Meditations

[MarcvsAvrelivs]

Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous malicious, unsocial. All of this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have seen that the nature of good is what is right and the nature of evil is what is wrong: and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own — not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore, I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition.

Marcus Aurelius (Translation by Martin Hammond)
Book 2:1

 

[TarnishedPenny]

I have been rereading your namesake of late with growing appreciation. So much wisdom!

 

[MarcvsAvrelivs]

In man’s life his time is a mere instant, his existence a flux, his perception fogged, his whole bodily composition rotting, his mind a whirligig, his fortune unpredictable, his fame unclear. To put it shortly: all things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit in a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.

Book 2:17:1

 

[MarcvsAvrelivs]

I have been rereading your namesake of late with growing appreciation. So much wisdom!

It is currently in short supply.

 

[Champakian]

I have been rereading your namesake of late with growing appreciation. So much wisdom!

I keep a copy at my bedside and read, like some do with the Bible, a passage a night,
but mine is a different translation, The Emperor's Handbook, a New Translation;
translated by Hicks and Hicks.

Take that first passage, for example, mine reads:
First thing every morning tell yourself: today I am going to meet a busybody, an ingrate, a bully, a liar, a schemer, a boor...

The message, though is still the same and reflects a lot of what we see here from
a certain type of poster, one who more resembles a poo-flinging simian
in the local zoo than a rational human being.

 

[JohnnySavage]

I do that with Adm. McRaven's book

 

[Champakian]

It's alway nice to have a muse.

 

[oneblueye]

hey...

Say to yourself first thing in the morning: today I shall meet people who are meddling, ungrateful, aggressive, treacherous malicious, unsocial. All of this has afflicted them through their ignorance of true good and evil. But I have seen that the nature of good is what is right and the nature of evil is what is wrong: and I have reflected that the nature of the offender himself is akin to my own — not a kinship of blood or seed, but a sharing in the same mind, the same fragment of divinity. Therefore, I cannot be harmed by any of them, as none will infect me with their wrong. Nor can I be angry with my kinsman or hate him. We were born for cooperation, like feet, like hands, like eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth. So to work in opposition to one another is against nature: and anger or rejection is opposition.

Marcus Aurelius (Translation by Martin Hammond)
Book 2:1

every morning I wake and take a deep breath, its a good day.

"I do excellently...I just can't help it."

 

[oneblueye]

hey...

In man’s life his time is a mere instant, his existence a flux, his perception fogged, his whole bodily composition rotting, his mind a whirligig, his fortune unpredictable, his fame unclear. To put it shortly: all things of the body stream away like a river, all things of the mind are dreams and delusion; life is warfare, and a visit in a strange land; the only lasting fame is oblivion.

Book 2:17:1

"In this life, the best way to make sure one has enough--, is to leave one hand empty."