I rarely re-read books.
One exception to that rule is Marcus Aurelius – Meditations.
I find myself going back to it every time I waver or each time I am unsure of the path that I am following. It was a private notebook of sorts – not one intending to be published but it offers a remarkable series of challenging spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the emperor struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe
There are three primary names one comes across in this school of Philosophy – Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus and Seneca.
One of the chapters from the book starts with this quote
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: the people I deal with today will be meddling, ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest, jealous and surly. They are like this because they can’t tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil, and have recognized that the wrongdoer has a nature related to my own – not of the same blood and birth, but the same mind, and possessing a share of the divine. And so none of them can hurt me. No one can implicate me in ugliness. Nor can I feel angry at my relative, or hate him. We were born to work together like feet, hands and eyes, like the two rows of teeth, upper and lower. To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: these are unnatural.
Marcus Aurelius
Something that takes a lot of effort for me to focus on, sure. But steadfast nonetheless. Marcus is one of the well known Stoics. One who followed the philosophy of Stoicism. It reminds me of Buddhism and the idea of mindfulness, but then I am neither a philosopher nor an historian to comment.
So this is the Wiki definition of Stoicism –
Stoicism is a school of Hellenistic philosophy that flourished throughout the Roman and Greek world until the 3rd century AD. Stoicism is predominantly a philosophy of personal ethics which is informed by its system of logic and its views on the natural world.
According to its teachings, as social beings, the path to happiness for humans is found in accepting this moment as it presents itself, by not allowing ourselves to be controlled by our desire for pleasure or our fear of pain, by using our minds to understand the world around us and to do our part in nature’s plan, and by working together and treating others in a fair and just manner.
People aren’t born Stoics. But there are amidst us those who face hurdles with equanimity and lucidity.
Stoicism has a few basic tenets –
- The world at large is unpredictable. [I’d add, so are people]
- Our life in this world is extremely brief [ I am always reminded of this image of the galaxy and the time line of evolution of life visually to show how very insignificant my life is in the larger scheme of things]
- How can one be steadfast and strong – and in control of yourself, at all times.
- And finally, that the source of our dissatisfaction lies within us. In the impulsiveness of our reflexive senses rather than logic.
- The focus, thence, is on overcoming destructive emotions and act on that which can be acted upon.
- Stoicism, most importantly, differs from most existing schools in one important sense: its purpose is practical application. It is not a purely intellectual enterprise.
This would probably be a modern day super power if only I can find a way for assimilating it. Maybe I should take an MooC on Philosophy
Stoics practiced what are termed ‘spiritual exercises’ [to develop their stoic muscle?] I must revisit these exercises or better still practice them on a 21 day sprint.
- Practice Misfortune –It is in times of security that the spirit should be preparing itself for difficult times; while fortune is bestowing favors on it is then is the time for it to be strengthened against her rebuffs -Seneca. The goal being to put oneself in face of the want and ask yourself, ‘Is this what you used to dread’. The point thus is not to ‘think about’ the misfortune but to live it. Emotions are rooted on anxiety and fear of uncertainty and rarely based on past experience. Maybe the reality is something we can handle, after all. Practice what you fear, whether a simulation in your mind or in real life. The downside is almost always reversible or transient.
- Train Perception to avoid the good and bad – Choose not to be harmed and you won’t feel harmed. Don’t feel harmed and you haven’t been -Marcus Aurelius. The Stoics had an exercise called Turning the Obstacle Upside Down. What they meant to do was make it impossible to not practice the art of philosophy. Because if you can properly turn a problem upside down, every action becomes a new source of good. To a stoic, thus, everything is an opportunity. ‘There is no good or bad to the practicing Stoic. There is only perception. You control perception. You can choose to extrapolate past your first impression . If you tie your first response to dispassion, you’ll find that everything is simply an opportunity’. Suppose I am being face by a surly friend whom I have been very patient with but they are being extremely morose and ungrateful. Instead of making your life more difficult, the exercise says, they’re actually directing you towards new virtues; for example, patience or understanding. Now that is going to be a really tedious thing to do. I am going to have to try.
- Remembering that is all ephemeral – Alexander the Great and his mule driver both died and the same thing happened to both. -Marcus Aurelius. Marcus Aurelius wrote to himself a simple and effective reminder to help him regain perspective and stay balanced:Run down the list of those who felt intense anger at something: the most famous, the most unfortunate, the most hated, the most whatever: Where is all that now? Smoke, dust, legend or not even a legend. Think of all the examples. And how trivial the things we want so passionately are. I think this again points back to reminding oneself of ‘how small and insignificant we are’ and so are our actions. The immediate question thus is if everything is insignificant- achievements or sadness, what really matters? What matters is right now. This moment. And doing the right thing, right now.
- Look at things from the birds-eye view – How beautifully Plato put it. Whenever you want to talk about people, it’s best to take a bird’s- eye view and see everything all at once” of gatherings, armies, farms, weddings and divorces, births and deaths, noisy courtrooms or silent spaces, every foreign people, holidays, memorials, markets” all blended together and arranged in a pairing of opposites. Marcus Aurelius. Step back, zoom out and look at life and what it offers from a larger vantage point. Despite how difficult that seems to sound in implementing, I believe this helps figure out the trivial from the important. In the larger scheme of things, worrying about a deck that is due or a model that I need to re-work probably isn’t too high up in my life. Take Plato’s View
- Memento Mori – Meditate on your mortality :Let us prepare our minds as if we’d come to the very end of life. Let us postpone nothing. Let us balance life’s books each day. The one who puts the finishing touches on their life each day is never short of time. Seneca. In his Meditations, Marcus Aurelius wrote that You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think. That was a personal reminder to continue living a life of virtue now, and not wait. This makes me weepy for some weird reason. [Note to self – Read Seneca’s biography – ‘Dying Every Day‘]. I think though that constant reminders of the transient nature of our lives serves well in living life to the fullest each day as the last one.
- Is this something that I can control? – The chief task in life is simply this: to identify and separate matters so that I can say clearly to myself which are externals not under my control, and which have to do with the choices I actually control. Where then do I look for good and evil? Not to uncontrollable externals, but within myself to the choices that are my own . . . Epictetus. I cannot understate the significance of this. If only I can return to this each day. No matter how hard i try, I cannot change certain situations or people. I think this is one thing I need to focus as part of my journal each day and reflect on constantly. Focus on what I can change, what I cant and the sense to differentiate between them.
- Journal – This is one of the biggest gifts I might have given myself this year. Most of the times, my brain is a muddle of thoughts and questions. Things I may not necessarily voice out to another person. Journal ling helps in not only voicing out my concerns and happiness but in providing clarity behind emotions. I feel sad is an emotion. Journal ling provides the much needed self examination. Sometimes we just want to tell someone what we are going through. And that someone doesn’t have to be another person.
- Practice negative visualization Again, I find this extremely distressing right now. It is imagining things that can potentially go wrong or be taken away from us. Reminds me of the first exercise in that sense. ‘We do not get what is rightfully ours, even if we have earned it’ .
