibility of parole. He was old, and he was sick, and my boss and I had gone to see him in the prison hospital. I hardly knew the man closely, but I had always been impressed by his honesty and commitment. He would openly admit his mistakes, and he accepted that they had forever taken away the freedom of his body.

As we walked out the door that day, I simply waved at him, like the complete goofball that I am, not knowing what else to do. He smiled, gave me a thumbs up, and calmly said, “I’ll say hello to the fishes for you!” I knew exactly what he meant, and the intention was completely different than that of my friend at the bar.

He had used the phrase as an expression of complete acceptance and joy.

Sometimes we give up, because we can’t bear the way things are. Sometimes we stand strong, because we know that nothing happens in vain.

If I think only of myself alone, I may indeed despair. Why bother, if all I get is more of the hurt? If I think of myself with and through all other people and all other things, a vital piece within the whole, I may yet find acceptance and joy. Why be so miserable, if there is still something worthy to love, and something that gives purpose?

Will I pass away? Yes, I am doing so already as we speak, and so are you, whoever you may be. Yes, it will be the end of me in one sense, but the beginning of me in quite another sense. The new comes from the old. Everything is rebuilt. At the very least, someone has to feed the fish. That is hardly a meaningless thing to do.

7.26

When a man has done you any wrong, immediately consider with what opinion about good or evil he has done wrong. For when you have seen this, you will pity him, and you will neither wonder nor be angry.

For either you yourself think the same thing to be good that he does, or another thing of the same kind. It is your duty then to pardon him.

But if you do not think such things to be good or evil, you will more readily be well disposed to him who is in error.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.26 (tr Long)

Oh my, what games we play! We say that we are insulted, offended, or outraged. We demand that those we perceive as having committed certain sins be considered unacceptable, inappropriate, or intolerable. We wish to do them hurt, to cast them out, or to make their lives unlivable. Pain for pain, we think, is the ideal model of fairness. There’s nothing quite like our indignation to make us feel better, even as it makes others feel worse. Cast blame, above all else.

There is another way. However wrong another person may seem, I can seek to understand him before I spit my venom. However he has acted, he somehow thought it to be a good. What was he thinking? Why was he thinking it? What did he actually intend? What was the nature of his purpose, and where was his costly mistake?

One of two things can happen when I try to think with another man, instead of against another man. I may see that we share the same values, even as he has somehow gotten confused. Then I can easily forgive him, and try to help him back onto the path.

Or I may see that we are diametrically opposed in our judgments, and that our respective opinions do not meet at all. Still, I can also forgive him then, because if I am convinced that I am right, and that he is wrong, I can grasp that my own sense of right can never allow me to do him any wrong. His ignorance never excuses my own malice.

Let me not merely look at what a man has done; let me also consider why he might have done it. Once I try to see it through his eyes, he will no longer be the other, the enemy, and the one to be blamed, discarded or destroyed. I will see him in myself, and myself in him.

The power of reason allows me to not only be myself, but also to know what is beyond myself, to contain the nature of other things within my own nature. It is through this power of mind that compassion and love are possible.

Another man rules his own estimation, but I rule mine. Let me not become what I so easily condemn.

“You are wrong!” Perhaps. Now explain to me how that is so, and help me to become better. Even if I refuse to learn, excuse me for my foolishness, because you can know what it is that has made me a fool, if you only try.

7.27

Think not so much of what you have not, as of what you have.

Think of the things that you have selected the best, and then reflect how eagerly they would have been sought if you had them not.

At the same time, however, take care that you do not, through being so pleased with them, accustom yourself to overvalue them, so as to be disturbed if ever you should not have them.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.27 (tr Long)

I am completely aware that that I can be a spoiled little brat, as so many of us in this first-world country can be. I am a consumer. I require, I expect, and I demand. And all the things I think I am entitled to have absolutely nothing to do with me, but are rather all about adding further trappings to what is outside of me.

I may consider all the things I think I have rights to. But perhaps it is best not to cover them here, because the list would go on for many pages. No, let me consider only one thing, the only aspect of life that matters. What has Nature truly given me, whoever I might be?

There is actually only one thing, within all the politics about jobs, or health care, or housing. There is actually only one thing, through all the wars, and the poverty, and the oppression. It is the power over my own thoughts and actions. Let the bullies, the profiteers, and the tyrants do their thing. They will do what they do, you know, whether I like it or not. But they can’t steal my conscience.

It is only when I understand that simple fact that I can also appreciate anything and everything else that may, or may not, come my way. I may struggle to be happy with whatever will be given to me by fortune, but the struggle is never about how much I have. It is all about what I make of what I have.

That is why I can use these two Stoic “bookends” about external circumstances for my life:

I can be grateful for what I have, just by imagining how much I would want it if I didn’t have it.

I can also be deeply wary of what I have, just by recognizing how much it would hurt me if I loved it too much.

Give it to me, or take it away from me. I must treat both possibilities with exactly the same worth.

Stoicism isn’t a special club, or a forum for intellectual posturing, or a philosophical excuse for my own worldly successes and failures. It demands a complete and total shift of moral values. It isn’t about who I may have voted for, or the size of my paycheck, or the recognition I might receive.

It is about an appreciation of simply being human, and all that this entails, in the fullness of Nature and Providence. It means never being happy or miserable because of my conditions. It never defines me by what I have, or have not, but who I am, or am not.

A student once asked me what made the usual state of affairs so different from a Stoic attitude, and almost without thinking I blurted out:

“One asks you to try and change the world, so you can feel better. The other asks you to actually change yourself, so you can be better.”

Now I don’t know if that’s helpful, or even as accurate as it could have been, but it still sticks with me. Your mileage may vary.

7.28

Retire into yourself. The rational principle that rules has this nature, that it is content with itself when it does what is just, and so secures tranquility.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.28 (tr Long)

I do not understand retiring into myself as an act of running away from the world, or isolating myself, or giving others the cold shoulder. As a rational animal I am also a social animal, and I am called to be involved with my fellows, to live with them and not be removed from them. I can hardly practice justice if I have no one to treat justly.

No, a retirement of this sort is not a separation, but rather a source of true independence to make genuine engagement possible. It means, in the classic Stoic sense, that my happiness should never rely on what happens to me, but upon what I do; not upon what I receive, but upon what I give; not upon the thinking of others, but upon my own thinking.

My life is sufficient and satisfied when I can, with humility and sincerity, know that I have acted from my own good judgment. This is all that my nature requires of me, and it is the key to happiness. People will come and go, circumstances will change, and my fortune may rise or fall, but I can always count on my own commitment. Here is peace, because I can be content within myself.

Building upon such a foundation, I can now act with character, pursue what is right and just, and love others as they rightly deserve, but without any reliance on how the world treats me in return. Any condition can be of benefit, since the good and the bad within it will only proceed from my own estimation. Of course things may hurt, or pull at my desires, or appear frightful, or tempt me to anger; still, it is what I do with these situations and feelings that will make all the difference.

It has been the most painful aspect of my life, being told that I am not worthwhile, that has also been the most helpful aspect of my life. Providence has a wonderful way of working like that. It has allowed me to learn that my value depends on my loving, not on being loved. I will certainly prefer to add the latter, even as I only require the former. It is already more than enough.

I can be confident and completely at ease when I ask simply to make the best of what has already been given to me, the exercise of my own thoughts and deeds. I will be uncertain and quite anxious when I depend upon anything more than that.

7.29

Wipe out the imagination. Stop the pulling of the strings. Confine yourself to the present.

Understand well what happens either to you or to another. Divide and distribute every object into the formal and the material.

Think of your last hour. Let the wrong that is done by a man stay there where the wrong was done.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.29 (tr Long)

For me, the suggestions in this passage have always been tied together by an urgent need for clarity of purpose. I should remove the extraneous, all the diversions and obstacles within my thinking, so that the simple yet profound meaning of living can be revealed.

I am always being bombarded with images, with appearances of what seems pleasant or unpleasant, desirable or frightening. I must not let these impressions rule me. I must learn to rule them.

I can do nothing about what has happened in the past, because it no longer exists, or about what will happen in the future, because it does not yet exist. The only power that is firmly mine is ruling my own thoughts and actions in the present.

Circumstances and events may seem entangled and confused, their meaning and value unclear to me. All I must do is to focus only upon what something is within itself, not upon what is added by my own worry or imaginings.

For me to know something is not to merely have a vague sense of how it may feel. I must apprehend the identity that makes it, and the parts out of which it is made. I can never really face, or find benefit from, something I do not understand.

If I can only think of this very moment as if it were my last, not as an exercise in morbidity but as a test of my character, I can also remain dedicated to living well simply for its own sake, without adding any conditions or further expectations.

Whenever I am confronted with what is wrong within another, I do not need to let it enter into me. It can remain exactly where it started, and I can use it to transform myself into something right. “The buck stops here.”

Life only becomes as hard, or as perplexing, or as discouraging as I allow it to become. The tools necessary for living well are already present within me. Judgment, choice, and action committed to living according to Nature, and nothing beyond that, are all that is needed, and the less attention I pay to distractions, the richer my life will be.

I don’t need to let myself be pulled by strings.

7.30

Direct your attention to what is said.

Let your understanding enter into the things that are done, and the things that do them.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.30 (tr Long)

I will sometimes think about commonly used phrases, the ones we employ all of the time but hardly give a second thought to. There, that was just one of them!

One that would often annoy me was the expression “It is what it is.” I had always assumed this as just a tautology, a statement of the obvious, but upon reflection I saw that in practice it wasn’t always so obvious at all. We don’t always look simply at what is, of course. We add all sorts of imaginings, preferences, and prejudices of our own. Coming to accept the way it is, in and of itself, is not always that easy.

Another one of my favorite expressions has been “After all has been said and done.” Again, at first it doesn’t seem to say much at all, yet it adds the sense that something is understood ultimately, in totality, at the end of things. It asks us to consider it within the whole, balancing all of the aspects.

It may seem to be a given that I should look at something for what it is, and think of it within the context of the bigger picture, but the fact is that I fail to do this all of the time. I often choose to see only what I wish to see, or zoom in only on a small part that seems the most enticing or engaging at the moment. I need to focus the clarity of my perception, and broaden the scope of my thinking.

So when Marcus Aurelius reminds us to listen to what people say, and to examine what happens around us, this isn’t as immediately evident as I might think.

Often, the words of others will hurt me deeply. Often, the deeds of others will bring me down, and make my place seem worthless. Through it all, I am attending more to my own assumptions, and less to what has actually been said and done.

What was actually said? What did it really mean? How was it truly intended?

What was actually done? Who really did it? Why was it truly done?

If I can start answering those questions for themselves, humbly and sincerely, I will begin to see that so much of what is desirable or frightening, so much of what I get wrapped up in, is not really about what was said, or what happened. It is about my estimation of what was said, or of what happened.

So to change my worries, I need only change my estimation. It remains what it is, even as I can modify my own sense of what is good and bad in what is. It can be quite a liberating moment when I can distinguish between what comes to me, and what I can make of what comes to me.

Pay attention! The advice is not wasted.

7.31

Adorn yourself with simplicity and modesty and with indifference towards the things that lie between virtue and vice.

Love mankind. Follow God.

The poet says that Law rules all, and it is enough to remember that Law rules all.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.31 (tr Long)

Priorities. I spoke with a fine fellow the other day, a man who told me how he had lived well in some ways, and had lived rather poorly in others. He understood that his life was a patchwork. He also understood that he needed to make it all right, before the end came. He knew that he was old, and he didn’t have all that much time left.

Whenever anyone comes to speak to me, as rare as it might be, I do my best never to judge that man. I try to understand him, as I would like to be understood. I try to love him, as I would like to be loved.

So it was difficult for me to ask him this, but I felt it needed to be asked.

“What do you think will make it all worthwhile for you? What will be your standard of success?”

He thought for a moment, and then said, “I need to make sure that my house isn’t a mess. When I die, I don’t want my sister to have to deal with all of my clutter. I need to get the money thing in order. I don’t need people fighting over what little I had. I need to make sure I have what I need right now, however the family may bicker.”

Only because I knew him well, and because I trusted him, I asked one final question.

“Are you doing all of that because it makes the situation better, or because it makes you better?”

He smiled, knowing exactly what I meant. “Both, but what I do comes before what anyone thinks of it.”

There is a man I admire and respect. Be simple, expecting nothing to be given to you. Be modest, never thinking of yourself as better than anyone else. Care nothing at all for what will happen, because it will happen as it will. Care everything for what you may do, not for what you receive.

There are the two aspects of the Golden Rule. Do your loving, regardless of whether others love. Love you neighbor. Love God. These two cannot exist apart. Love the cause, and love the effects.

Only love is the law.

7.32

About death: Whether it is a dispersion, or a resolution into atoms, or annihilation, it is either extinction or change.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.32 (tr Long)

I have known some people who never really consider their own deaths, and so while the concept may be intelligible to them in theory, they end up thinking of themselves as practically immortal. The setting may change, but they assume they are just going to go on as they currently are.

I have known other people who think of nothing but their deaths, hoping for eternal rewards, and fearing eternal punishments. Yet even though the setting may change, one of either puffy clouds or of scorching fire, they still assume they are just going to go on as they currently are.

Yet however we may view death, shouldn’t the most apparent aspect of it be that it means becoming something quite different than what we are now?  We surely know that our bodies will no longer be what they were, and whether our awareness carries on or ceases entirely, it will have been fundamentally transformed in either case.

