Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome) [34]
One possible answer.
But we shouldn’t think only of the mass of buried bodies. There are the ones consumed, on a daily basis, by us and by other animals. How many are swallowed up like that, entombed in the bodies of those nourished by them, and yet there is room for them all—converted into flesh and blood, transformed to air and fire.
How is the truth of this determined?
Through analysis: material and cause.
22. Not to be driven this way and that, but always to behave with justice and see things as they are.
23. To the world: Your harmony is mine. Whatever time you choose is the right time. Not late, not early.
To nature: What the turn of your seasons brings me falls like ripe fruit. All things are born from you, exist in you, return to you.
The poet says “dear city of Cecrops . . .” Can’t you bring yourself to say “of Zeus”?
24. “If you seek tranquillity, do less.” Or (more accurately) do what’s essential—what the logos of a social being requires, and in the requisite way. Which brings a double satisfaction: to do less, better.
Because most of what we say and do is not essential. If you can eliminate it, you’ll have more time, and more tranquillity. Ask yourself at every moment, “Is this necessary?”
But we need to eliminate unnecessary assumptions as well. To eliminate the unnecessary actions that follow.
25. And then you might see what the life of the good man is like—someone content with what nature assigns him, and satisfied with being just and kind himself.
26. You’ve seen that. Now look at this.
Don’t be disturbed. Uncomplicate yourself.
Someone has done wrong . . . to himself.
Something happens to you. Good. It was meant for you by nature, woven into the pattern from the beginning.
Life is short. That’s all there is to say. Get what you can from the present—thoughtfully, justly.
Unrestrained moderation.
27. An ordered world or a mishmash. But still an order. Can there be order within you and not in everything else? In things so different, so dispersed, so intertwined?
28. Character: dark, womanish, obstinate. Wolf, sheep, child, fool, cheat, buffoon, salesman, tyrant.
29. Alien: (n.) one who doesn’t know what the world contains. Or how it operates.
Fugitive: (n.) one who evades his obligations to others.
Blind: (adj.) one who keeps the eyes of his mind shut tight.
Poor: (adj.) requiring others; not having the necessities of life in one’s own possession.
Rebel: (n.) one who is rebellious, one who withdraws from the logos of Nature because he resents its workings. (It produced you; now it produces this.)
Schismatic: (n.) one who separates his own soul from others with the logos. They should be one.
30. A philosopher without clothes and one without books. “I have nothing to eat,” says he, as he stands there half-naked, “but I subsist on the logos.” And with nothing to read, I subsist on it too.
31. Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life—no one’s master and no one’s slave.
32. The age of Vespasian, for example. People doing the exact same things: marrying, raising children, getting sick, dying, waging war, throwing parties, doing business, farming, flattering, boasting, distrusting, plotting, hoping others will die, complaining about their own lives, falling in love, putting away money, seeking high office and power.
And that life they led is nowhere to be found.
Or the age of Trajan. The exact same things. And that life too—gone.
Survey the records of other eras. And see how many others gave their all and soon died and decomposed into the elements that formed them.
But most of all, run through the list of those you knew yourself. Those who worked in vain, who failed to do what