ARKCODEX
Meditations
1Consider not only this: that each day life is spent down, and a smaller portion remains. Consider also this: even if you live longer, it remains uncertain whether your mind will still be equal to understanding life. It remains uncertain whether you will still grasp the deeper knowledge that illuminates both divine and human things. For if decline begins, you will not lack for breathing and eating. You will not lack for forming impressions and following impulses and all such functions. But the power to command yourself will fade first. The power to weigh each duty with precision will fade first. The power to analyze what appears before you will fade first. The power to judge whether it is time to depart will fade first. Everything that requires a well-trained mind will fade first. Therefore you must act with urgency. Not only because death draws nearer each day. But because understanding and awareness may fail before death arrives.
2We must also observe this: even the byproducts of natural processes have a certain charm and appeal. When bread is baking, some parts crack open. These cracks go against the baker's intention. Yet they somehow please the eye. They stir a special appetite for the food. Consider figs at their ripest. They split open. And in tree-ripened olives, the very nearness to decay adds a peculiar beauty to the fruit. Stalks of grain bowing downward. The lion's furrowed brow. Foam dripping from a boar's mouth. Many such things, examined alone, are far from beautiful. Yet because they follow from nature's workings, they add to the whole. They delight the soul. So if someone has deep feeling and insight into the workings of the universe, almost nothing will fail to please him. Even incidental outcomes will seem fittingly arranged. Such a person will gaze at the gaping jaws of wild beasts with no less pleasure than at artists' imitations. With his own clear eyes he will see a kind of ripeness and grace in old age. He will see the charm in children. Many such things will escape most people. They reveal themselves only to one who is truly at home with nature and her works.
3Hippocrates healed many diseases. Then he himself fell sick and died. The Chaldean astrologers foretold the deaths of many. Then fate overtook them as well. Alexander, Pompey, and Julius Caesar utterly destroyed whole cities time and again. They cut down countless tens of thousands of cavalry and infantry in battle. Yet they too departed from life. Heraclitus theorized at length about the world's destruction by fire. Then his body filled with fluid. He died covered in cow dung. Lice killed Democritus. Other vermin killed Socrates. What does this mean? You boarded. You sailed. You reached shore. Now disembark. If there is another life, the gods are present there too. If there is only unconsciousness, you will cease enduring pains and pleasures. You will stop serving a vessel so much worse than what it contains. For the one is mind and spirit. The other is earth and gore.
4Do not waste what remains of your life in thoughts about others. Not unless those thoughts serve some common good. Otherwise you rob yourself of time for other work. I mean this: wondering what so-and-so is doing and why. What he is saying. What he is thinking. What schemes he is devising. All such thoughts pull you away from guarding your own ruling mind. You must avoid whatever is random or pointless in the stream of your thoughts. But above all avoid what is meddlesome or malicious. Train yourself to think only thoughts you could speak of freely if someone suddenly asked: "What is on your mind right now?" You would answer at once and openly: "This and this." And from your answer it would be clear that everything within you is simple and kind. Worthy of a being made for community. Free from thoughts of pleasure or indulgence. Free from rivalry, envy, suspicion, or anything that would make you blush to admit you were thinking it. Such a person no longer puts off living as one of the best. He is a priest and servant of the gods. He draws on that which is established within him. That inner presence keeps him untainted by pleasures. Unwounded by any pain. Untouched by any insult. Unaffected by any evil. He is an athlete in the greatest contest: to never be thrown by any passion. He is dyed deep in justice. He welcomes with his whole soul all that happens and all that is given to him. He rarely imagines what another person is saying or doing or thinking. Only great necessity and the common good would move him to it. He keeps his energy for his own work alone. He continually reflects on what the whole has woven into his fate. His own actions he makes beautiful. What is allotted to him he trusts is good. For the portion given to each is carried along with the whole and carries it forward. He remembers too that all rational beings are kin. That caring for all people is natural to a human being. But he does not seek approval from everyone. Only from those who live in harmony with nature. As for those who do not live this way, he keeps in mind what kind of people they are. At home and abroad. By night and by day. What company they keep and wallow in. And so he places no value on praise from such people. They do not even satisfy themselves.
5Do not act against your will. Do not act without regard for others. Do not act without examining what you do. Do not let yourself be pulled in opposite directions. Do not let cleverness dress up your thoughts. Do not talk too much. Do not meddle too much. Let the god within you be the guardian of a being who is male. Who is mature. Who is a citizen. Who is a Roman. Who is a ruler. One who has stationed himself at his post. Ready like a soldier awaiting the signal to retreat from life. Needing no oath. Needing no witness. Let cheerfulness be present in you. Let there be no need for help from outside. Let there be no need for the peace that others must provide. You must stand upright. Not be held upright.