I am all too familiar with the temptation of wanting to keep things the same. Stability seems to bring with it comfort, and change seems to bring with it uncertainty. I need to remember that all sorts of modifications are completely natural, and simply parts within the harmony of the whole.

The Universe is an expression of activity itself, and activity means that things are always in motion, proceeding from one state to another. This does not need to seem frightening. It can be seen as liberating, because all change brings with it the possibility of growth, instead of succumbing to mere stagnation.

I have sometimes ignored death, and at other times I have obsessed about it too, and part of the problem is that none of us can really speak of it with very much certainty. But whether I end up becoming something new, or ceasing entirely, I can still rest assured that it will surely be for the sake of what is best. Nature is always directed by purpose, and Providence does nothing in vain. There is the deepest comfort in that.

7.33

About pain: The pain that is intolerable carries us off, but that which lasts a long time is tolerable.

And the mind maintains its own tranquility by retiring into itself, and the ruling faculty is not made worse.

But the parts that are harmed by pain, let them, if they can, give their opinion about it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.33 (tr Long)

My own most urgent reason for starting to follow Stoicism was facing the problem of pain. Whether it was physical or emotional, dull and throbbing or sharp and stabbing, I found that it was never quite enough for me just to tough it out. I could put on a strong appearance, but pain would still seem to eat me up inside. There were many times I was sure I could no longer stand it.

Now some people advised me to bear with it, or to ignore it, or to take it as a punishment, or to offer it up, or to view it as a test. I wouldn’t wish to deny them their successes, but none of this was ever enough for me at that time. My problem, I think, was that I was still defining myself only by such suffering, instead of recognizing that I could move through and beyond suffering, that I was more than only what I felt. I was also what I thought, and my thinking could find meaning and purpose in any circumstance.

My body may hurt, or my feelings may hurt, but my mind only hurts when I allow my own judgments to be hurtful. It sounds so terribly simple, but as soon as I am aware that pain does not need to have any direct power over my mind and choice, over my ability to understand and to love, then I no longer need to let it affect me as it once did. It may hack away at the outside, but the inside can remain intact.

Of whatever kind or degree, suffering will either destroy my body, in which case I am relieved and free of it, or it will remain bearable, in which case I can still be relieved and free of it. If it’s too much, Nature will let me go. If it’s still not too much, Nature gives me what I need to keep going. It need never be a burden, but it becomes an opportunity, and my thinking alone will make it so.

I can let my body cry out, and I can let my feelings express their frustration; I should never assume that pain will simply disappear, or that I can pretend it isn’t real. It is real, and there is a reason Nature provides it, so that I may listen to it. I can indeed let all the other parts of me tell how they feel, but then I am called to understand, not merely to submit.

Yes, it hurts. Now I can use it to make myself better, by relying on what is truly my own. That is peace of mind.

7.34

About fame: Look at the minds of those who seek fame, observe what they are, and what kind of things they avoid, and what kind of things they pursue.

And consider that as the heaps of sand piled on one another hide the former sands, so in life the events that go before are soon covered by those that come after.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.34 (tr Long)

Those who run after fame aren’t only those who crave great celebrity and stardom. Whatever the degree of our goals may be, we have succumbed to the power of fame whenever we define ourselves by what others may think, by whatever happens to be fashionable, or by the comfort of conformity. We do this by putting reputation ahead of character.

Notice how tempting this can be for all of us. I know that I am starting to get pulled in when I observe certain signs in myself. I begin to change both what I am doing, and the reasons why I am doing it. I become interested in how things appear, and not how they are. My actions begin to proceed from images that will be admired, and my motives begin to be ordered toward attention and recognition.

The question, then, is no longer whether something is right, but whether it will be perceived as being right by others. It makes a big difference. Thoughts and deeds are then no longer desired for their own sake. They are desired for the sake of something else. Virtue, therefore, ceases to be an absolute measure for a man, and instead becomes something relative, that is measured by completely accidental circumstances.

If I am motivated by moral character above all else, I will strive to act with justice in each and every case. If I am motivated by fame, I will act “fairly” only when it is convenient for me in other ways. It isn’t justice at all anymore, of course, because the right intention is not present.

Action suddenly isn’t for the sake of right action, since my motives have been completely redirected. I am hoping for something else, to have a good name, to be respected, or loved, or perhaps even feared.

Yet all of those conditions are, as St. Thomas Aquinas might say, like straw. They have nothing to do with me at all, and as much as I may think that my fame will live on and on, it is the most precarious and fleeting of things. Water will wash new sand over the old. The winds will constantly raise up different dunes. What once was is now covered over, and what now is will soon be erased.

A life dedicated to truth and love is itself already complete, as it is its own purpose. A life dedicated to fame is one of the greatest wastes, and therefore one of the saddest things that can plague humanity.

7.35

From Plato:

The man who has an elevated mind and takes a view of all time and of all substance, do you suppose it possible for him to think that human life is anything great?

It is not possible, he said.

Such a man then will think that death also is no evil.

Certainly not.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.35 (tr Long)

It’s quite hard trying to help someone understand that the self is not the beginning and end of all things, almost as hard as trying to help someone understand that death is not in itself a bad thing at all. People may look at you funny, worry about your sanity, and whisper around that you may be quite disturbed.

I’m sure they thought and said that about Plato as well, or his teacher Socrates, or any of the Cynics and Stoics. Yet Plato understood something that most of us will so easily overlook. It isn’t all about me, but about me in the context of all other things. And if I’m not the center of the world, then my end won’t mean the end of the world. These two insights go together. The former helps me to make sense of the latter.

We are accustomed to thinking of life as an extended conflict, a state of war, where what is good for me is often in opposition to what is good for anyone or anything else. For me to be rich, you may well have to be poor. For me to feel secure, you may well have to feel threatened. For me to be happy, you may well have to be miserable. And, if necessary, for me to live, you may well have to die. The vice of pride, of course, centers on the importance of the self, at the expense of others.

Yet wisdom, seeing things from a perspective that is both broader and deeper, teaches me that all things are part of a whole, and that all things are made to work together, each playing its own distinct part. There is no me without the order of the whole world, and there can be no me at the expense of the whole world. It is all a totality.

Accordingly, I do not need to think of my own good separately from the good of anything else, and I must respect that my good is in service to the good of everything else. We think that vanity frees us, but it actually imprisons us. A wise man can be serene, precisely because he can joyfully look beyond himself. He is no better, or more special, or more necessary than any other creature.

This is also why he does not fear death, or does not consider it an evil, because he knows it is natural and right for all creatures to come to be, and to cease to be. Only the self-serving man cares for his reputation, or his wealth, or the accumulation of his pleasures, just as only the self-serving man cares about when he will die.

7.36

From Antisthenes:

It is royal to do good and to be abused.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.36 (tr Long)

Once again, this is the sort of saying that raises eyebrows and gets you crossed off the invite list for parties.

It would indeed be foolish to desire or prefer abuse, but what is truly noble is the willingness to do what is right and good even when, and especially when, one faces disapproval and opposition for doing so.

The merit of any action proceeds not only from what is done, but also from the conditions under which it is done, and from the reasons why it is done. Morality, in this sense, is more than a set of rules to blindly follow; it is the relationship of a deliberate intention for the sake of a worthy goal. 

For this reason, the politician who smiles at you may not be kind at all, if he only does so to get your vote. The businessman who donates his money may not be charitable at all, if he only does so to get a break on his taxes. The priest who gives a good sermon may not be pious at all, if he only does so to be revered.

The true test of virtue is rather to practice integrity, commitment, fairness, or moderation for their own sake, and nothing beyond that. There is a reason we say that a good deed is its own reward, because the dignity of choice and action requires nothing beyond itself to be complete. Whether there are any further consequences that may be convenient, or profitable, or advantageous need not enter into our thinking. It is enough for happiness to have lived well.

This is especially true if conscience meets an obstacle. Perhaps my choices will clash with dismissal, rejection, ridicule, or downright hatred. Perhaps my actions will mean losing my wealth, my influence, my comfort, or even my life. If it must be so, I must let it be so, and I should embrace such burdens with grace and good will. It is a small price to pay with my circumstances for the state of my own soul, as the value of what I do is far greater than the value of what is done to me.

I will recognize the virtuous man as being noble, as being royal, as even being divine, when he continues to do what is right in the face of what is wrong, and when he is willing to treat others well, even when they treat him poorly.

Antisthenes was a student of Socrates, and is often considered the first of the Cynic philosophers. His words may seem odd to the man who defines himself by his status, but they are a pleasant encouragement to the man who defines himself by his character.

7.37

It is a base thing for the countenance to be obedient and to regulate and compose itself as the mind commands, and for the mind not to be regulated and composed by itself.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.37 (tr Long)

It will be of little use to me if I can control my bearing, my expressions, or my passions, if my very thinking has no right measure by which to exercise that control. A nice smile on a pretty face means nothing without charity behind it, and a clever power of words is empty without wisdom to guide it. What is a mastery of manners if it lacks a conscience?

An analogy I have sometimes found helpful is that an obedient and well-drilled army is worthless without a good general at its head.

When we were all younger, we surely heard people say, “Control yourself!” That is certainly good advice, especially in a day and age where children have few limits, and so will then continue acting out as adults. But it is not enough to simply control how I appear. I must also learn to use sound judgment, the power of determining the true from the false, and posses a moral compass, the power of pointing to good instead of evil. Control over the outside of me will only matter if I also have control over the inside of me.

Consider that a man can appear as a perfect gentleman, while being a complete scoundrel in his heart and mind.

The most charming and committed person I have ever known was also the most thoughtless and uncaring person I have ever known. I have crossed paths with people who wear the finest clothes and say all the right things, but who are really liars, thieves, and users. Wolves in sheep’s clothing, indeed. A pleasant demeanor can cover up a rotten soul, but only for so long. We wonder why we were fooled so easily, but it was just because we were looking at the wrong part of a person.

I have long struggled with the practice of self-discipline, and I suspect that a part of my problem is attending to externals at the neglect of internals. I have been worried about the consequences, without paying attention to the cause. I have tried to regulate what I am doing, without having a good reason for why I might be doing it. I have vainly concerned myself with how I am perceived, instead of what is actually going on in my own thinking.

I have attempted to subject myself to a rule, without knowing the nature of the rule, to be mastered without being the master.

I can indeed build up the habit of disciplining my conduct, but this will be a wasted effort without the habit of disciplining my character.

7.38

It is not right to vex ourselves at things,

For they care nothing about it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.38 (tr Long)

The Philosopher-Emperor here quotes the great playwright Euripides, with one the most simple and most helpful pieces of advice I have ever heard.

I think of all of the wasted time, all of the wasted effort, spent in being frustrated by my circumstances, by the people I was convinced had wronged me, by the way the world worked in ways I did not want it to work.

And here was the thing: my annoyance only disturbed me. I only made myself worse. People who have acted poorly never cared for me to begin with, and they certainly don’t care for me after the fact. I’m just disposable to them. The events of life, however painful or crushing, do not change when I fret about them. It will be as it will be, but who I am is entirely up to me.

In one of the darkest moments of my Wilderness Years, when I allowed the Black Dog to tell me what to do, I once sat down with a fifth of bourbon and a pack of cigarettes. It was nothing but an exercise in self-pity. One of the few friends I had left sat down right next to me.

“Go ahead, drink yourself stupid. It won’t make it any better. It isn’t about what’s happened, it’s about you pulling yourself up by your bootstraps. Let that girl break your heart, and let the bullies have their way. You sit there crying, all worried about them, but they have absolutely no worry about you. You are already forgotten to them.”

As painful as it felt to hear that, it was completely true. So there I sat, wondering about what others may think of me. There I sat, angered by the way of the world. Yet what others may have thought, or how circumstances played themselves out, had nothing to do with me.

That girl who broke my heart has absolutely no concern for me. I was just a footnote in her life. That thoughtless boss who wouldn’t give me a raise doesn’t even remember my name. I was just another commodity for his own success.

Nothing I can ever do will change them. All that happily remains is for me to change myself.

Some say that we have to go out and make the world fit us, and to make others conform to our own wants and desires. They are sorely mistaken. At best, we may find a convenient holding pattern, where the situation of life happens to be preferable or advantageous for that moment. The real challenge, the only one that yields anything reliable, is mastering our own thinking.

A fool is angry because of what has been done to him, while a wise man is happy about what he can do.

7.39

To the immortal gods and us give joy.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.39 (tr Long)

Surely we all know that it is our nature to be happy, and that we have no greater purpose than that. The difficulty, of course, is coming to understand what that may actually mean, and how best to achieve this end. Given the urgency of the task, we seem to often make ourselves quite miserable in the pursuit of happiness. We fill ourselves with anger, recrimination, frustration, and anxiety instead. With results like that, is there a chance we’re on the wrong path?

I have often succumbed to that sort of stubborn dissatisfaction, where I would rather be at war than at peace, where I would rather be vindicated than content. In hindsight, all I realize is that I have blinded myself to taking responsibility for myself. It somehow seems easier to lash out at everyone and everything outside of me, instead of improving what is inside of me.

My own last great obstacle to embracing happiness is letting go of resentment. I do not need to blame the world, and I don’t even need to blame myself anymore, because I can change my thinking and living right here and now.

