Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome) [63]
That’s all you need. All other obstacles either affect the lifeless body, or have no power to shake or harm anything unless misperception takes over or the logos surrenders voluntarily. Otherwise those they obstruct would be degraded by them immediately. In all other entities, when anything bad happens to them, it affects them for the worse. Whereas here a person is improved by it (if I can put it like that)—and we admire him for reacting as a person should.
And keep in mind that nothing can harm one of nature’s citizens except what harms the city he belongs to. And nothing harms that city except what harms its law. And there is no so-called misfortune that can do that. So long as the law is safe, so is the city—and the citizen.
34. If you’ve immersed yourself in the principles of truth, the briefest, most random reminder is enough to dispel all fear and pain:
. . . leaves that the wind
Drives earthward; such are the generations of men.
Your children, leaves.
Leaves applauding loyally and heaping praise upon you, or turning around and calling down curses, sneering and mocking from a safe distance.
A glorious reputation handed down by leaves.
All of these “spring up in springtime”—and the wind blows them all away. And the tree puts forth others to replace them.
None of us have much time. And yet you act as if things were eternal—the way you fear and long for them. . . .
Before long, darkness. And whoever buries you mourned in their turn.
35. A healthy pair of eyes should see everything that can be seen and not say, “No! Too bright!” (which is a symptom of ophthalmia).
A healthy sense of hearing or smell should be prepared for any sound or scent; a healthy stomach should have the same reaction to all foods, as a mill to what it grinds.
So too a healthy mind should be prepared for anything. The one that keeps saying, “Are my children all right?” or “Everyone must approve of me” is like eyes that can only stand pale colors, or teeth that can handle only mush.
36. It doesn’t matter how good a life you’ve led. There’ll still be people standing around the bed who will welcome the sad event.
Even with the intelligent and good. Won’t there be someone thinking “Finally! To be through with that old schoolteacher. Even though he never said anything, you could always feel him judging you.” And that’s for a good man. How many traits do you have that would make a lot of people glad to be rid of you?
Remember that, when the time comes. You’ll be less reluctant to leave if you can tell yourself, “This is the sort of life I’m leaving. Even the people around me, the ones I spent so much time fighting for, praying over, caring about—even they want me gone, in hopes that it will make their own lives easier. How could anyone stand a longer stay here?”
And yet, don’t leave angry with them. Be true to who you are: caring, sympathetic, kind. And not as if you were being torn away from life. But the way it is when someone dies peacefully, how the soul is released from the body—that’s how you should leave them. It was nature that bound you to them—that tied the knot. And nature that now unties you.
I am released from those around me. Not dragged against my will, but unresisting.
There are things that nature demands. And this is one of them.
37. Learn to ask of all actions, “Why are they doing that?”
Starting with your own.
38. Remember that what pulls the strings is within—hidden from us. Is speech, is life, is the person. Don’t conceive of the rest as part of it—the skin that contains it, and the accompanying organs. Which are tools—like a carpenter’s axe, except that they’re attached to us from birth, and are no more use without what moves and holds them