6If you can find anything in human life better than justice, truth, self-control, and courage—better than a mind that is satisfied with itself when it acts according to right reason and accepts what fate assigns beyond its control—if you find something better than this, I say, then turn to it with your whole soul and enjoy this greatest discovery. But if nothing appears better than the spirit dwelling within you—the spirit that has mastered its own impulses, that examines every impression, that has pulled itself free from the grip of the senses as Socrates taught, that has submitted itself to the gods while caring for humanity—if you find everything else small and worthless compared to this, then give no room to anything else. Once you lean toward other things and turn aside, you will no longer be able to give undivided devotion to that good which is truly your own. It is wrong to set anything of a different kind against the good of reason and community. The praise of the crowd. Political power. Wealth. The pleasures of the senses. All these things, even when they seem to fit your life for a moment, suddenly overpower you and sweep you away. Choose simply and freely what is better. Hold fast to it. What is better is what truly benefits you. If it benefits you as a rational being, keep it. If it only benefits you as an animal, say so. Guard your judgment without pride. Just be sure your examination is sound.
7Never value anything as good for yourself if it will force you to break your word. To abandon your self-respect. To hate someone. To suspect. To curse. To be false. To desire anything that needs walls or curtains to hide it. The one who puts first his own mind and inner spirit and the sacred rites of its virtue makes no tragedy. He does not groan. He needs neither solitude nor crowds. What matters most is this: he will live neither chasing nor fleeing. Whether his soul will use the body for a longer span of time or a shorter one concerns him not at all. Even if he must depart this very moment, he will go as readily as he would do any other act that can be done with dignity and grace. Throughout his whole life he guards against one thing only: that his mind should turn to anything unworthy of a rational and social being.
8In the mind of one who is disciplined and purified, you would find nothing festering. Nothing corrupt. Nothing that festers beneath the surface. Fate does not catch such a person with life's work incomplete. Unlike an actor who exits before the final act, before the drama is done. Nothing in such a person is slavish or artificial. Nothing is entangled or torn apart. Nothing hides in shame. Nothing cowers in the dark.
9Revere your power of judgment. Everything depends on this. Guard your ruling mind from forming any belief that conflicts with nature and the constitution of a rational being. This power promises freedom from error. It promises kinship with humanity. It promises harmony with the gods.
10Throw all else aside. Hold fast to these few truths alone. And remember this: each person lives only this present moment. This instant. All else is either already lived or uncertain. Small then is the span each person lives. Small is the corner of the earth where he lives. Small too is the longest fame that follows death. Even that passes through a chain of little mortals who will soon die themselves. They do not know even themselves. Much less the one who died long ago.
11To the mental disciplines already described, add one more: always define or outline whatever impression confronts you. See it stripped bare for what it truly is in its essence. See it whole and divided into its parts. Name it properly. Name the elements from which it was formed and into which it will dissolve. Nothing builds greatness of mind like the ability to examine methodically and truthfully each thing you encounter in life. Look at each thing so as to grasp what kind of universe this is. What function does this thing serve in it? What value does it have in relation to the whole? What value in relation to a human being? For we are citizens of the highest city. All other cities are like households within it. Ask yourself: What is this thing? What is it made of? How long will it naturally last? What virtue does it call for from me? Perhaps gentleness. Perhaps courage. Perhaps honesty. Perhaps simplicity. Perhaps self-sufficiency. Perhaps something else. Therefore, say of each thing: This comes from God. This comes from the chain of causes woven together by fate and circumstance. This comes from a fellow human, a kinsman, a partner in community. Yet he does not know what accords with his own nature. But I do know. Therefore I treat him with goodwill and justice, according to the natural law of fellowship. At the same time, I aim to give each thing its proper worth among matters indifferent.
12If you engage fully with the present moment, following right reason, with earnestness, with strength, with goodwill. If you allow no distractions. If you keep your inner spirit pure and upright, as though you might have to give it back at any moment. If you hold to this path, expecting nothing, avoiding nothing. If you find contentment in your present activity according to nature, and in the heroic truth of every word you speak. Then you will live well. And no one has the power to prevent it.
13Doctors always keep their instruments and scalpels at hand for emergencies. In the same way, keep your principles ready. Use them to understand both divine and human matters. Do even the smallest act remembering how these two realms are bound together. You will never handle human affairs well without reference to the divine. Nor the divine without the human.
14Stop fooling yourself. You will never read your notebooks. You will never read the histories of ancient Rome and Greece. You will never read those excerpts you saved for old age. So press on toward the end. Let go of empty hopes. Help yourself now, if you care about yourself at all. While you still can.
15They do not understand how much is meant by stealing, sowing, buying, resting, and seeing what must be done. That kind of seeing comes not through the eyes but through another kind of sight.
16Body, soul, mind. The body has sensations. The soul has impulses. The mind has judgments. To receive impressions from appearances belongs even to cattle. To be pulled by impulse like a puppet belongs also to wild beasts. And to degenerates. And to Phalaris. And to Nero. To let the mind guide you toward apparent duties belongs even to those who deny the gods. And to those who betray their country. And to those who do their deeds behind closed doors. If all these things are shared with those I have mentioned, then what remains distinctive to the good person is this: to love and welcome whatever happens and whatever is woven into the pattern of their fate. To keep the spirit seated within the chest unpolluted and undisturbed by a mob of impressions. To maintain it in serenity. To follow God with dignity. To speak nothing contrary to truth. To do nothing contrary to justice. And if all people refuse to believe that such a one lives simply and modestly and cheerfully, the good person feels no bitterness toward any of them. Nor does such a one stray from the path that leads to life's end. One must arrive there pure. At peace. Ready to let go. Willingly reconciled to one's fate.