In the middle of all the weeping and gnashing of teeth, I have overlooked joy. How simple joy really is, but how difficult I can make it for myself. I may foolishly prefer to be bloated with the arrogance of being somehow proven right, and the world proven wrong, instead of being completely content with the humility of just striving to be good.

For me, the recovery of joy is a part of what I like to call the Stoic Turn, a reordering of priorities. Life should be measured by what I do, not by what happens to me. I should seek to rule myself, not to rule others. My happiness ought to exist in harmony with the whole of Nature, not in conflict with the world. It means I can be defined by love instead of hate, acceptance instead of anger, and happiness instead of sadness.

It may seem so hopeless when I see how cynical people can become, the presence of the “life sucks and then you die” mentality. Yes, unpleasant things will happen, and yes, I will most certainly die, but that is neither here nor there. If I succumb to that sort of thinking, I am ignoring the most important part of it all, about how I can choose to live with and through such circumstances. Why should I focus on what is outside of my power, when I can dedicate myself completely to what is within my power?

Through it all, I remain convinced that we are all made, like the Divine, to find rest in joy. I am the only one who can stop me from doing so.

7.40

Life must be reaped like the ripe ears of corn:

One man is born, another dies.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.40 (tr Long)

The reference here again is to Euripides. One of the things I have worked toward in my own journey through Stoic philosophy is the joyful acceptance of change as something inherently good in the order of Nature.

I will, unfortunately, still hold on to past wrongs, simply because of the weakness of my own thinking, and that is still a work in progress. I do better with it on some days, exactly when I remember a maxim like this, and I do worse on other days, when I choose to forget it.

At those times when I am forgetful, I find it helpful to insist to myself that change is hardly a harmful thing. I reflect upon the great benefit within it, and seek to recognize that the only hurt within it comes from my own preferences and attachments. It is only bad for me when I permit it to be.

Things come into a specific existence, and they fall out of a specific existence. As foolish as they may sound, I keep a few of my own phrases handy to strengthen my resolve:

Change is action. The very act of doing involves a transformation, in any and every form. Life is not a static state, but a constant motion.

Change is growth. Nothing comes from nothing, but something comes from something else. Things gain in the fullness of existence, and then transfer that fullness onward.

Change is improvement. Where there is growth, there is a struggle to increase in perfection. Yet it will not remain standing still.

Change is rebuilding. Whatever has been strives to be most fully itself, and then is reconstituted into another instance of striving.

Change is renewal. The old is reborn into the new, and this is an expression of the deepest triumph. Nothing is defeated. Everything lives again.

Change is eternal. I do not claim to know how Providence intends for the Universe to play itself out, but I do know that as long as there is life, there will be action and change.

I choose to embrace, and not to fear, any sort of reaping. 

7.41

If gods care not for me and for my children,

There is a reason for it.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.41 (tr Long)

Yet another reference to Euripides. Great wisdom and inspiration are to be found in the works of the Greek tragedians, as their art, however grand in scale, mirrors so much of our daily lives.

Depending on my attitude or mood, I may read this passage in two different ways. Perhaps when life isn’t going my way, the gods are angry with me, and so they are sending me an appropriate punishment for my sins. Then I might need to put my house in order to get back in their good graces.

Now Providence surely offers rewards and punishments in many ways, means of both encouraging us to what is good and discouraging us from what is bad, but I could also understand the principle on a different level. It need not be about whether I am liked or disliked at all, or on the naughty or nice list.

For the Stoic, every condition is an opportunity for living well, and so whatever may happen is there for a perfectly good reason. I may not understand it right now, and maybe I will never understand it completely. Nevertheless, the presence or absence of anything serves a purpose within the whole. It is my job to find the greatest benefit for myself and for others within it.

Whatever my preference may be, the gods will smile or frown as they should. Now what will I make of that, what will I learn from it, how will I use it to improve myself? As Max Ehrmann said it so nicely, “No doubt the Universe is unfolding as it should.”

Some people will question Providence, or God, or Intelligence, or whatever we may wish to call it, because they become frustrated when things seem to go wrong, when their desires are not satisfied, or when their expectations are not met. They may think it unjust, and I understand completely. I have been there many times.

Yet whenever I am pulled in that direction, I try to remember that fairness is not measured by whether the Universe gives me what I want. With apologies to Mick Jagger, it gives me what I need.

If I approach my life thinking that good and bad are in my circumstances, then yes, life seems quite unfair. But if, like a Stoic, I approach my life thinking that the good and bad for me are in my estimation and action, then everything in life is, in this sense, fair. If it pleases, I may embrace it, and if it hurts, I may confront it and transform it.

Things don’t go wrong for me. I choose to go wrong with things.

Consider it as literally or symbolically as you like, but every one of those thunderbolts hurled by Zeus always hits right on the mark, whether it gives or it takes away.

7.42

For the good is with me, and the just.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.42 (tr Long)

Euripides is quoted yet another time, and still not for the last time. I obviously have no knowledge of what Marcus Aurelius was reading, or of what he was privately thinking, and it seems wrong for me to even speculate about the workings of a mind so much greater than my own.

Still, I have had those times where I read a novel or a poem, or I view a play or a film, and I am amazed at the many ways it can speak to me, over and over again. My enthusiasm may frustrate others, and they grow annoyed with my constant interest.

“There he goes again,” someone once said about me, “trying to discover truth!” The snicker and the rolling of the eyes told me all I needed to know about that.

It was intended as an insult, but I tried to take it as a compliment. I wondered to myself, fighting a sense of resentment, what else might possibly be worth discovering? Everything else, pleasure and pain, success and failure, happiness and misery, hinge upon that very first need.

I observe all the greed, the hatred, the lies, and, above all else, the ignorance behind it. What can I possibly do about that? Can I fix other people, and make them think with an open mind, or act with a loving heart? What nonsense. Only they can do that for themselves. I can try to help them, but the choices are theirs.

What remains for me is to strive to be good myself, not as an exercise in vanity, but as a commitment to that very truth some others might disdain. I must struggle with the temptation to be served, and insist that I am only here to serve. A man is, after all, a creature defined by his own choices and actions, not by the choices and actions of others.

The only obstacle to doing this is my own confusion. I must first seek what is good and just through my own thinking and doing, and then also seek to surround myself with people who share in that same purpose. Poor ground yields no fruit.

Then, both virtue and decency are inside of me, as well as outside of me. It isn’t rocket science. It’s as simple as that.

Then, I may rest content that I have done my best, in the company of others doing their best.

7.43

No joining others in their wailing, no violent emotion.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.43 (tr Long)

The term “stoic” or “stoical” in common usage indicates someone who can endure hardship, will not complain, or does not express emotion. Accordingly, it can also easily take on the negative meaning of a person who is unfeeling, uncaring, or coldly rational.

This is unfortunate, and falsely assumes that a life lived with calm, contentment, and self-control must surely also be completely emotionless. The problem is that because the Stoic does not act with great extremes of frantic feeling, it is concluded that he must have no feelings at all.

Now I know some people who live their lives in ways that are very Stoic, directly or indirectly, and who also happen to come across as very mild, restrained, or reserved. At the same time, I know just as many people who embrace Stoic-like values who also happen to come across as quite expressive, outgoing, and passionate. Of course the Stoic has feelings, just because he is human, and the sense of commitment he lives with, whatever his personality may be, does not proceed from repressing or denying these feelings. In fact, I would say that he actually embraces them fully, and he is able to do so because he can understand, and therefore be the master of, his passions.

A better grasp of who the Stoic really is would be, I suggest, not that he lacks emotion, but that he seeks to have ordered and balanced emotions. He works to let sound judgment about what is right and good guide his choices and actions, and so he is not swept this way and that by his desires and aversions. That’s hardly repression; it’s called character.

Having passions isn’t a problem, but not being able to rule them certainly is. Of course I feel pleasure and pain, affection and anger, excitement and weariness, while also recognizing that I have lost my way if I allow them to overwhelm me. Turbulent, hectic, and erratic passions are the problem.

My own experience has taught me that building good habits in guiding my feelings actually makes it possible for me to feel with greater meaning and depth. My attempts at living in a Stoic manner, however incomplete they may be, have allowed me to become a far more caring and compassionate person. I sadly suspect the man who calls himself Stoic, but acts without the deepest sympathy, is embracing the word, but not the task.

Whenever I allow myself to succumb to whining and complaining, for example, I know this follows only from my resentment, and I further know that my resentment follows from permitting my estimation to be swamped by the force of my feelings.

Temperance is a sadly neglected virtue, but still as necessary as it ever was.

7.44

From Plato:

But I would make this man a sufficient answer, which is this: You do not speak well, if thou think that a man who is good for anything at all ought to consider the hazard of life or death, and should not rather look to this only in all that he does, whether he is doing what is just or unjust, and the works of a good or a bad man.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.44 (tr Long)

Socrates, Plato, the Stoics, and many other seekers of wisdom from different times and places, share a common theme on what makes for the best life. It isn’t a terribly complex, obscure, or abstract principle, and can perhaps even be stated in a single sentence:

Virtue, the act of living well itself, is the highest good for human nature, and all other conditions or qualities can only be measured relative to an excellence of character.

For me, this has always meant that I must first and foremost ask myself if I am acting according to wisdom, courage, temperance, and justice, and consider if my thoughts and deeds are ordered to respecting both my own human dignity and the human dignity of others.

Should I also be rich? If it might help me build my character, then I should take it. But if it will only hinder my character, then I should leave it.

Should I also have pleasure and comfort? If it might help me build my character, then I should take it. But if it will only hinder my character, then I should leave it.

Should I also be honored and revered? If it might help me build my character, then I should take it. But if it will only hinder my character, then I should leave it.

Should I also have a healthy body over a sick body? If it might help me build my character, then I should take it. But if it will only hinder my character, then I should leave it.

Should I also live a longer life over a shorter life? If it might help me build my character, then I should take it. But if it will only hinder my character, then I should leave it.

Now that last one may sound the hardest, but I have found that all of those questions can be difficult in their own way. It is really about what I choose for my priorities, and why I might choose them. As often as I am tempted to wander away, something will always pull me back, and that is the recognition that nothing whatsoever in this world, no quality inside of me or outside of me, will be of any use if I have a crooked soul behind it all.

“Well,” I might proudly tell myself, “just look at all the things I have!” Then another part of me speaks up. “Yes, but where is the value in what I am doing?”

For the Stoic, this distinction corresponds to our circumstances and our actions, to what is beyond our power and to what is within our power. Yes, a man may be a wealthy animal, or a well-fed animal, or an admired animal, or a long-lived animal.  Being a rational animal, however, it really only matters whether he is living as a moral animal.

I find nothing more decent in myself than when I care about this, and nothing more disgusting in myself than when I say I care, but I end up doing something quite different.

7.45

For thus it is, men of Athens, in truth: wherever a man has placed himself, thinking it the best place for him, or has been placed by a commander, there in my opinion he ought to stay and to abide the hazard, taking nothing into the reckoning, either death or anything else, before the baseness of deserting his post.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.45 (tr Long)

Continuing with his reference to Plato’s Apology, Marcus Aurelius points to the parallel between following one’s conscience and standing one’s ground in battle. Now the analogy may seem a bit too masculine for some, but there is certainly a common virtue at play, what can be called fortitude, courage, or bravery, the willingness to confront what I fear for the sake of what I know to be right and good.

Though my reflections can be deeply confessional at times, sometimes to a fault, there are experiences in my life I choose never to share any details of at all. In a few instances, I have faced fear so powerful I thought it would melt me on the spot, and the very thought of these times can still leave me as a trembling mess. What I have learned from such terrifying impressions is the willingness to distinguish between what the world can take from me, and what I can surrender of myself.

Sometimes I might be afraid of shame, or of losing what I think are my rightful possessions, or of having my freedom taken from me, or of pain, either physical or emotional, or even of dying. What makes fear so powerful, I notice, is the expectation of what I suspect is likely to happen next.

When I crushed my thumb as a child, the worst part of it was actually looking at that squashed and mangled piece of me, hardly recognizing it at all, and still feeling nothing at all. It was the physical agony I knew would soon follow that scared me so much.

Oddly enough, when it did inevitably follow, it was more bearable than the worry about it, and I suffered more from the thoughtless babble by a nurse about possible amputation than I did from my every nerve being on fire.

So what am I actually afraid of? The prospect of losing something I care about, and the torture of continuing suffering that seems to serve no purpose, and the crippling doubt about whether I can manage to bear it.

I would probably have brushed this off when I was younger, but I see that my conscious thinking often brings me far more fear than any emotional instinct or physical feeling ever could. And so I wonder, can I conquer my fear not merely by being toughened to pain, but by being sound in my judgments?

If I look at what I might lose, what my circumstances may take away from me, do I not see that this really has little to do with me? If I look at the merit of my own choices and actions, do I not see how this is so much more important?

So maybe I will be ridiculed, or robbed, or locked up, or have my heart broken, or be tortured, or be killed. What are they to me, since they can be done to me anyway, at any time?

But I can leave those things where they are, for what they are, and still decide to do the right thing. That is entirely up to me. My estimation will make all of the difference, about what matters more, and about what matters less.

Courage doesn’t necessarily take a big man. It takes a good man.

7.46

But, my good friend, reflect whether that which is noble and good is not something different from saving and being saved; for as to a man living such or such a time, at least one who is really a man, consider if this is not a thing to be dismissed from the thoughts.

