Book 8

This also helps against vanity: you can no longer claim to have lived your whole life, or even from youth, as a philosopher. It’s obvious to many others and to yourself—you’re far from philosophy. You’re way off track. So getting the reputation of a philosopher is no longer easy for you. Your office fights against it too. So if you’ve really know what’s up, forget about what people think of you. Be satisfied if you live the rest of your life, however much remains, the way you were made. So understand what it wants, and let nothing else mess with you. You’ve wandered around so much and nowhere found the good life—not in logic, not in wealth, not in fame, not in pleasure. Nowhere. So where is it? In doing what human nature demands. How? By having principles that control your impulses and actions. What principles? About good and bad—that nothing is good for a person unless it makes them just, self-controlled, brave, and free, and nothing is bad unless it does the opposite.

For every action, ask yourself: How does this relate to me? Will I regret it? A little while and I’m dead and everything’s gone. What more do I want if this present work is that of an intelligent, social being who shares the same law with god?

Alexander, Julius Caesar, Pompey—what are they compared to Diogenes, Heraclitus, Socrates? These men saw things, their causes and their materials, and their ruling principles stayed the same. But those others—how many things to worry about, enslaved to so much[1].

They’ll keep doing the same things even if you burst with rage.

First, don’t be troubled. Everything is according to the nature of the whole, and in a little while you’ll be nobody nowhere, like Hadrian, like Augustus. Next, look steadily at the thing. Remember you must be a good person and what human nature demands. Do it without turning aside. Say what seems most just—but kindly, modestly, and without pretending.

The nature of the whole has this job: to move things from here to there, to change them, to take them from here and carry them there. Everything is change—but don’t fear something new. Everything is familiar. The distributions are equal too.

Every nature is satisfied with itself when it goes well. A rational nature goes well when in its impressions it doesn’t agree to anything false or unclear, directs its impulses only to doing things for others, limits its desires and aversions only to what’s in its control, and welcomes everything assigned by common nature. It’s a part of that, like a leaf’s nature is part of the plant’s nature. Except the leaf is part of a nature that lacks perception and reason and can be hindered. But human nature is part of a nature that can’t be hindered and is intelligent and just—if it gives equal and appropriate shares of time, substance, cause, activity, and events to each. Look not at whether you’ll find one thing equal to another in every case, but whether the totality of one thing equals the totality of another.

You can’t read anymore. But you can restrain arrogance. You can rise above pleasures and pains. You can be above your little glory. You can avoid being angry with stupid and ungrateful people—you can even care for them.

Don’t let anyone hear you complaining about court life anymore—don’t even let yourself hear it.

Regret is a kind of self-blame for letting something useful pass by. What’s useful must be good, and a good person should care about it. But no good person would regret passing up some pleasure. So pleasure is neither useful nor good.

About anything: What is this thing in itself, in its own constitution? What’s its substance and material? What’s its causal nature? What’s it doing in the universe? How long does it last?

When you have trouble getting up, remember that doing things for others fits your constitution and human nature, but sleeping is common even to irrational animals. What’s according to each thing’s nature is more related to it, more natural, and yes, more pleasant.

Constantly, with every impression if possible, apply physics, ethics, and logic[2].

Whoever you meet, immediately say to yourself: What principles does this person have about good and bad? If they have such-and-such principles about pleasure and pain and their causes, about fame and obscurity, death and life, it won’t seem strange or surprising when they act certain ways. I’ll remember they’re compelled to act this way.

Remember: just as it’s shameful to be surprised that a fig tree produces figs, it’s shameful to be surprised that the universe produces what it produces. And it’s shameful for a doctor to be surprised someone has a fever, or a helmsman that the wind is against him.

Remember that changing your mind and following someone who corrects you is still freedom. It’s your action, done according to your impulse and judgment—indeed, according to your understanding.

If it’s in your control, why do it? If it’s in someone else’s, who do you blame? Atoms or gods? Either is crazy. Blame no one. If you can, correct it. If you can’t correct the person, at least correct the situation. If you can’t even do that, what’s the point of blaming? Nothing should be done pointlessly.

What dies doesn’t fall out of the universe. If it stays here and changes here and dissolves into its own elements, which are the universe’s elements and yours, and they change and don’t complain.

Everything—horse, vine—exists for some purpose. Why are you surprised? Even the sun will say, “I exist for a purpose,” and so will the other gods. So for what do you exist? For pleasure? See if that idea holds up.

Nature aims at the end no less than the beginning and middle, like someone throwing a ball. What good is it when the ball goes up, or bad when it comes down, or even when it stops? What good for a bubble formed or bad when burst? Same for a lamp[3].

Turn it inside out and see what it’s like—what it becomes when old, sick, or prostituting itself. Both the one who praises and the one praised are short-lived, the one who remembers and the one remembered. And this in just a corner of this region, and not even here does everyone agree, not even someone with themselves. The whole earth is a point.

Pay attention to the object, the activity, the principle, or what’s being signified. You deserve what you’re suffering. You’d rather become good tomorrow than be good today.

Am I doing something? I do it referring to human benefit. Something happens to me? I accept it, referring to the gods and the source of everything from which all events flow connected.

What does bathing seem like to you? Oil, sweat, dirt, greasy water, everything disgusting. That’s what every part of life is, and every object.

Lucilla saw Verus die, then Lucilla died. Secunda saw Maximus die, then Secunda. Epitynchanus saw Diotimus die, then Epitynchanus. Antoninus saw Faustina die, then Antoninus. The same pattern everywhere. Celer saw Hadrian die, then Celer. Those sharp ones, either prophetic or puffed with pride—where are they? Sharp ones like Charax, Demetrius the Platonist, Eudaemon, and anyone like them. All temporary, long dead. Some not remembered even briefly, others turned into legends, others already faded even from legends. So remember: your mixture will be dissolved, your breath extinguished, and your ruling mind changed and gone[4].

