Book 5

In the morning when you don’t want to get up, tell yourself: I’m getting up to do a human being’s work. Why am I annoyed about going to do what I was born for, what I was brought into the world for? Was I made to lie under blankets and keep warm? “But it’s nicer here.” So you were born for pleasure? For feeling things, not for doing things? Don’t you see the little plants, the little birds, the ants, the spiders, the bees doing their own work, each helping to organize the universe? And you don’t want to do your human work? You’re not running toward what fits your nature? “But we need to rest too.” I agree. But nature set limits for that, just like for eating and drinking. You go past those limits, past what’s enough. But when it comes to work, you stay within what’s possible. You don’t love yourself—if you did, you’d love your nature and what it wants. People who love their craft waste away working on it, forgetting to bathe or eat. Do you value your own nature less than the metalworker values metalworking, the dancer values dancing, the greedy person values money, the vain person values fame? When they’re obsessed, they’d rather not eat or sleep than improve what they care about. Does doing things for others seem less valuable to you, less worth your effort?[1]

How easy it is to push away and wipe out every useless or wrong thought, and immediately be perfectly calm.

Judge yourself worthy of every word and action that’s according to nature. Don’t let criticism or comments from anyone pull you off course. If it’s right to do or say, don’t consider yourself unworthy of it. Those people have their own ruling mind and follow their own impulses. Don’t look at that, but walk straight, following your own nature and universal nature—they both have one path.

I walk through what’s natural until I fall and rest, breathing out into what I breathe from daily, falling onto what my father gathered his seed from, my mother her blood, my nurse her milk. What feeds and waters me daily all these years. What carries me as I walk on it and use it for so many things.

“They can’t admire your sharpness.” Fine. But there are many other things you can’t say “I’m not naturally suited for that.” So show what’s completely in your power: honesty, dignity, endurance, not chasing pleasure, not complaining about your lot, needing little, kindness, freedom, not gossiping, no empty talk, high-mindedness. Don’t you see how many things you could show right now that you have no excuse for not having? Yet you willingly stay beneath your potential. Or does being naturally slow force you to complain, be stingy, flatter, blame your body, try to please people, show off, be so restless in your mind? No, by the gods. You could have been free of these things long ago. If anything, you could only be accused of being a bit slow to understand. And even that needs practice—not indulging in your slowness or being comfortable with it.

One person, when they do someone a favor, is quick to chalk up the return favor they’re owed. Another isn’t so quick, but still privately thinks of the person as a debtor and knows what they’ve done. A third person somehow doesn’t even know what they’ve done—they’re like a vine that produces grapes and doesn’t seek anything more once it’s borne its own fruit. A horse that’s run, a dog that’s tracked, a bee that’s made honey, a human who’s done good—they don’t announce it but move on to the next thing, like the vine moves on to produce grapes again in season. “So we should be among those who do this without really noticing?” Yes. “But we need to notice—it’s characteristic of social beings to be aware they’re acting socially, and by Zeus, to want their fellow to be aware too.” What you’re saying is true, but you’re taking what I said wrong. You’ll be one of those people I mentioned before—they’re also led astray by plausible reasoning. But if you want to understand what I mean, don’t worry that you’ll skip doing something social because of it.

Prayer of the Athenians: “Rain, rain, dear Zeus, on the fields and plains of Athens.” Either don’t pray at all, or pray simply and freely like this[2].

Just as we say “Asclepius prescribed horseback riding or cold baths or walking barefoot for this person,” we can say “Universal nature prescribed disease or disability or loss or something else like that for this person.” In the first case, “prescribed” means he ordered this as appropriate for health. In the second, what happens to each person is somehow ordered as appropriate to fate. We say things “fall out” the way builders say squared stones in walls or pyramids “fall together” when they fit each other in a certain arrangement. There’s one harmony overall, and just as the universe makes one body out of all bodies, fate makes one cause out of all causes. Even complete idiots understand what I mean—they say “This was brought to him.” So this was brought to this person and prescribed for this person. Let’s accept these things like we accept what Asclepius prescribes. Many of his prescriptions are harsh, but we welcome them hoping for health. Think of the completion and fulfillment of what universal nature judges good as being like your health. Welcome everything that happens, even if it seems harsh, because it leads to the health of the universe and the success and well-being of Zeus. He wouldn’t bring this to anyone if it didn’t benefit the whole. No nature produces anything that doesn’t fit what it manages. So you need to be content with what happens for two reasons: first, it was done for you, prescribed for you, and related to you, spun from the most ancient causes. Second, what comes to each person is a cause of the success, fulfillment, and by Zeus the very continuance of what governs the whole. The whole is damaged if you cut off even the smallest part of the connection and continuity—of its parts and equally of its causes. And you do cut it off, as far as you can, when you’re dissatisfied and in a way try to eliminate it[3].