And there must be no love of life: but as to these matters a man must entrust them to the deity and believe what the old women say, that no man can escape his destiny, the next inquiry being how he may best live the time that he has to live.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.46 (tr Long)

Classical thinking in general, and Stoic thinking in particular, will sometimes stand in sharp contrast to many of the attitudes we take for granted in contemporary life. This is surely one of those times; the modern reader may at the very least be confused, perhaps even deeply offended by such a passage.

But I will never assume that this is just a matter of the old versus the new, or blindly reject one attitude for the sake of another. Rather, I should try to understand how and why the difference arises, and what it tells me about the way our first principles can lead us down quite different paths.

We are familiar with the idea that living is good, and that dying is bad, and so we should take our very survival as an inherent good. The Stoic will look at this a bit differently. It is not merely the purpose of something to exist alone, but to act according to its nature, and so a human being should not just live, but seek to live well. Given that it is our nature to think and to choose, to know the true and love the good, the life well lived is the life of wisdom and virtue.

If this is the purpose for which I am here, then I should make all other things subservient to this greatest good. Therefore I should be indifferent to how much wealth I acquire, or how much pleasure I receive, or how popular I am, or, yes, even how long I live.

This means that a life well lived is not necessarily a longer or a shorter life; neither is inherently good or bad, and either can offer the opportunity to live well.

This does not mean that the Stoic neglects life, or seeks death. I may indeed prefer to live a long life, and all other things being equal, I would be free to pursue it; but if living longer requires that I abandon my character, then I must gladly and willingly surrender the former for the latter.

Indifference, in the Stoic sense, isn’t about not caring, but rather about not wanting relative things for their own sake. All of this proceeds from the premise that human worth is not in the quantity of living, but in the quality of living, and that such quality is measured not by the circumstances around us, but by the virtues within us.

We moderns may also frown upon ideas like destiny, or fate, or Providence, but the Stoic simply understands that many things happen that proceed from causes beyond our own power. Now we may angrily fight against these, or we may graciously accept them, knowing that Nature does nothing in vain, and orders all thing toward the good.

It isn’t ultimately up to me how long I have, but it is completely up to me what I’m going to do with it.

7.47

Look round at the courses of the stars, as if you were going along with them; and constantly consider the changes of the elements into one another; for such thoughts purge away the filth of the earthly life.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.47 (tr Long)

Sometimes the weight of the everyday can drag us down. Situations may seem filled with frustration, discouragement, boredom, and a lack of purpose. I remind myself, however, that the problem is hardly with the situations. The problem is in my thinking.

Something is frustrating when I believe it to be a burden. Something is discouraging when I allow myself to be overwhelmed. Something is boring when I fail to find what is true and good within it. Something will only reveal its purpose when understood in relationship to other things, within the whole.

The world only seems mundane and meaningless when I am thinking small. I need to think big. No, not in the sense many will use the term, the constant quest for greater power and profit, which is still another form of small thinking. I mean thinking big in the sense, rather, of recognizing that every existing thing, however seemingly tiny or insignificant, plays a part in the harmony of all things. Nature is indeed grand and beautiful, and each little thing contributes to that grandeur and beauty.

There is a good reason we can be so impressed by the motions of the stars above, or the transformations in the natural world around us. That isn’t just something for dreamers, or poets, or hopeless romantics. To gaze upon the glory of such things is a reminder that we are all an aspect of something greater, and that all the things that seem so big when I cast my head downward actually become quite small when I raise my eyes up.

When I still lived in the city, all the pollution of fumes, noise, and light could sometimes make it harder for me to experience a sense of meaning and belonging in the world around me. Still, even then I could appreciate the vast web of connections between so many people, each one acting out his own life while still joined so completely to every other life around him. But the one thing I would always look forward to during a trip far away from the city was the chance to gaze at a clear night sky.

There are all sorts of ways to keep in touch with a sense of wonder and purpose, a profound respect for the order and balance of things both big and small. I find I can also share in it when I read a book, or smoke my pipe, or watch the birds in my yard, or go for a walk or a ride to nowhere in particular. Most of all, I can enjoy it whenever or wherever I can just stop, look, and listen. Most anywhere can actually do, if only I keep an open mind and heart.

This is all the more important when I am diverted by my self-imposed irritations and worries. I am adding all of those, and they are completely unnecessary. I will only harm myself if I obsess about my petty problems, and I will only benefit myself if I perceive everything with a proper sense of scale and proportion.

7.48

This is a fine saying of Plato: That he who is discoursing about men should look also at earthly things as if he viewed them from some higher place.

He should look at them in their assemblies, armies, agricultural labors, marriages, treaties, births, deaths, noise of the courts of justice, desert places, various nations of barbarians, feasts, lamentations, markets, a mixture of all things and an orderly combination of contraries.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.48 (tr Long)

If I see the world only through the lenses of my own feelings, my attractions and aversions, I am really only seeing myself imposed on everything around me, and so everything will take on the tint of my prejudice. Good and evil become what is pleasant or unpleasant for me, right and wrong whatever is convenient or inconvenient for me.

There is a better way. I can move beyond the influence of my own impressions, and I can take mastery over them. I can try to see things not only as they are for me, but also as they are in and of themselves. I can seek to find a loftier perspective, where I don’t just notice this or that part, but I can appreciate a sense of the whole. Anything that may have appeared as overwhelming, pointless, or unfair when viewed from too close can now perhaps be seen in a proper context from further away.

When I can appreciate the order and purpose of the relationships within all of Nature, so much of the frustration and conflict I assumed can pass away. There are so many things in this world, all distinct and different in their own way, but all of them play their own part. There are so many changes happening at all times, the constant tension of opposites, but all of them exist within a harmony.

As a child, I would always love seeing the scenery from the top of a mountain, or the city from the top of a skyscraper. There was a certain sense of awe in it, as well as of peace. In later years, I would think of that line from Browning:

God's in his heaven—

All's right with the world!

Recently, my wife dropped me off at the airport early one morning for a trip back to Boston. There was much worry on my mind, about never seeming to be able to make ends meet, about how unhappy my children seemed at their school, about all the nastiness, abuse, and petty politics at my work. I was even concerned that another trip back to where I grew up would wake up too many sleeping demons.

So I peered out the window as the plane took off, and got lost in the view as we flew ever higher. I noticed certain landmarks down below, and realized our path would take us straight over the little town I now lived in. I could still see individual houses, and the little colored specks of moving cars. I looked very carefully, and spotted my own house, with our bright blue car in the driveway. They had already made it home, and were surely having breakfast.

It was seeing that little corner of my own life as a part of the much bigger world around it that helped me, then and there, to understand and accept that world as it was, not merely as I would desire it to be. A bit of height helped to give me that context.

7.49

Consider the past, such great changes of political supremacies.

You may foresee also the things that will be. For they will certainly be of like form, and it is not possible that they should deviate from the order of the things which take place now.

Accordingly, to have contemplated human life for forty years is the same as to have contemplated it for ten thousand years. For what more will you see?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.49 (tr Long)

I was always rather dim when it came to politics, not because I couldn’t think for myself, but because I was foolishly too submissive to others who spoke with style and confidence. I recall a “Young Republican”, complete with the patriotic tie clip, trying to convince me that I could be the cock of the walk. I also recall a “Voice for Change” girl, complete with the nose piercing, trying to convince me that I could end the arms race and world hunger just by signing a petition.

Perhaps age has slowed me down, but perhaps also a touch of wisdom, just a little bit, has set me right. The world will never be fixed by the politicians, not of any sort. This has been true since the beginning, and it will always be true.

It will not be made better by the grandstanding of ideology, or by yelling, or by attacking the other side. What is helpful won’t come from the top down, from force and intimidation, but only from the bottom up, from the free choice of individual efforts.

The world will only be improved by love. As hokey as it sounds, I believe it to be true. I care little for your party, or for your agenda, or for your platform. I care only for my neighbor, whether he lives next door, or is a million miles away. I do not care about his race, or his creed, or his color, or his beliefs. Every man or woman is my brother or sister. It’s as simple as that.

Don’t tell me how to live, if you can’t love your neighbor. Your neighbors are not the people you happen to like, or who seem to agree with you, or who travel in your narrow social circles. Love has no bounds.

Yet you tell me that I am unacceptable, because we may disagree about some of the specifics of what is right or wrong. Instead of showing understanding and respect, you offer dismissal and condemnation. You exclude me, whatever side you happen to be on, and you spit your venom. Passion triumphs over reason.

All of us were made to be together, and not apart. Can’t you see that? How does the mockery, and how do the insults, make us any better?

Yes, others do wrong. Let’s not do wrong in return. Others hate. Let’s not hate in return. Others deceive. Let’s not deceive in return. Others play the game. Let’s not play it.

Marcus Aurelius, himself a man of great power, understood that the way of human politics has always been the same, and will surely always remain the same. This is because human nature is what it always was, and always will be. Man is capable of both baseness and greatness. Man always becomes better through his own personal conscience and character, and never by the strength of arms or the banner he waves.

If we judge by the ways of those who seek might, we will inevitably lose. If we judge by the ways of those who seek understanding, we may still have something to gain, but by one life at a time. There is nothing new under the sun.

7.50

That which has grown from the earth to the earth,

But that which has sprung from heavenly seed,

Back to the heavenly realms returns.

This is either dissolution of the mutual involution of the atoms, or a similar dispersion of the incorruptible elements.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.50 (tr Long)

We are sad to see good things go away, and happy to see bad things go away. First, of course, whether they are good or bad for us depends entirely on us, but further, why should their staying or going make them any better or worse? Is the quality of their benefit or harm in any way increased by the quantity of the time they endure?

Something is completely what it is at any moment that it exists, and becomes no more of what it is by existing at any other moment. Its nature is whole whenever or wherever it is.

We say, “Take a picture, it’ll last longer!” Does it really need to last longer? A book is no better if it takes more time to read, and a sunset would be no more beautiful if it lasted all day. My love for a friend is no deeper if we have a day or a decade together, and my life is no greater for being lengthier.

Like a good meal, just because there is more of it does not make it better, yet we still confuse “how much” with “how good”. When faced with the fact that what we prefer will cease to be, this makes us uncomfortable. Why can’t it go on and on and on? It hardly seems fair.

Yet it is quite fair, because everything that comes into being has the complete opportunity to be according to its nature, whether for longer or shorter, and then to serve on by contributing to the nature of a something else. It comes together, it disperses, and it becomes something new.

Marcus Aurelius is here referring to lines from a play by Euripides, and it is always a part of the drama of life that we will either long for change or fear it. People may pine for what has gone away, or be eager for what is to come, but we hardly need to do either. It will be when it is meant to be, and it will cease to be when it has played its part. There is no need to hold it in place, or to rush it along.

Discover what is good within it, appreciate it, be grateful for it, and be happy that it has passed into something else to discover, appreciate, and be grateful for.

Whatever it was made of, it will return back into, each thing according to its own nature and parts. But what exactly will happen to it, and, more importantly perhaps, what will happen to me? Surely it is enough to know that each thing goes back to its source, whatever it may be, and that this will be an expression of what is right and good. There need be no worries where the ways of Nature are concerned.

7.51

With food and drinks and cunning magic arts

Turning the channel's course to escape from death.

The wind which heaven has sent

We must endure, and toil without complaining.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.51 (tr Long)

The Philosopher-Emperor continues to have a thing for Euripides, and I can hardly blame him. A good tragedy can do much to cleanse the soul.

Now how much of my time have I wasted in improving the health of my body, with all sorts of cures and treatments, costing me many and many thousands of dollars? And yet how much have I committed to my soul, the health of my character?

I had honestly lost count when a dentist told me he would gladly fix my broken front tooth, but that he could also make me more beautiful and attractive by rearranging and rebuilding my entire mouth.

“You’ll look great! Think of how it will change you life!”

I took a deep breath. “How will pretty teeth change me? I’m a geek, a nerd, a hideous dork. My teeth feel fine. Just fix that front one so I can chew, and I’ll be happy.”

He wouldn’t give up, perhaps thinking I was a sucker for that sort of thing. “Women like good teeth!” he said

“Not the women who interest me, not at all. If a woman loves me for my smile, she’s hardly a good woman.”

He frowned and gave up, and then fixed the broken tooth. To this day, it sits crooked, but it does exactly what Nature made it to do. It helps me to bite off my food.

Look at all of the magic arts we appeal to in order to improve our lives, and all of the magic arts we use to lengthen our lives. One day it wasn’t about teeth anymore. It was about surviving.

“Look, we can put you on some great drugs, and there are all sorts of surgical options. I’m going to suggest we place you on the surgical schedule right now.”

“Why?”

I’ve never seen a more dumbfounded look in my life. “So you can live longer, obviously!”

“Why do I need to live longer? Is it worth months of living like a vegetable in bed, only to end up dying just a bit later in any event, and leaving my family with crippling medical bills?”

The poor fellow was aghast. “But you might live for a few more years. . . “

And there’s the thing. We fight against Nature to make ourselves younger and prettier, and we fight against Nature to make ourselves survive for just a little bit more. All the time, we are forgetting that this is not the most important struggle.

Face the wind. I walk into the wind while I can, and I gladly let it blow me away when I no longer can. There is no shame in it, and there is actually great dignity in it. Disease, old age, and death will come, and all that remains to be decided is how I will choose to take it.

