Book 3

We shouldn’t just think about how life gets used up every day with less left over. We should also think: even if we live longer, will our minds still work well enough to understand things and see what’s divine and human? If we start losing it, we’ll still breathe and eat and imagine things and want things. But using our minds properly, figuring out our duties, analyzing what we see, deciding if it’s time to die, and everything else that needs a trained mind—that goes first. So we need to hurry, not just because we’re getting closer to death every day, but because our understanding and awareness might quit before that[1].

We should notice that even the side effects of natural things have something nice about them. Like when bread bakes, parts of it crack open. These cracks, which aren’t really what the baker intended, somehow look good and make you hungry. Ripe figs split open. Olives that are about to go bad have their own special beauty. Grain stalks bending down, the lion’s frown, foam dripping from a wild boar’s mouth—lots of things aren’t beautiful on their own, but because they come along with natural processes, they add to the beauty and appeal. So if you really pay attention to what happens in the universe, almost everything that comes along as a side effect will seem to arrange itself nicely. You’ll look at real lions’ jaws as happily as the ones artists paint or sculpt. You’ll see a kind of bloom in old people, and something attractive in children—if you have sober eyes. Not everyone gets this, only people truly connected to nature and her works[2].

Hippocrates cured many diseases and then got sick and died. The Chaldean astrologers predicted many deaths, then fate got them too. Alexander, Pompey, Julius Caesar—after destroying whole cities and killing tens of thousands in battle—they also left life. Heraclitus, after all his theories about the world burning up, died swollen with water, covered in cow dung. Lice killed Democritus; other lice killed Socrates. So what? You got on board, you sailed, you reached shore. Get off. If it’s to another life, there are gods there too. If it’s unconsciousness, you’ll stop feeling pain and pleasure, stop serving this body that’s so much worse than what serves it. One is mind and spirit; the other is earth and gore[3].

Don’t waste what’s left of your life imagining what other people are doing, unless it relates to some common good. You’re stealing from your own work—I mean, thinking about what so-and-so is doing and why, what they’re saying, what they’re thinking, what they’re plotting, and all that stuff that makes you wander from watching your own ruling mind. You need to exclude the random and useless from your chain of thoughts, and especially the nosy and malicious stuff. Train yourself to only think things that if someone suddenly asked “What are you thinking?” you could answer right away with no shame: this or that. So it’d be clear that everything in you is simple and kind, worthy of a social being who doesn’t care about pleasure or indulgent fantasies or any rivalry or jealousy or suspicion or anything else you’d blush to admit was in your head. A man like this—no longer postponing being among the best—is like a priest serving the gods, using what’s placed inside him to keep himself pure from pleasures, unhurt by any pain, untouched by any insult, unconscious of any evil, an athlete in the greatest contest (not to be thrown by any emotion), dyed deep with justice, welcoming everything that happens and is assigned to him, not often imagining what others say or do or think except when the common good requires it. He only thinks about what’s his to do, constantly thinking about what’s been spun for him from the whole. He makes the first beautiful; he trusts the second is good. He remembers that all rational beings are related and that caring for all humans fits with human nature, but we shouldn’t value everyone’s opinion—only those who live according to nature. As for those who don’t live that way, he constantly remembers what kind of people they are, at home and abroad, night and day, what crowds they hang out with. So he doesn’t value praise from such people—they don’t even please themselves[4].

Don’t act unwillingly or selfishly or unexamined or pulled in different directions. Don’t dress up your thoughts with fancy talk. Don’t be a big talker or busy-body. Let the god in you be guardian of a living being who’s male, old, a citizen, a Roman, a ruler who’s posted himself where he waits for the signal to leave life, ready to be released, not needing an oath or any witness. Be cheerful. Don’t need outside help or the peace others give you. You have to stand straight, not be held straight[5].

If you find anything in human life better than justice, truth, self-control, courage—in short, better than your mind being satisfied with itself when it makes you act according to right reason and satisfied with fate in what’s assigned to you without choosing it—if you see anything better than that, turn to it with all your soul and enjoy the best you’ve found. But if nothing seems better than the spirit living in you, which has brought your personal desires under its control, which examines your thoughts, which has pulled itself away from the body’s sensations (as Socrates said), which has submitted to the gods and cares for humans—if you find everything else smaller and cheaper than this, don’t give room to anything else. Because once you lean toward that and turn away, you won’t be able to keep preferring that good that’s your own, that’s yours. It’s not right to set anything against the rational and social good—like praise from the masses, or power, or wealth, or enjoying pleasures. All these things, even if they seem to fit for a bit, suddenly take control and carry you away. So I’m telling you, simply and freely choose the better and hold onto it. “But better means beneficial.” If it’s beneficial to you as a rational being, keep it. If it’s beneficial to you as an animal, say so and keep your judgment without arrogance. Just make sure you examine things safely[6].

