Meditations (167) by Marcus Aurelius

Perhaps the stoic philosophy Marcus Aurelius' ruminates upon within this diary can most adequately be summarized as "going with the flow", and thinking a lot about said 'flow' while you're at it.

It's always been amusing to me just how comparable our American society is within that of ancient Rome, despite being separated by the Atlantic ocean, language, religion, and two millennia. Meditations would suggest that the upper crust of Rome during the Pax Romana shared a similar malaise and an ennui to that depicted in an American film penned by a Sofia Coppola, or a Japanese novel by Haruki Murakami, for example. A good part of Meditations is focused on the same questions developed countries have been asking themselves for literal ages: "How do you live a fulfilling life when you are no longer struggling to survive each day?" In this, Meditations is still highly applicable to daily life in developed countries.

Much of Marcus Aurelius' philosophy is anchored in reason and discipline, something I find personally appealing. When tasked with a great question about the human condition (eg. "where does the soul go when we die?") he's often given to tracing a thread back down from the abstract, monumental cloud that is the question back to the earth of reason and attempting to answer it as simple and straightforward manner as possible. I find this appeal to cold logic and tranquility quite comforting; it tends to take the teeth out of the questions that worry us so—it's like being terrified of the monster in the dark, only to switch on the light and realize it was just your hat and jacket on the coat rack. Through this stoic calm he seems to realize the core idea of this entire book: Any worries we have exist only in our mind, thus mastery over our own mind leads to the mastery of any worries we might have. It's a simple way of facing down adversity and making it seem less daunting, and it's probably what has made this book so timeless.

This is one of those books that changes when you read it at different times of your life. Its density allows for this. When I read it in University, most of its appeal was the novelty of reading an Emperor's inner thoughts. Now that I'm midway through my third decade, however, I find its call to self-discipline most appealing.

I'm sure I'll read it again, and I'll probably pick up something new to be enthralled about when I do.

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