7.52

Another may be more expert in casting his opponent; but he is not more social, nor more modest, nor better disciplined to meet all that happens, nor more considerate with respect to the faults of his neighbors.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.52 (tr Long)

The wrestler may be stronger or more skilled in the ring, but that does not make him the better man.

I think of all the different qualities we admire in others, and then how we judge human merit based upon such traits. We think highly of intelligence, wit, charm, and eloquence. We stand in awe of physical beauty and prowess. We respect influence, position, and authority.

Now all of these things can be used for benefit, and they can also be used for harm. None of them will ever really do us any good if they are not guided by moral character.

I think of all the different times I was impressed by a woman’s elegance or a man’s toughness, the diligence of a hard worker or the insight of a scholar, the raw power of an athlete or the creativity of an artist.

Then I found that some of them were hardly great at all, because their gifts were not driven by a conscience.

I think of all aptitudes given by Nature and all the habits nurtured by practice, all the opportunities offered by circumstances and all the chances given by Providence, and I see them as wasted when they are separated from wisdom and virtue.

Without an awareness of true and false, of right and wrong, and without the conviction to act without greed or fear, they will have no value whatsoever. They are like the finest tools in the hands of a man who doesn’t know the first thing about his craft.

Perhaps I have simply happened across a few too many experiences that have discouraged me, and perhaps I am still too much of pessimist, but I have seen too many people who choose not to inform their inner voice, or who lack the courage to listen to it. There may not be a drop of malice in them at all, but they too easily fail to reflect enough, or don’t bother to care enough. And to be completely fair, I have been part of that group too often.

I can develop all the potential talents within me, and work hard at being successful in so many ways, even as “winning” in life neither begins nor ends with such measures. As with so much in Stoicism, and with so much in life, it is all about ordering the priorities of what is absolute and what is relative.

7.53

Where any work can be done conformably to the reason that is common to gods and men, there we have nothing to fear.

For where we are able to get profit by means of the activity that is successful and proceeds according to our constitution, there no harm is to be suspected.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.53 (tr Long)

We will often think of striving for happiness as if we were playing the odds. This is only true, however, if happiness is something beyond our power, or can be taken away from us, or depends on the conditions outside of us.

A few years back, I was puzzled by an article in a respected magazine that offered to tell me what my chances of being happy were, based on variables like where I lived, what my job was, whether or not I was married or had children, and how often I went on vacation. All sorts of fancy statistics were provided, and I seem to recall, at the time, that single people who worked in database administration, lived in Seattle, and liked to go skiing were most likely to be the “happiest” Americans.

Well no wonder happiness would seem like a crapshoot. It can’t be easy lining up all those blessings of circumstance. I thought I had once heard that dentists were the most content, but maybe they decided to change the rules of life a bit.

Now if happiness followed from what we received, we would most certainly rely upon whatever the world may decide to give us. We would be taking great risks, hoping that our own efforts would happen to correspond with external rewards. Happiness would hardly be guaranteed, and we would take nothing as certain.

Is it any surprise that we become so anxious? How ironic that we only want to be at peace, but our worry and frustration about life are always in opposition to such peace.

There is another road to take, and my own change in estimation can point the way. Instead of a happy life following from what is done to me, it can follow completely from what I do. My own thinking, and my own decisions, can be the measure I use to find contentment and tranquility. This may, after years of habits and assumptions, not come easy, but it is only my judgment that can stand as an obstacle. It will be so, if I so decide.

As long as I have a conscious choice, I remain the master of that choice. Where there is no longer any conscious choice, there is really nothing of “me” that remains. I will possess myself as long as there is a self. That is completely reliable, and completely certain.

There is no gamble. There is no need for fear, and no need for any suspicion of harm.

7.54

Everywhere and at all times it is in your power piously to acquiesce in you present condition, and to behave justly to those who are about you, and to exert your skill upon your present thoughts, that nothing shall steal into them without being well examined.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.54 (tr Long)

“It just happened.” “I couldn’t help myself.” “Sorry, but it’s how I felt.” “I didn’t want it to be this way.” “What else could I do?” “He made me do it!” “It isn’t fair!”

These are all expressions that follow from a weakness in ruling our own judgments and actions. I have heard them all many times, and I would be a liar if I didn’t admit that I have used them myself many times, whenever I thought I couldn’t bear the responsibility for who I am or what I have done.

A circumstance may not go as I wished, and I will be faced with a strong impression, perhaps of pain, perhaps of disappointment, perhaps of resentment. If I allow myself to be led by that impression, I have by means of it, in turn, surrendered myself to the circumstance. And so I blame the world, and I excuse myself.

If others have acted poorly, for example, and I act poorly myself in return, I have justified myself through them. But why must what others make of themselves make something of me? Why do I allow the situation to be my master, instead of mastering myself in the face of the situation? The world does not hinder or restrict my own excellence of action; I am only doing that to myself.

I can always accept things as they are, to learn from them, and thereby use them as a means to improve myself. This is never a matter of hopeless surrender, but of a profound respect for the order of all of Nature, of which I am one part among many.

I can always practice justice in the face of injustice, most especially in the face of injustice, because it allows me to make myself better even as another makes himself worse. I would happy if he were to follow my lead, but only he can decide that.

I can always focus upon my own understanding first and foremost, finding confidence in the fact that no circumstance can keep me from doing so. Attending to the present, without worry for the past or the future, is what will make serenity possible.

Perhaps the stock market may crash, or my wife may run off with my best friend, or I may find myself with some lingering disease. The weight of such situations can seem overwhelming, but such a seeming is an illusion; it begins and ends with the assumption that I am unable to be in control of my judgments, choices, and actions. Remove the assumption, and I remove the weight.

I do not need anything more to be happy than contentment with my own character, and so I can honestly decide that I want nothing more. No conditions, substitutes, or evasions are required.

The buck stops here.

7.55.1

Do not look around you to discover other men's ruling principles, but look straight to this, to what Nature leads you, both the Universal Nature through the things that happen to you, and your own nature through the acts that must be done by you.

But every being ought to do that which is according to its constitution. And all other things have been constituted for the sake of rational beings, just as among irrational things the inferior for the sake of the superior, but the rational for the sake of one another. . . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.55 (tr Long)

I would have given up long ago on seeking the truth, if I only had the example of the academics around me. I would have given up long ago on finding God, if I had only the example of the churchmen around me. I would have given up long ago on trying to be a good man, if I had only the example of those who brag that they serve what is good.

If I were to model my own life only on parroting and mimicking what most others say and do, I’d find myself in quite a mess. I would easily make wisdom a means for promotion. I would gladly sell piety for profit. I would define decency by convenience. It isn’t necessarily a good idea to just do what the Romans do.

I notice how easily we look around to test the popular mood whenever we are faced with a decision of any importance. By all means, I can observe what others think, learn from what others think, and relate to what others think, but I should never determine my own thinking by theirs.

The measure of what is true and good requires only asking, with all sincerity and humility, what it is that I am, and how what I am fits within the order of the whole of what is. I am creature made to know and to love, within a Universe given purpose and meaning through the expression of knowledge and love. My own nature, as an aspect of all of Nature.

Let me focus on what I am here for, and then I can be certain I am doing my part. Let me rightly be myself, and the rest will take care of itself. I do not need to play the part of, or let myself be ruled by, anyone or anything else. Nature will decide under what circumstances I will live, and I will then decide what I am going to make of those circumstances. What is done to me, and what I will choose to do.

There is a beautiful pattern here. Things that lack awareness, with the power to be acted upon, are given direction by things that possess awareness, with the power to act for themselves. In turn, things that possess awareness will naturally be of service to one another, just by fulfilling themselves.

No man must live the life of another, or allow his life to be lived by another. When he masters himself through the exercise of his own wisdom and virtue, it is then that he can assist others in mastering themselves through the exercise of their own wisdom and virtue.

7.55.2

. . . The first principle then in man's constitution is the social.

And the second is not to yield to the persuasions of the body, for it is the peculiar office of the rational and intelligent motion to circumscribe itself, and never to be overpowered either by the motion of the senses or of the appetites, for both are animal; but the intelligent motion claims superiority and does not permit itself to be overpowered by the others. And with good reason, for it is formed by Nature to use all of them.

The third thing in the rational constitution is freedom from error and from deception. Let then the ruling principle, holding fast to these things, go straight on, and it has what is its own.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.55  (tr Long)

Because human nature is rational, it is ordered toward cooperation with others. My conscious and deliberate choice can participate with the conscious and deliberate choice of my fellows, knowing that we all share in the same end and purpose. We are better and stronger together, not apart.

Because human nature is rational, it is ordered toward ruling both itself and whatever is beneath it. My conscious and deliberate choice can be the source of its own good, and can make good use of all my other powers. The mind can master the senses and the passions, and need not be mastered by them.

Because human nature is rational, it is ordered toward the certainty of truth over the confusion of ignorance. My conscious and deliberate choice is firmly grounded in the ability to distinguish true from false, and right from wrong. Whatever possesses a mind can know what it does, and thereby act with conviction.

I am made to live with my neighbor, I am made to have my mind rule my body, and I am made to have a clear understanding of my purpose. It perhaps sounds so obvious to me, but then I recognize how often I stray from these principles.

We exist for one another, yet I will still assume that I am in some state of war. We exist for the higher to inform the lower, but I will still act as if the lower should drag down the higher. We exist to have confidence in truth, but I will still succumb to so much doubt and fear.

Why am I fighting? Why am I still a slave? Why am I crippled by skepticism? I find that these are, of course, universal problems for all of humanity, but they are also especially prevalent in the modern age, where we are so deeply separated from a bond with Nature. We are divorced from love, fueled by violent emotion, and dismissive of the idea that there can be anything absolute beyond ourselves.

I remind myself that my commitment to Stoic living will only be as complete as my willingness to put these principles into daily practice. I should not only ponder them abstractly, but also apply them concretely. Only then will I not be swept away by confusion about who I am, why I am here, and where I should be going.

7.56

Consider yourself to be dead, and to have completed your life up to the present time; and live according to Nature the remainder that is allowed you.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.56 (tr Long)

To live life in the now, happy with who we are and how we act at this very moment, is a classic principle of Stoicism.

It follows not from any brooding terror of sudden death, but rather from the insight that what has been in the past, or what might be in the future, or even the external circumstances in the present, do not define the value of our lives. It is what we ourselves choose to think and do right now, bound to nothing else but our own virtue in action, that can make life complete, leaving nothing more to be desired.

I often think of it like a field test for moral self-sufficiency. If my life were to end immediately, or if everything in the world around me were suddenly to fall away, would I still be able to say with confidence that I am happy? How much of my sense of self actually depends on the past, the future, or on any sort of condition that is completely beyond my own power? Is it about what I am doing, or about what is done to me?

I am deceived if I understand living in the now only as an excuse for immediate gratification, thinking that I should just have my fun while I still can. Pleasure in itself is never a measure of worth, because it looks to the feeling received, not to the good or evil of what is done. It is hardly even about me, since it does not depend on the merit of my actions. It isn’t a self-sufficiency at all, but a form of slavery.

I am mistaken if I believe that I am living well, when most of what I consider good actually follows from things other than me. My possessions, my place of honor, or my positions of importance are not reflections on my character, but are rather things that come to me. What an error to say that I am happy because of my fine home, or my wonderful job, or my beautiful children. No, a good man lives well in any place, commits himself gladly to any work, and loves anyone who enters into his life.

I am misled if I confuse who I am now with who I once was, or who I might become. If I think I am happy because of something I once did, or because of something I intend to do, I am not being anything at all, but only remembering and expecting. Should it be done? Whether I did it in the right or the wrong way before, do it in the right way now. If I can do it now, why wait until later? Only now is guaranteed.

“I told her I loved her last week, and I’ll tell her again next week.” No, tell her now. And it doesn’t matter if she says it back or laughs in your face.

I try to imagine each moment as a complete whole, accepting each as it is by itself, and acting within each as if it were the only moment there will ever be. If it is indeed the last, then I can be satisfied. If I am given another moment, I can pass on the dignity of the one to the other, content with each for its own sake.

7.57

Love that only which happens to you, and is spun with the thread of your destiny. For what is more suitable?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.57 (tr Long)

The idea of destiny or fate might scare us, but this will only be so if we assume that what must of necessity happen to us is all that defines us. Events will unfold in their own way, most of them beyond our power to determine. Hard experience itself should be enough to teach us this.

If we reflect further, sound thinking should also indicate that no effect proceeds without a cause, and that all things are joined together for a reason, all of them acting with purpose for the sake of the whole. Because the Universe reveals purpose, it also reveals Intelligence.

But this may be frightening, because it seems to mean that we are just pieces being pushed about, back and forth, by far greater forces. If it all has to happen, why should we make any effort at all? It was meant to be, after all, and there’s no fighting what’s meant to be!

This misses the fact that we too share and participate in this Intelligence, and that our own thoughts, choices, and actions are not in conflict with Providence, but a very expression of it. Yes, things will happen, but now comes my distinct role. I can accept what will happen, while at the very same time understanding that what I decide to do with what happens is still entirely up to me. I am myself an active aspect of the whole, as a player is in a drama or an orchestra. I am helping to shape what is meant to be.

In other words, that there is a destiny is itself already open to the part we decide to play within that destiny. The circumstances are not up to us, but our responses certainly are up to us.

