Meditations - Marcus Aurelius (Emperor of Rome) [67]
And the fourth reason for self-reproach: that the more divine part of you has been beaten and subdued by the degraded mortal part—the body and its stupid self-indulgence.
20. Your spirit and the fire contained within you are drawn by their nature upward. But they comply with the world’s designs and submit to being mingled here below. And the elements of earth and water in you are drawn by their nature downward. But are forced to rise, and take up a position not their own. So even the elements obey the world—when ordered and compelled—and man their stations until the signal to abandon them arrives.
So why should your intellect be the only dissenter—the only one complaining about its posting? It’s not as if anything is being forced on it. Only what its own nature requires. And yet it refuses to comply, and sets off in the opposite direction. Because to be drawn toward what is wrong and self-indulgent, toward anger and fear and pain, is to revolt against nature. And for the mind to complain about anything that happens is to desert its post. It was created to show reverence—respect for the divine—no less than to act justly. That too is an element of coexistence and a prerequisite for justice.
21. “If you don’t have a consistent goal in life, you can’t live it in a consistent way.”
Unhelpful, unless you specify a goal.
There is no common benchmark for all the things that people think are good—except for a few, the ones that affect us all. So the goal should be a common one—a civic one. If you direct all your energies toward that, your actions will be consistent. And so will you.
22. The town mouse and the country mouse. Distress and agitation of the town mouse.
23. Socrates used to call popular beliefs “the monsters under the bed”—only useful for frightening children with.
24. At festivals the Spartans put their guests’ seats in the shade, but sat themselves down anywhere.
25. Socrates declining Perdiccas’s invitation “so as to avoid dying a thousand deaths” (by accepting a favor he couldn’t pay back).
26. This advice from Epicurean writings: to think continually of one of the men of old who lived a virtuous life.
27. The Pythagoreans tell us to look at the stars at daybreak. To remind ourselves how they complete the tasks assigned them—always the same tasks, the same way. And their order, purity, nakedness. Stars wear no concealment.
28. Socrates dressed in a towel, the time Xanthippe took his cloak and went out. The friends who were embarrassed and avoided him when they saw him dressed like that, and what Socrates said to them.
29. Mastery of reading and writing requires a master. Still more so life.
30. “. . . For you/Are but a slave and have no claim to logos.”
31. “But my heart rejoiced.”
32. “And jeer at virtue with their taunts and sneers.”
33. Stupidity is expecting figs in winter, or children in old age.
34. As you kiss your son good night, says Epictetus, whisper to yourself, “He may be dead in the morning.”
Don’t tempt fate, you say.
By talking about a natural event? Is fate tempted when we speak of grain being reaped?
35. Grapes.
Unripe . . . ripened . . . then raisins.
Constant transitions.
Not the “not” but the “not yet.”
36. “No thefts of free will reported.”[—Epictetus.]
37. “We need to master the art of acquiescence. We need to pay attention to our impulses, making sure they don’t go unmoderated, that they benefit others, that they’re worthy of us. We need to steer clear of desire in any form and not try to avoid what’s beyond our control.”
38. “This is not a debate about just anything,” he said, “but about sanity itself.”
39. Socrates: What do you want, rational minds or irrational ones?
—Rational ones.
Healthy or sick?
—Healthy.
Then work to obtain them.
—We already have.
Then why all this squabbling?
Book 12
1. Everything you’re trying to reach—by taking the long way round—you could have right now, this moment. If you’d only stop thwarting your own attempts. If you’d only let go of the past, entrust the future to Providence, and guide