Don’t be disgusted, don’t give up, don’t lose patience if you don’t consistently act from the right principles. If you’re knocked back, return and be glad if most of your actions are more human. Love what you return to. Don’t come back to philosophy like a boy to school, but like someone with sore eyes to a sponge and egg white, or someone else to a bandage or lotion. This way you won’t make a show of obeying reason, but you’ll rest in it. Remember: philosophy only wants what your nature wants. You wanted something else, against nature. But what’s more agreeable than this? Isn’t this how pleasure deceives us? But look—isn’t high-mindedness, freedom, simplicity, kindness, holiness more agreeable? What’s more agreeable than wisdom itself, when you think about the unbroken flow of our ability to understand and know things?[4]

Things are so veiled that quite a few philosophers—and not ordinary ones—have thought they’re completely impossible to understand. Even the Stoics think they’re hard to understand. Every judgment we make can change. Where’s the person who never changes their mind? So turn to the things themselves—how short-lived they are, how worthless, how they can be owned by a pervert, a prostitute, a thief. Then look at the character of the people you live with—it’s hard to put up with even the nicest of them, not to mention that a person can barely stand himself. In such darkness and dirt, in such a flow of substance and time and motion and things that move—I can’t even imagine what could be worth valuing or pursuing at all. On the contrary, we need to comfort ourselves and wait for natural dissolution, not getting upset at the delay, but resting in just these two things: first, nothing will happen to me that isn’t according to the nature of the whole; second, it’s in my power not to do anything against my god and spirit. No one can force me to disobey it[5].

What am I using my soul for right now? Ask yourself this every time. Examine yourself: what do I have now in this part called the ruling mind? Whose soul do I have? A child’s? A teenager’s? A woman’s? A tyrant’s? A wild animal’s? A beast’s?

You can see what most people think are good things from this: if someone imagines certain things as truly good—wisdom, self-control, justice, courage—with these in mind, they couldn’t even listen to the joke about “so much good stuff…” It wouldn’t fit. But if someone first thinks of what most people consider good, they’ll listen to and easily accept the comic poet’s joke as fitting. Even most people sense the difference—otherwise the first joke wouldn’t offend and be rejected while we accept the one about wealth and the blessings of luxury and fame as witty and clever. Go ahead and ask whether we should value and consider good those things where, once we’ve thought of them, we could aptly apply the joke about their owner having so much good stuff “he has nowhere to shit”[6].

I’m made of cause and matter. Neither will disappear into nothing, just as neither came from nothing. So every part of me will be assigned by change to some part of the universe, and that will change into another part of the universe, and so on to infinity. I came to exist through such change, and so did my parents, and so on to another infinity. Nothing prevents saying this, even if the universe is managed in finite periods[7].

Reason and the art of reasoning are powers sufficient for themselves and their own works. They start from their own beginning and make their way to the end set before them. That’s why such actions are called “right actions”—they signal the rightness of the path.

None of those things should be called a human’s that don’t belong to a human as a human. They’re not requirements of being human, human nature doesn’t promise them, they’re not perfections of human nature. So the human end isn’t in them, nor what completes that end—the good. Besides, if any of these things did belong to humans, it wouldn’t be right to scorn them or oppose them. We wouldn’t praise someone who showed they didn’t need them. They wouldn’t be good if having less of them made you good. But now, the more someone strips these things from himself or endures being stripped of them, the better person he is.

Your mind will be like your frequent thoughts—the soul is dyed by thoughts. So dye it with a succession of thoughts like these: wherever it’s possible to live, it’s possible to live well; it’s possible to live in a palace; therefore it’s possible to live well in a palace. And again: each thing is made for something, and it’s drawn to what it’s made for; its end is in what it’s drawn to; where its end is, there’s its benefit and good; the good of a rational being is community. That we’re born for community has been proved long ago. Wasn’t it clear that inferior things exist for superior ones, and superior ones for each other? Living things are superior to non-living, and rational beings are superior to living ones[8].

Chasing the impossible is insane. It’s impossible for bad people not to do bad things.

Nothing happens to anyone that they’re not naturally equipped to bear. The same things happen to someone else, and either not knowing it happened or wanting to show off their high-mindedness, they stay steady and unhurt. It’s terrible that ignorance and showing off are stronger than wisdom.

Things themselves don’t touch the soul at all. They have no access to the soul. They can’t turn or move the soul. The soul turns and moves only itself. Whatever judgments it thinks worthy of itself, it makes the things that present themselves to it fit those judgments.

In one way, a human being is the closest thing to me, since I must do good to humans and put up with them. But when some of them interfere with my proper work, the human becomes one of the indifferent things to me, no less than the sun or wind or a wild animal. These might block some actions, but they don’t block my impulse or my attitude—because I can hold back, and I can adapt. The mind converts and changes every obstacle to action into something that helps its purpose—what hinders the work becomes helpful to the work, what blocks the path advances the path[9].