Recognizing oneself as an active participant is the key to not being frightened by fate. That way, what happens can be freely and gladly embraced, knowing that any condition, and any situation, is an opportunity to live well. Since the Stoic grasps that his happiness is in his own action, every given state of affairs offers him the chance to do something good with it.

That isn’t, for me, a scary sense of destiny, but a beautiful sense of destiny.

Still, it isn’t always easy to put this into daily practice. Why has my dearest friend turned away? Why has my son died? Why does this pain come to me, but not to others? To simply say that it happens for a reason doesn’t seem very comforting. But if I add further that a part of the reason it happens is precisely for me to do good, by it, with it, and through it, this helps me to understand.

I can love what happens, anything that happens, and find it suitable and right, if I consider how my strand in the thread is joined to all the other strands, and how my own choices can exist in harmony with other events.

7.58

In everything that happens keep before your eyes those to whom the same things happened, and how they were vexed, and treated them as strange things, and found fault with them.

And now where are they? Nowhere. Why then do you too choose to act in the same way? And why do you not leave these agitations that are foreign to Nature, to those who cause them and those who are moved by them?

And why are you not altogether intent upon the right way of making use of the things that happen to you? For then you will use them well, and they will be a material for you to work on. Only attend to yourself, and resolve to be a good man in every act that you do. And remember. . .

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.58 (tr Long)

If I choose to be dissatisfied with my circumstances, I will end up filling myself with frustration and anxiety. I may then lash out at others, or I may turn upon myself, but in either case I have failed to make anything better, and I have only made myself worse.

This may seem so obvious when I observe it in someone else, and I may wonder how anyone could be so foolish. Now let me apply the insight to myself, where I am so caught up in my own passions, and where an impartial judgment is not quite as easy. If I look carefully, I will see that I often do exactly the same things I shake my head at in others.

I may express myself with anger, sadness, desperation, or vengeance. I may become obsessed with one thing, and neglectful of anything else. I will frantically assume that if I somehow “fix” the problems around me, then my life will be right back on track. After all, if things aren’t the way I want them to be, I assume I should just push back harder, scream louder, complain with more spite, or stomp my foot with more indignation. But what it all shares in common is the misguided belief that my happiness follows from the world going my way.

I had a temper tantrum as a child because I couldn’t watch a certain show on TV, I injured my foot by repeatedly kicking a boulder when a girl told me I wasn’t worth her time, and I drank myself stupid when other people didn’t listen. I might as well have held my breath until God Himself finally gave in and handed me whatever I wanted.

One thing that always troubled me when I was younger was the way people were so quick to insult and demean one another. They seemed shocked when there was lying, cheating, murder, and mayhem in the world, but at the same time they would gladly put down the people around them, sometimes in the most vicious and heartless of ways. It seemed so unnecessary.

But then I noticed I would sometimes do exactly the same thing, and I looked at my own motives. I would speak and act poorly toward others when I wasn’t happy with my situation, and so I would turn the force of my own misery outwards at them. Could it be that they were doing much the same? Here I had thought they would diminish me because they felt superior to me, when perhaps they were diminishing me because they felt so diminished themselves.

At the root of it all is how I will decide to find my happiness, whether within myself or from the things around me, and in turn what I will decide needs fixing and changing, myself or the things around me. If I look to my own thoughts and actions, I must simply adjust my thoughts and actions when life seems to be going wrong. But if I look to making the world fit my desires, I will only find myself disturbed and enraged.

The grasping man always finds something he doesn’t like, and so he fights it. The contented man always finds something good in everything, and so he works with it. He recognizes that a frustration is an opportunity, and an obstacle is a tool for self-improvement.

I shouldn’t get angry when the world doesn’t seem right, but I should make myself right instead. It’s like the difference between slamming myself into a brick wall or sitting down for a rest under its shade.

7.59

Look within. Within is the fountain of good, and it will ever bubble up, if you would ever dig.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.59 (tr Long)

We will often search far and wide, looking for something that was with us all along. We will often have what we need right here, and we would see it if we only looked a little harder, and dug a little deeper. We are easily misled and confused by appearances. 

This applies to something as silly as finding that our keys were always in our pockets, and something as critical as finding that our happiness was always within us.

Now we will often be told to “just look inside ourselves,” even as such a phrase is quite meaningless without further explanation. It’s much like saying that something is “over there” without pointing toward anything at all. A problem with profound expressions is that they may still sound profound when we don’t really know what they mean.

What is it that is truly within me? I look, but I’m not sure what I’m looking for. I too easily look beyond it, since I will first feel drawn to what is all around me, to the comfort of images, to the pull of desires, to the security in the company of others. Sometimes that yearning for what is outside is especially strong when what I want is slightly out of reach, just around the corner, or promised for the future. I was trained for years and years by the world to think, speak, and act in just the right way, so that I could eventually get the success that would make me happy.

Yet I then feel empty, because it isn’t all that was promised. I try to look back inside myself again, and at first it doesn’t seem like there is anything there at all. Well, it may take time for my ears to adjust from all the grating noise, and for my eyes to adjust from all the flashing lights.

And there it is, what I was all along, a creature of many aspects and of many layers, but at the heart of it all, a being that can have mastery over itself through its own thought.

It isn’t simply that I have judgments, but that I make those judgments, and that those judgments order my choices, and those choices determine my actions. All sorts of things, both wonderful and frightening, may happen out there, but I am completely in control of the awareness within me. I am a creature of conscious activity, and fully capable of knowing myself, finding my place in Nature, and living with moral excellence.

In the simplest sense, if I always follow what I know is true, and if I choose to do what I know is right, I require nothing more. That is what is within me.

Once I recognize that this is completely sufficient for me to be myself, to be happy, and to be at peace, I won’t need to scramble to go out and buy something that I already own.

I don’t need to build a fancy aqueduct when I could have dug a well right in my own back yard.

7.60

The body ought to be compact, and to show no irregularity either in motion or attitude.

For what the mind shows in the face by maintaining in it the expression of intelligence and propriety, that ought to be required also in the whole body.

But all of these things should be observed without affectation.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.60 (tr Long)

“If I’m good on the inside, what does it matter how I look, or how I come across on the outside?”

Those are the words of a confident young man, convinced that he is completely right, as all young men are convinced. He has finally started to figure out that who he is, and all that really matters about him, flows from his convictions and from his character. He suddenly sees that dwelling on appearance is not only deceptive, but also so deeply destructive. So he now only cares about his inner workings, and he cares nothing at all for his outward presentation.

Surely I am not the only young fellow who went through this stage? The part about the inner workings is quite good; the part about not caring for the rest, not so much. I have rejected one extreme, only to slide into another.

No, I should never define myself by how I look to others, but who I am should surely express itself in how I look to others. I will hardly become a better man by seeming better, but I will certainly seem better if I am a better man. As is so often the case, I get my wires crossed, and I confuse the cause and the consequence.

A truly decent appearance is never about shallow qualities, but rather gives off outward signs of the virtue within. I can hardly decide how tall or short I am, or whether the proportions of my body fit whatever is trendy at the moment, but I can certainly decide to care rightly for whatever Nature has provided. I may not have the biggest or the best garden, but I will cultivate it well just the same.

I should keep my body clean, as best as I am able, as an extension of a clean soul. They taught me that in Boy Scouts, and after much complaining, I understood completely.

I should keep my body healthy, as best as I am able, because my body is the means by which my soul may act.

I should keep my body strong, as best as I am able, since a master craftsman needs a good tool.

I should keep my body confident and upright, as best as I am able, even as other may slouch and stumble. The stance of a good man or a good woman is always one that speaks of commitment.

From the old Scouting days, I remember that it will make little difference if I am mentally awake and morally straight, if I do not also strive to be physically strong.

Again, as best as I can. Nature expects no more of me than what I can do with what is given to me. How I appear matters nothing at all in and of itself, but Providence does indeed smile when how I appear tells others about who I am. This should never be about posing and posturing, but about making the body a suitable vessel for the soul.

7.61

The art of life is more like the wrestler's art than the dancer's, in respect of this, that it should stand ready and firm to meet onsets that are sudden and unexpected.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.61 (tr Long)

I have spent too much of my life thinking that all of the obstacles, from the smallest inconveniences to the most crippling of burdens, have an annoying way of showing up when I would least want them. At first, I find this unfair, and I wonder why Providence seems to make it harder when it should all be easier.

“Look at her!” I say to myself, “Never as much as a hangnail to get in the way!”

“Look at him!” I say to myself, “Always finding the profitable way out, and the rest of us sit in the dirt!”

I am, however, my own problem here, because I am confusing the proper sense of benefit and harm. A good life is never a life of ease and comfort. A good life is one of conviction and character. The reward is in the doing, not in the receiving.

Perhaps I can learn to appreciate jarring and unwanted bumps in the road. Perhaps Providence has actually done me a favor by presenting a challenge. What will become of me if I rely on convenient circumstances? I will end up lazy, entitled, and bloated with all that I have consumed.

I share in intelligence, but I am not the sum of all Intelligence. If it has happened, I can trust that it is right, even as I cannot see all ends. It was given to me for a reason, and it is my job to discover the worth within it, and to unearth the beauty and joy underneath it all.

Don’t always give me what I might want, in whatever moment of passion, but always give me what I need, so that I might become better.

He who dances, for all of his glory, follows his own routine, and with grace and skill is the master of his own motions. He who wrestles does much the same, while also being prepared for the attack he could not have predicted. He is ready, prepared for whatever may come, however much of a surprise it may seem. He stands firm, knowing that he must be on his guard for something unknown.

So while I complain about the frustrations of circumstance, or the scheming of my enemies, I should rather be grateful. It isn’t a frustration at all, and he isn’t an enemy at all. All of it is an opportunity, not to conquer the world, but to conquer myself.

7.62

Constantly observe who those are whose approbation you wish to have, and what ruling principles they possess.

For then you will neither blame those who offend involuntarily, nor will you want their approbation, if you look to the sources of their opinions and appetites.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.62 (tr Long)

At those times when there is silence around me, when I have a moment to myself, when I am about to fall asleep, or just as I am waking up, I will sometimes want to beat myself over the head.

Some of my friends will speak regularly about how much they would like to knock around other people who have hurt them. I understand, but I do not agree. I once slapped a person dear to me, and I will always regret it. I never had the chance to take it back, or to make it good.

On the very few occasions that I’ve shared anything about that shameful action, others tell me that I didn’t go far enough. They are sorely mistaken.

No, I started slapping myself instead. No harm done, I thought. But why am I hurting myself? It is because of the deepest sense of shame, because I had made such poor choices, because I knew vaguely what was right, but I did exactly what was wrong. I suspect anyone with a conscience knows that feeling, what I a call “the cringe.”

Do you know that feeling where you can’t even think about what you just did? You grit your teeth, curl up, and pretend that it isn’t real? There’s the feeling.

My own cringeworthy mistakes arose from spending time with all the wrong folks, and caring for all the wrong folks. So much about them appealed to me, but all I had to do was look at what motivated these people. They were driven by their greed, their sense of gratification, and their desire to consume. I was enamored of the glory, but then I complained about the fallout.

There is no need for beating myself, and there is no need for beating anyone else. They do wrong, but they also don’t understand. They know not what they do. I do wrong, and I also don’t understand. I know not what I do.

Let me struggle to build my own wisdom, and my character will slowly follow. Do not let me blame others. Let me not even blame myself, or punish myself, but let me improve myself.

Once I see the foolishness and vanity in those I once admired, I can decide not to admire them, and I can make a very deliberate choice not to be like them. I choose to look not at the glorious appearances, but at the thoughts and desires that motivate them. And there I see the deepest rot.

Now why would I want to be liked for living that way? Why would I want to live that way for myself? Where is the good in being a scoundrel, or being loved by scoundrels?

You say yes, and you expect me to follow? I say no, and I expect better from myself. You have offered your solution, and I choose to push it aside. You are mistaken, but I will not hate you for it. I only know that I can be better, in my own way.

Take what you will from me, but don’t try to take my conscience. Hands off.

7.63

Every soul, the philosopher says, is involuntarily deprived of truth; consequently in the same way it is deprived of justice and temperance and benevolence and everything of the kind.

It is most necessary to bear this constantly in mind, for thus you will be more gentle towards all.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.63 (tr Long)

I would hardly want to be ignorant, knowing that what I think is in error, just as I would hardly want what is bad for me, knowing that what I desire is harmful. As foolish as I may be, I am treating a falsehood as if it were a truth, and what is wrong as if it were right.

Do I deceive myself? Do I hurt myself? Yes, of course, but the tragedy is that I do so only from my own confusion. I have never found myself thinking, “I’m going to go out and do some evil today,” but even if I did use such terms, I would be assuming that whatever I’m calling evil is actually a good. I remember how in the 1980’s we liked throwing around trendy terms like “bad,” “wicked,” “ugly,” or “brutal,” but we always used them to describe desirable and admirable things.

It will at first seem odd to recognize this, but the tyrants would be just if they could, the gluttons would be temperate if they could, the haters would embrace love if they could. For whatever particular reason, wherever the responsibility lies, they don’t know any better. They pursue misery under the appearance of happiness, “they make a desert and call it peace.”