Never value as beneficial to yourself anything that will make you break your word, lose your self-respect, hate someone, suspect them, curse them, pretend, or desire something that needs walls and curtains. Someone who’s chosen his own mind and spirit and the sacred rites of virtue doesn’t make tragedies, doesn’t groan, won’t need solitude or crowds. Most important: he’ll live neither chasing nor fleeing. Whether his soul will be in his body for a longer or shorter time doesn’t matter to him at all. Even if he has to leave right now, he’ll go as easily as doing any other decent and orderly action, careful his whole life only that his mind doesn’t turn into something unworthy of an intelligent, social being[7].

In the mind of someone who’s been disciplined and thoroughly cleansed, you won’t find anything rotten, dirty, or festering underneath. His life isn’t incomplete when fate takes him, like you’d say an actor left before finishing the play. Plus there’s nothing slavish, nothing fake, nothing tied down or torn apart, nothing that has to answer for itself, nothing hiding[8].

Respect your ability to form opinions. Everything depends on this—that your ruling mind never holds an opinion out of harmony with nature and the make-up of a rational being. This guarantees not jumping to conclusions, friendship with other people, and obedience to the gods[9].

So throw away everything else and hold onto just these few things. Also remember that each person only lives this present moment, which is just an instant. Everything else is either already lived or uncertain. So what each person lives is tiny, and the little corner of earth where he lives is tiny, and even the longest fame after death is tiny—passed on through a succession of little people who’ll die very soon, who don’t even know themselves, much less someone who died long ago[10].

To the principles already mentioned, add one more: always make a definition or outline of whatever appears to you, so you can see what kind of thing it is in its essence, stripped bare, as a whole and in its parts. Tell yourself its proper name and the names of the things it’s made from and will break down into. Nothing creates greatness of mind like being able to examine methodically and truthfully everything that comes up in life, and always seeing things in a way that shows: what kind of universe does this serve, what value does it have in that universe, and what value for humans—those citizens of the highest city, of which all other cities are like households? What is this thing that’s creating my impression now, what’s it made of, how long will it naturally last, what virtue do I need for it—gentleness, courage, honesty, trustworthiness, simplicity, self-sufficiency, or what? So in each case you have to say: this came from god; this is from the weaving of fate and such coincidences and chance; this is from someone of my tribe, a relative, a companion—though he doesn’t know what’s natural for him. But I do know, so I’ll treat him kindly and justly, according to the natural law of community. At the same time, with things that don’t matter either way, I aim at what they’re worth[11].

If you do what’s in front of you, following right reason seriously, strongly, calmly, not letting anything else distract you, but keeping your divine part pure, as if you had to give it back right now—if you hold to this, expecting nothing, fearing nothing, satisfied with your present natural activity and the heroic truth in what you say and speak, you’ll live a good life. And no one can stop this[12].

Just as doctors always have their instruments and knives ready for emergencies, you should have your principles ready to understand divine and human things, and do everything, even the smallest thing, remembering how both realms are tied together. You won’t do any human act well without referring to the divine, and vice versa[13].

Stop wandering. You’re not going to read your own notebooks or the deeds of ancient Romans and Greeks or the extracts from books you were saving for old age. Rush to the finish. Give up empty hopes. Save yourself, if you care about yourself at all, while you still can[14].

They don’t know how many meanings there are in steal, sow, buy, be at rest, see what needs doing—which doesn’t happen with the eyes but with a different kind of sight[15].

Body, soul, mind. For the body—sensations. For the soul—impulses. For the mind—judgments. Getting impressions—even cattle have that. Being pulled around by impulses like a puppet—wild animals have that, and perverts, and Phalaris and Nero. Having your mind guide you to what seems like your duty—even people who don’t believe in gods have that, even people who betray their country, even people who do whatever behind closed doors. If everything else is common to all these, what’s left is special to the good person: to love and welcome what happens and is spun for him; not to soil or disturb the spirit living in his chest with a crowd of impressions, but to keep it calm, following god in an orderly way, saying nothing against the truth, doing nothing against justice. And if everyone disbelieves that he lives simply, modestly, and cheerfully, he’s not angry at any of them and doesn’t turn from the road that leads to the end of life, where you should arrive pure, peaceful, ready to be released, in harmony with your fate without forcing it[16].