Honor what’s most powerful in the universe—what uses everything and governs everything. Similarly, honor what’s most powerful in you—it’s the same kind of thing. It’s what uses everything else in you, and your life is governed by it.

What doesn’t harm the city doesn’t harm the citizen. Apply this rule every time something seems harmful to you: if the city isn’t harmed by this, neither am I. But if the city is harmed, don’t be angry at whoever’s harming the city—show him what he’s overlooking.

Often think about how quickly things and events rush by and disappear. Substance is like a river in constant flow, activities constantly changing, causes shifting in countless ways, almost nothing standing still, even what’s right beside us. Think about the infinite void of the past and future where everything vanishes. So isn’t someone stupid who gets puffed up or upset or complains about these things as if they’d trouble him for a long time?

Remember the whole of substance, of which you have the tiniest share, and the whole of time, of which you’ve been assigned a brief and tiny moment, and fate, of which you’re how small a part?

Someone wrongs me? That’s his business. He has his own disposition, his own actions. I have now what universal nature wants me to have now, and I do what my nature wants me to do now.

Let the ruling and governing part of your soul stay unmoved by the smooth or rough motions in your flesh. Don’t let it mingle with them, but draw a boundary around itself and limit those feelings to their parts. When they spread into your mind through that other sympathy (since we’re in a unified body), then don’t try to resist the sensation since it’s natural. But don’t let the ruling part add its own opinion about whether it’s good or bad.

“Living with the gods.” Someone lives with the gods when they constantly show them a soul that accepts what it’s given and does what the spirit wants—the spirit Zeus gave each person as guardian and guide, a fragment of himself. This is each person’s mind and reason[10].

Are you angry at someone who smells like a goat? Are you angry at someone with bad breath? What can they do? That’s how their mouth is, that’s how their armpits are—it’s inevitable that such emanations come from such things. “But the person has reason,” you say, “and could figure out what’s offensive if he thought about it.” Good for you! So you have reason too. Use your rational disposition to stir up their rational disposition. Show them, remind them. If they listen, you’ll cure them, and no need for anger. You’re not a tragic actor or a prostitute[11].

You can live here as you intend to live when you leave. If they don’t let you, then leave life as if you’re not suffering anything bad. The house is smoky—I’m leaving. Why do you think it’s a big deal? But as long as nothing like that drives me out, I stay, I’m free, and no one will stop me from doing what I want. And I want what fits the nature of a rational, social being.

The mind of the universe is social. It made inferior things for superior ones and fitted the superior ones to each other. You see how it arranged them, coordinated them, gave each its proper portion, and brought the best things into harmony with each other.

How have you behaved up to now toward gods, parents, siblings, wife, children, teachers, tutors, friends, family, servants? Can you say about all of them up to now: “I’ve done no wrong to anyone, nor spoken any evil”? Remember what you’ve been through and what you’ve managed to endure. That the story of your life is now complete and your service finished. How many beautiful things you’ve seen. How many pleasures and pains you’ve ignored, how many honors you’ve passed by, to how many ungrateful people you’ve been kind[12].

Why do unskilled and ignorant souls confuse someone skilled and knowledgeable? What soul is skilled and knowledgeable? The one that knows beginning and end and the reason that runs through all substance and governs the whole in appointed cycles through all eternity.

Soon you’ll be ashes or bones, a name or not even a name. And a name is just sound and echo. The things valued in life are empty, rotten, tiny—puppies biting each other, children quarreling, laughing then immediately crying. Faith, shame, justice, truth—“fled to Olympus from the wide earth.” What still holds you here? Sensible things are changeable and unstable. The senses are dim and easily fooled. The soul itself is a vapor from blood. Having a good reputation with such people is meaningless. What then? Wait calmly for the end, whether it’s extinction or transformation. Until that time comes, what’s enough? What else but to honor and praise the gods, do good to people, and “bear and forbear.” And remember that everything inside the bounds of your poor flesh and breath is neither yours nor in your power[13].

You can always have a good flow in life if you can think and act on the right path. These two things are common to god’s soul, human souls, and the soul of every rational being: not to be blocked by another, and to hold the good in right disposition and action, and to end your desire there.

If this isn’t my evil or the result of my evil, and the community isn’t harmed, why do I care about it? What’s the harm to the community?

Don’t be completely carried away by imagination, but help as much as you can and as they deserve, even if their loss is only in indifferent things. But don’t imagine it’s really harmful—that’s a bad habit. Be like the old man who, when leaving, asked for his foster child’s top, remembering it was just a top. So here too. When you’re calling out on the platform, have you forgotten what these things are? “Yes, but they mean so much to these people.” Is that a reason for you to be a fool too? “I was once a fortunate man, wherever I was caught.” But fortunate means assigning yourself good fortune. And good fortune means good dispositions of soul, good impulses, good actions[14].