Once I grasp that vice grows out of misunderstanding, I can find it so much easier to be understanding of others. If I simply paint a man as a nasty villain, I will fill myself with contempt for him, but if I see him as a fellow suffering from a deficiency, he will more easily receive my sympathy.

After all, do I not ask for compassion whenever I have stumbled and fallen from blindly groping around in the dark? When I have made mistakes, do I not hope that others will help me to correct those mistakes, instead of casting me out?

Why should I turn another into a faceless force of evil? Why do I insist on making him my enemy? If he blunders about without a clue, much as I often do, should I not rather recognize myself in him, and call him a friend?

If I blame him for responding with hatred to the pain he feels, why do I somehow think I am justified in responding with hatred to the pain I feel? If I refuse to forgive him for his error, why do I think I should be forgiven for my errors?

I am best served by offering an embrace before I raise my fists.

7.64

In every pain let this thought be present, that there is no dishonor in it, nor does it make the governing intelligence worse, for it does not damage the intelligence either so far as the intelligence is rational or so far as it is social.

Indeed in the case of most pains let this remark of Epicurus aid you, that pain is neither intolerable nor everlasting, if you bear in mind that it has its limits, and if you add nothing to it in imagination.

And remember this too, that we do not perceive that many things which are disagreeable to us are the same as pain, such as excessive drowsiness, and being scorched by heat, and the having no appetite.

When then you are discontented about any of these things, say to yourself, that you are yielding to pain.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.64 (tr Long)

It was specifically the problem of pain that brought me closer to Stoicism, not as a theoretical interest, but as a very immediate practical necessity. My own obstacle lay in emotional suffering, a crippling melancholy, though with time I could no longer distinguish where the hurt in my mind ended and the hurt in my body began. It never seemed to help when people told me to tough it out, or offer it up, or shrug it off.

Stoicism began to remind me that I didn’t just have to take it, to somehow accept it passively; this was rather ironic, of course, because that’s what most people assume it means to be Stoic. No, there was something I could do with it, an active sense of how my own thinking could fundamentally transform how I faced my feelings, and thereby I could rebuild myself.

I can examine the pain, and look upon it without panic or despair. Those are responses, of course, that I have added to how I am feeling. What is the pain really taking from me, and what am I actually freely doing to myself?

If I think of honor in the imperfect sense of what people may think of me, then yes, people might look down on me for what can appear to be weakness; but if I understand honor in the proper sense of my own character, then pain can do me absolutely no harm. Quite the contrary, it can allow me to increase my moral worth with it and through it.

As strong as an attack from what is outside may be, my own judgment can remain firm, if only I so decide. I do not need to wonder what the pain will make of me, but I can decide what I will do with it to make myself. This will only be impossible when I assume it is impossible. While I am still living and aware, suffering is no stronger than me, and if I am no longer living and aware, then I need not concern myself with it. I am free of the burden, either way.

Pain has a limit to what it can do to me, and I need to honestly consider how much my own estimation is actually amplifying it and compounding it. Let us say, for example, that I am feeling an intense sadness. The emotion may be powerful, but what is more crippling is the sense of guilt, or blame, or resentment that I attach to it. A broken heart never killed me, but my own dark musings about a broken heart almost did.

If I can accept something as unpleasant or uncomfortable, however deeply so, I can still choose not to let it overwhelm me. It does not need to rule me, as long as I can rule myself. It is my decision itself to be satisfied or dissatisfied that makes any feeling or circumstance bearable or unbearable. I am defeated only when I surrender, and I can remain steadfast up until the moment I am destroyed.

7.65

Take care not to feel towards the inhuman, as they feel towards men.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.65 (tr Long)

One of my greatest struggles is not becoming what I hate. And then I realize how my very wording reveals a part of my problem, because I am still caught up in assuming that there is even someone or something I need to hate. I blame others, or I blame the circumstances, and I too easily end up consumed by my own resentment.

It can become a vicious trap, so I am best served by dwelling less upon what others do, and all the reasons I am frustrated, and to dedicate myself to what I can do, and all the ways I can become better.

Or put another way, when I wish to bemoan the absence of humanity, let me be more fully human myself.

I must do this when I see deception and hypocrisy. Let me face it by choosing to be honest and sincere.

I must do this when I see the delusions of ideology. Let me remember that ideas are here to serve the benefit of man, not man to serve the benefit of ideas.

I must do this when I see the vanity of power and influence. Let me act with humility to another, as much as he may lord himself over me.

I must do this when I see the obsession with consumption and gratification. Let me order my passions by what is right, instead of making what is right fit my passions.

I must do this when I see one brought down so another can be raised up. Let me treat everyone as an end in himself, and never as a means. No one is disposable.

I must do this when I see people quick to condemn what is bad, and slow to praise what is good. Let me improve rather than destroy.

Human nature is a glorious thing. Let me not foul it with ignorance and spite. Let me meet hatred with love.

Many and sharp the num'rous ills

Inwoven with our frame!

More pointed still we make ourselves

Regret, remorse, and shame!

And man, whose heav'n-erected face

The smiles of love adorn –

Man's inhumanity to man

Makes countless thousands mourn!

7.66

How do we know if Telauges was not superior in character to Socrates? For it is not enough that Socrates died a more noble death, and disputed more skillfully with the Sophists, and passed the night in the cold with more endurance, and that when he was bid to arrest Leon of Salamis, he considered it more noble to refuse, and that he walked in a swaggering way in the streets—though as to this fact one may have great doubts if it was true.

But we ought to inquire, what kind of a soul it was that Socrates possessed, and if he was able to be content with being just towards men and pious towards the gods, neither idly vexed on account of men's villainy, nor yet making himself a slave to any man's ignorance, nor receiving as strange anything that fell to his share out of the Universal, nor enduring it as intolerable, nor allowing his understanding to sympathize with the affects of the miserable flesh.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.66 (tr Long)

That we know so very little about Telauges, the Pythagorean philosopher, and that we know quite a bit more about the exploits of Socrates, might seem to tell us something about the verdicts of history. We see those whose works are bigger in scale, and more admired by others, and we think we have found the better men. After all, what mark did Telauges leave, what difference did he make? But everyone knows at least something about how Socrates changed the world!

Yet the fact that Socrates was caught up in a mighty drama, and that he performed famous deeds, should not be the measure of the man, just as the fact that Telauges is barely remembered for anything at all should not be the measure of the man. We are accustomed to looking for greatness on the outside, when we should really be looking for it on the inside.

It was never posing and posturing, or basking in esteem and glory, that made Socrates noble. For all we know, Telauges might have been just as noble a fellow, and a sign of that could well have been that neither he nor Socrates cared one bit for the trappings of power and influence. They may both have been just as willing to take them or leave them, concerned only with the character within the soul.

So the great philosopher, or the great man, only needs to look to the exercise of his own virtue, whatever the external circumstances. Has he been just, satisfied with whatever Nature has given him, in calm rule over his own passions, and guided by what is true and good over what is convenient and gratifying? That is more than sufficient. He is at peace with himself, and at peace with Providence.

I am called, in however small and unrecognized a manner, to put that ideal into practice. I see people direct their efforts towards pleasure or profit, and I don’t need to be like that. I see people define their actions by fame and fortune, and I don’t need to be like that. I see people treat others, even their own spouses and children, as tools for pride and glory, and I don’t need to be like that.

I should admire Socrates for the right reasons.

7.67

Nature has not so mingled the intelligence with the composition of the body, as not to have allowed you the power of circumscribing yourself and of bringing under subjection to yourself all that is your own; for it is very possible to be a divine man and to be recognized as such by no one.

Always bear this in mind; and another thing too, that very little indeed is necessary for living a happy life. And because you have despaired of becoming a dialectician and skilled in the knowledge of Nature, do not for this reason renounce the hope of being both free, and modest, and social, and obedient to God.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.67 (tr Long)

So many of our frustrations arise from what we perceive as our failures, our missed opportunities, and the things we couldn’t quite manage to make our own. There are the lost loves, the botched careers, or the estranged friends. There are the disappointments and recriminations that come from having played the game, and then having lost. The plans didn’t go as planned.

Stoicism, however, like any way of life that builds itself upon the merit of our own thoughts and deeds over the weight of our circumstances, might tell us that life is hardly a game we need to play, and nothing about it hangs on the uncertainty of winning or losing. There will be no prospect of losing anything at all, if we only recognize that everything we need to be completely happy is already our own. We will lose it only if we surrender it, since nothing outside of us can take it away.

I can always, if I so decide, rule myself. In my own particular sense of self-sufficiency, I share in the complete self-sufficiency that is Divine. Why should I, a creature made to act according to my own understanding, require anything beyond such action?

There are those moments where it feels like a passage was written just for me, and while it was obviously written for anyone and everyone, I will nevertheless be able to apply it so immediately to my own life. Perhaps all great wisdom is like that. I find great comfort in knowing that no amount of praise or recognition will make my living any better or worse, and that external conditions do not determine internal character.

I once foolishly thought I could make myself a scholar, but my heart was never really in it, largely because most everything I ever studied in philosophy told me that it should have nothing to do with making myself appear important. So I am especially relieved when Marcus Aurelius confirms for me that I don’t need to feel bad about not being an academic success, since it should be enough to try being a good man above all else.

I will sometimes see others drawn to Stoic thinking, fascinated by the idea that virtue is the measure of human life, yet they still feel the need to add further conditions. “It would be great to live that way, but first I’ll need to acquire a certain level of security, comfort, and possessions. Then I can worry about being virtuous.”

Sadly, that is a complete betrayal of Stoicism, because it makes the pursuit of character contingent upon, and secondary to, the pursuit of utility. It makes convenience a necessity, and virtue a luxury, when in fact it is virtue that is a necessity, and convenience a luxury.

A good life may demand much from me, but it demands barely anything at all from the world around me. Any set of circumstances will do. Even if my very survival is in question, this still does not hinder me from living well, for the time that I do live. There are no further terms and conditions attached to being wise, brave, temperate, and just.

Being somebody never asks for appearing as somebody to anyone else, and rather asks only for being fully oneself.

7.68

It is in your power to live free from all compulsion in the greatest tranquility of mind, even if all the world cry out against you as much as they choose, and even if wild beasts tear in pieces the members of this kneaded matter which has grown around you.

For what hinders the mind in the midst of all this from maintaining itself in tranquility, and in a just judgment of all surrounding things, and in a ready use of the objects which are presented to it, so that the judgment may say to the thing which falls under its observation?

This you are in substance, though in men's opinion you may appear to be of a different kind.

And the use shall say to that which falls under the hand: You are the thing that I was seeking, for to me that which presents itself is always a material for virtue both rational and political, and in a word, for the exercise of art, which belongs to man or God.

For everything that happens has a relationship either to God or man, and is neither new nor difficult to handle, but usual and apt matter to work on.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.68 (tr Long)

“I can’t take any more of this. It’s too much to handle!”

“I give up, because I can’t win!”

“I hate myself. How can I love myself when no one else will bother?”

We all like to exude complete confidence in our lives, but I’m sure there are others out there who have truly felt like this. The words may differ, but the thinking is much the same. We feel that we are losers, because we have constantly been told that we are so; we look at all the people who call themselves winners, and we throw in the towel.

I have struggled with thoughts like this for as long as I can remember. And the only remedy is to insist that my thoughts are my own, and that my life will only end as well, or as poorly, as I decide to make it. It doesn’t need to have anything to do with what I am given, but with what I choose to take from it.

Look at how angry I become when I see the clever, the slick, the entitled, or the holier-than-thou strut their stuff. But why am I angry? They didn’t do that to me; I did it to myself.

Look at how helpless I feel when I see my efforts fail, while the efforts of other succeed. But why do I feel helpless? No one hindered me; I hindered myself.

Look at the despair that consumes me when I face whatever is beyond my power. But why am I in despair? No one abandoned me; I abandoned myself.

I become consumed by anger, helplessness, or despair as soon as I tell myself the biggest of lies, that who I am depends upon everything else but who I am.

Le the situation be what it may, and let others be as they will. An old hippie friend of mine liked to say, “It’s all good!” While I first thought he was just brushing things aside, I came to see that he meant it quite literally. I wish I had listened more attentively to how he tied this to all the great themes of philosophy and religion in the world.

Another may have intended abuse and harm, but I do not need to take it as abuse and harm. I am the one making a mess of what may end up happening to me, because I am not using it rightly. “Thank you,” I could say to anything and everything. “You are just what I needed!”

Nothing is too much to handle, nothing needs to make me give up, and I don’t need to hate myself. This will be true if I view all events as occasions for good, and I depend only upon my own conscience and integrity.

Does it hurt? Does it make me stumble? Does it challenge me? Good. I can’t always change that, but I can always change myself. That is good.

My preference is never to be mauled by those ravenous animals Marcus Aurelius speaks of, but if that ever came to pass, I hope I could still say, “It’s all good!” Only my estimation decides that.

7.69

The perfection of moral character consists in this, in passing every day as the last, and in being neither violently excited, nor torpid, nor playing the hypocrite.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.69 (tr Long)

These three guidelines will remind me how and why I get confused about a good life, and what I need to do in order to get myself back on track.

Notice, of course, that at no point does Marcus Aurelius discuss how important it is in life to build up financial security, or gain leverage over others, or seek conveniences and pleasure over obstacles and pain. That is because these are aspects that, however much I may have a preference for them, will not determine anything about the real quality of my life.

No, it’s all much more fundamental than that, and actually quite a bit simpler than that. Am I living well right here and now, content with being who I am at this very moment, asking for nothing else than the goodness of my own thoughts and deeds, and demanding nothing at all from the future?

If my attention is directed at what has been, at what possibly could be, or at whatever has nothing to do with me, how is this a measure of who I am? If it is important enough to do, I should be doing it right now. If it isn’t important enough to do, it need not be a part of my grand plans.

Am I seeking a balance in my character, or am I swinging back and forth between extremes of thoughts, emotions, and actions? To be driven by too much at one moment, and by too little at another, reveals that I am not in control of my own judgments. I have surrendered my authority to either aggressive and violent passions, or weak and submissive passions.

Instead of being brave, for example, I end up being reckless or cowardly. Instead of being temperate, I end up a glutton or a insensitive. Instead of being just, I end up taking too much, or asking for too little. Walking a tightrope seems awfully hard, but like riding a bicycle, it can become second nature with practice.

In everything I do, am I doing it for its own sake, or am I concerned with the appearance of doing? The former builds character, while the latter destroys it, the difference between the man of conscience and the hypocrite. Many people believe that giving the impression of virtue will bring them profit, but the sheen on the outside is only a cover for the rot on the inside.

Do it now if you can, do it as well as you can, and do it all for the right reasons. As my father would often say when I was younger, “See? That wasn’t so hard!”

7.70

The gods who are immortal are not vexed because during so long a time they must tolerate continually men as they are, and so many of them bad. And besides this, they also take care of them in all ways.

But you, who are destined to end so soon, are you wearied of enduring the bad, and this too when you are one of them?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.70 (tr Long)

I will find myself so easily drawn to complaining, especially when I see most everyone else busy complaining. The only motive I can really discern within myself is the desire to feel that I must be right by means of pointing out how everyone else is wrong, or that I must be good because everyone else is bad. Perhaps, I think, I can seem superior by making others appear to be inferior.

Whatever another may be in himself, however, really says nothing at all about me, and as soon as I accuse him, berate him, or insult him, it changes nothing about his character, even as it changes quite a bit about my character. I am annoyed by someone doing evil, and by doing so I have only let evil into my own soul.

Two things can help me here: knowing that this too shall pass, and recognizing that I myself am a very part of the problem.

If I remember that what I choose to find an annoyance is hardly permanent, is not the end of the world, and is far less important than I am making it, them I will have made it far less threatening in my estimation. If I see it as only one tiny aspect of the whole, I have, in a sense, thought it out of significance for me.

I can put it all into perspective. To me, right here and now, something may seem quite terrible, but in the grand scheme of things, in the order of Providence, it too has its place. Even this minuscule irritation exists for a purpose, and if I can consider the purpose, it will precisely cease to be an irritation to me.

Furthermore, let me hold a mirror to myself. I gripe about what is wrong, but I should also observe how often I am myself wrong. Would I then wish to be yelled at, or would I prefer to be helped? How am I making what is wrong into something right, or am I actually just making it even more wrong by my arrogance and resentment?

I can let myself become angry when I see ignorance, carelessness, greed, or deception. I am then left with the exact same ignorance, carelessness, greed, or deception in others, and I have compounded the problem by adding my own rage to the picture. I am better served if I reply with wisdom, concern, charity, or integrity. Then I have made myself better, and there is even a chance I might assist someone else in becoming better.

Look what we have done with the Internet revolution. With all those means available to us, we actually seem to understand less, and complain more. The next time I read something posted out of ignorance or malice, I really don’t need to try and “fix” it by being offended.

7.71

It is a ridiculous thing for a man not to fly from his own badness, which is indeed possible, but to fly from other men's badness, which is impossible.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.71 (tr Long)

We may be very picky about keeping company with bad folks, because, of course, their badness may rub off on us.

Yet we may not be quite so picky about being bad to the bad folks, about harming them, demeaning them, and having quite a fine time slandering them.

Sometimes I’m not sure where the worst of the bad really is.

I think of the times I have felt hurt by people, and then I spent ten times more effort in trying to hurt them back. I assumed this was my way of running away from their evil, when all I was really doing was running headlong into my own evil.

I notice how I sometimes wish to express my anger at someone else, and I somehow think I am doing him a favor by putting him in his place. I should never deceive myself. It is not my place to be his judge, jury, and executioner. I perceive an action as wrong, so I then brilliantly do another wrong myself.

As a child, some friends of the family had a little sculpture on their bookshelf, rather kitschy, of three monkeys, one covering his ears, another his eyes, and the last his mouth. I was fascinated by it, and would go to look at it every time we were at their house.

Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil.

Even back then, it made me think. How much of what is bad in me comes from the outside, and how much of it comes from the inside? Can I ever really shut myself off from evil out there, even as I should concern myself about avoiding evil in here?

All of this was already leading me to a rather Stoic conclusion: I cannot change what others will do, but I can always change what I will do.

Now why am I demanding that they change their ways to suit mine? How are my tantrums making anything better? Let me attend to myself. I should respect others enough to allow them their follies, but I should not make them my own.

Can I change what they say? No, but I shouldn’t be fooled by listening to it. Can I change what they do? No, but I shouldn’t be be misled into following it. Can I change what I say and do in response to what they say and do? Yes. There’s the trick.

It isn’t my place to fix them, even as it is my place to fix me.

7.72

Whatever the rational and political faculty finds to be neither intelligent nor social, it properly judges to be inferior to itself.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.72 (tr Long)

The trend of our age is to denigrate reason, to push it aside, or to explain it away. The irony that explaining anything is itself an act of reason is hardly lost on me.

Aristotle famously defined man as a rational animal, but we now like to make man just an animal. I recently read an article in a fancy psychology publication that argued how human beings aren’t really driven by their thinking at all—it’s all about our instincts and our feelings. So we see the author confidently using a rational argument to insist that we aren’t really rational. Got it.

But the Classical understanding of man as rational doesn’t mean that we don’t have emotions, or that they do not influence us, or that possessing reason automatically means we will all act in the most reasonable way.

A human being is hardly a Cartesian mind in a vat, and human nature is not either rational or emotional, but both rational and emotional.

Nevertheless, even as human nature is markedly passionate, it is our judgment and choice that will determine what we make of our passions. Even if I allow myself to be ruled by my feelings, I have still made the conscious decision to do so. The higher power of intellect has authority over the lower power of the appetites.

As a creature of mind, I can know myself, I can know what I do and why I do it, and I can distinguish true from false, and right from wrong. I am not merely moved by what is around me, but I am the mover of my own actions. This is why reason is the superior power.

Furthermore, as a being who can understand what is good, I am also a being who can consciously and freely share in the good of others. I am made to live with my fellows, to cooperate with them, and to assist them, because we can all understand that we are ordered toward the same end.

I am here to be conscious of my purpose, to be conscious of the purpose of my neighbors, and to use that awareness for our common benefit. I am rational, so I am therefore also social. These are at the pinnacle of my existence, and anything else must take a lower place.

A friend was once trying to explain a choice she had made to me, and she grew exasperated with my questions. Many people I know have unfortunately felt that very same frustration.

“I need you to understand what I’m feeling!” she said.

“Yes,” I replied as patiently as I could. “I’m sorry, I am trying to make sense of it.”

“It doesn’t need to make any sense! I just did it because I felt that way!”

I could only give her a friendly hug, because there is no point in trying to understand something that doesn’t make sense. I could only think of all the times I too have flipped my own priorities, and confused the superior and the inferior in my life.

Just because I surrendered my reason did not make me a creature lacking in reason; I had simply misused and misdirected the power within me.

7.73

When you have done a good act and another has received it, why do you look for a third thing besides these, as fools do, either to have the reputation of having done a good act or to obtain a return?

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.73 (tr Long)

Some people will tell me that all actions should be completely selfless, where we get no benefit from them at all, and others will tell me what seems to be the total opposite, that no actions can ever be selfless, because we will only do what benefits us. I suspect part of the confusion comes from what we even mean by a benefit for ourselves or for others.

As is so often the case in life, we easily assume contradictions where none need be present. I remember a classic false dichotomy from logic class, “Did you walk to school or bring your lunch?” One doesn’t necessarily exclude the other, of course, and that also goes for helping others and helping ourselves as well.

When I have done something good for another, I have helped him to live well. In doing so, I have also helped myself to live well. If the good in human life is measured by virtue, there is no reason that all of our actions, both in what is offered and in what is received, can be good for us. If man is rational, and therefore also social, by nature, he can consciously and freely share all his benefits.

As soon as people have a different idea of what benefits are, however, the situation can easily change. If a benefit involves gaining wealth, or power, or honor, then this may well conflict with the circumstances of others, and with both our own virtue and the virtue of others. The conflict will only arise from a confused sense of the good.

I will surely only be selfish when I demand something beyond the good of my nature, or when I demand something at the expense of another; there is no shame in the reward of being good and giving of that good.

I run into a problem when I am still looking for more and more, since I am not yet happy with the act of living well for it’s own sake. I am ignorant of the happiness to be found within me, so I seek it in other things, believing that I must take them from others.

Where there is no moral worth in my own thoughts and deeds, I seek worth in possessions. Where I lack control over my own character, I seek to exercise control over others. Where I cannot be content with a respect for myself, I seek to acquire respect from others.

But why should I even want these sorts of perks? They are only weak substitutions for the real thing. The benefit was already there simply by doing what was good, and it was a double blessing when another could also make good of it. No more is required.

It becomes so much easier to love, to see it as an opportunity instead of a burden, when I understand that love is its own reward.

7.74

No man is tired of receiving what is useful. But it is useful to act according to Nature.

Do not then be tired of receiving what is useful by doing it to others.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.74 (tr Long)

Convinced that everything needs to be some sort of transaction, and assuming that life has to be confrontational, many of us will think that where one man has gained something, another man needs to lose something. It seems absurd to us that giving can be a form of receiving, and that simply acting well requires no other return.

I don’t need to look far to see people calculating their profits. I am given kindness when I offer an advantage, treated with respect when I have money to spend, or called a friend when I am pleasant and amusing. I often feel like quite a stranger when I insist that kindness has no conditions, respect requires no reward, and friendship is offered through thick and through thin. These qualities are hardly virtues anymore if we treat them like some commodity.

Stoic ethics, like any model of life built around the order of Nature, defines me by my actions themselves, not by any circumstances beyond those actions. My happiness is in what I do, not what is done to me, and so I can rightly say what I get out of life is itself what I give. Virtue doesn’t need to lead to any reward, because virtue is already the reward.

Every first-year business student will tell you that the purpose of a business is to make a profit, which involves spending as little as you can in order to make as much as you can. Yet I will still occasionally run across a business owner, a craftsman, or a professional who sincerely believes that the true goal of any trade should be to provide the best service. Now people may pay you to do a good job, but one shouldn’t do a good job simply to get paid. Most people will laugh at such a ridiculous idea, but the good man, the Stoic at heart, understands. He would choose to be honest and poor over being dishonest and rich.

I run around looking for what is useful or beneficial, and whatever else I may prefer in life, I forget that the most useful or beneficial thing I can ever do for myself is to act with justice, with concern, with commitment, and with integrity. The more that I give of myself, the more I receive, simply because nothing is morally superior to the dignity of action itself. No one else has to be parted from what is useful for me to acquire what is useful. 

I should never find the worth of my character to be insufficient for a good life, because as long as I have life and choice, there can be an unending supply of decency within me.

7.75

The Nature of the All moved to make the Universe. But now either everything that takes place comes by way of consequence or continuity. Otherwise even the chief things towards which the ruling power of the Universe directs its own movement would be governed by no rational principle.

If this is remembered, it will make you more tranquil in many things.

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7.75 (tr Long)

As moderns, we tend to doubt everything away in a cloud of skepticism, crawl into ourselves in a blind subjectivism, and remove any accountability in a thoughtless relativism. The default setting is to assume that nothing means anything, there is no rhyme or reason, and stuff just randomly happens until we die. Philosophers dwell on themes like dread, anxiety, alienation, and forlornness. As my uncle liked to say with his usual wry grin, “No wonder everyone’s so cranky.”

I have long found Stoic thinking to be a profound comfort in the face of such pointless gloom. While some dismiss Stoic physics and cosmology as outdated and irrelevant to the modern world, I consider it a firm foundation for the pursuit of the good life. In the simplest sense, Nature always acts for a purpose, and the order in all things proceeds from Universal Reason. I know this not only because I observe around me the pattern of change directed toward ends, but also because I know that the principle of causality is a logical necessity, and that wherever there is design, there also is Intelligence.

This does not merely mean that somewhere in a distant, murky past, the Universe was set into motion, and that the principles by which it came to be then just disappeared. Insofar as all action proceeds as an effect follows from a cause, so that cause is as fully present “now” as it was “then”. Universal Reason is immanent, present within all things, and informing all things.

And none of this needs to be seen only as an abstract mystical musing, because it can have a very immediate effect on the daily practice of living. If I know that I am made for a reason, then my life already has an inherent meaning and dignity, even when I may become confused about that meaning. If I know that everything in the world happens for a reason, I can be at peace with what happens, even when I am startled by what happens. I may not know how all the parts fit together, but I can be certain that they are made for the harmony of the whole.

When I tell myself that Nature does nothing in vain, I am not just making some deep statement. I am quite practically remembering that I have a place, that everything has its place, and that my world is charged with purpose.