Human joy is doing human work. Human work is kindness to others, rising above the senses, seeing impressions clearly, and contemplating the nature of the whole and what it brings.

Three relationships: to the vessel that surrounds you, to the divine cause from which everything comes to everyone, and to those who live with you[5].

Pain is bad either for the body—let it say so—or for the soul. But the soul can maintain its own clear weather and calm, and not judge it bad. Every judgment, impulse, desire, and aversion is within, and nothing bad rises up to reach them.

Wipe out impressions by constantly telling yourself: Now it’s in my power for this soul to contain no wickedness, no desire, no disturbance at all. Looking at everything for what it is, I use each according to its value. Remember this power that nature gives you.

Speak both in the senate and to anyone with dignity, not for show. Use sound language.

Augustus’s court—wife, daughter, grandsons, ancestors, sister, Agrippa, relatives, household, friends, Areius, Maecenas, doctors, priests: a whole court’s death. Then look at other courts—not one person’s death, like the Pompeys. And that inscription on tombs: “Last of his line.” Think how much their ancestors struggled to leave an heir, then necessarily someone becomes the last. Here again, a whole family’s death[6].

You must organize your life action by action. If each as far as possible achieves its end, be satisfied. No one can prevent you from this. “But something external will obstruct.” Nothing can obstruct acting justly, self-controlled, and wisely. “But maybe some other activity will be prevented.” Yes, but by accepting the obstacle itself and reasonably shifting to what’s allowed, another action immediately replaces it, one that fits into the organization we’re talking about.

Accept without arrogance, let go without struggle.

You’ve seen a severed hand or foot, or a head cut off, lying somewhere separate from the rest of the body? That’s what someone makes themselves, as much as they can, when they don’t accept what happens and separate themselves, or when they do something antisocial. You’ve somehow thrown yourself out from the natural unity—you were born a part, but now you’ve cut yourself off. But here’s the beautiful thing: you can unite yourself again. God has given this to no other part—to come back and join and be a part again after being separated and cut off. Look at the kindness with which he’s honored humans. He put it in their power not to be broken off from the whole in the first place, and if broken off, to return, grow back together, and take their position as a part again.

Just as the nature of rational beings has given each other powers, so we’ve received this one from it. Just as it turns everything that opposes or resists into material for itself and fits it into fate, making it part of itself, so the rational creature can make every obstacle material for itself and use it for whatever it set out to do.

Don’t let the picture of your whole life disturb you. Don’t dwell on all the various troubles that have happened and will happen. But in each present moment ask yourself: What’s unbearable and unendurable about this? You’ll be ashamed to admit it. Then remind yourself that it’s not the future or past that weighs on you, but always the present. And this shrinks if you just define it, and rebuke your mind if it can’t hold up against even this alone.

Is Panthea or Pergamus sitting by Verus’s tomb now? Is Chabrias or Diotimus by Hadrian’s? Ridiculous. And if they were sitting there, would the dead notice? And if they noticed, would they be pleased? And if pleased, would that make the mourners immortal? Wasn’t it fated for them first to become old women and men, then die? And what would the dead do afterward once the mourners died? All this is stench and corruption in a bag of bones[7].

If you can see sharply, look—“and judge wisely,” he says[8].

In the make-up of a rational being, I see no virtue that opposes justice. But I see one that opposes pleasure: self-control.

If you remove your judgment about what seems to pain you, you yourself stand in perfect safety. “Who is ‘yourself’?” Reason. “But I’m not reason.” Fine. So let reason not trouble itself. If another part of you is in trouble, let it form its own judgment about itself.

Hindrance to perception is bad for animal nature. Hindrance to impulse is equally bad for animal nature. Something else can similarly hinder and be bad for plant nature. So hindrance to mind is bad for intellectual nature. Apply all this to yourself. Does pain or pleasure touch you? Let perception deal with it. Did something obstruct your impulse? If you were impulsive without reservation, that’s already bad for you as a rational being. But if you accept the universal principle, you’re not hurt or hindered. No one else can hinder the mind’s proper work. Fire can’t touch it, nor steel, nor tyrant, nor abuse, nor anything. When it becomes a “perfect round,” it stays that way[9].

I don’t deserve to give myself pain—I’ve never deliberately pained anyone else.

Different things make different people happy. What makes me happy is keeping my ruling principle healthy—not turning away from any person or anything that happens to people, but looking at and accepting everything with welcoming eyes, using each thing according to its value.

Give yourself this present gift. Those who pursue posthumous fame don’t realize that future people will be just like the ones who annoy them now. And they’re mortal too. What’s it to you if they make certain sounds or have certain opinions about you?

Take me and throw me where you want. There I’ll keep my divine part tranquil—that is, satisfied if it can act and function according to its make-up. Is this change worth my soul being bad and degraded—humbled, reaching out, enslaved, frightened? What could be worth that?

Nothing can happen to a human that isn’t a human event. Nothing to an ox that isn’t ox-like, nothing to a vine that isn’t vine-like, nothing to a stone that isn’t proper to a stone. So if what’s usual and natural happens to each thing, why complain? Common nature didn’t bring you anything unbearable.

If you’re pained by something external, it’s not the thing that disturbs you but your judgment about it. And it’s in your power to wipe out that judgment now. If something in your own character pains you, who’s stopping you from correcting your principle? Same if you’re pained because you’re not doing something you think is right—why not act rather than complain? “But something too strong opposes me.” Then don’t be pained, since the cause of not acting isn’t in your control. “But life’s not worth living with this undone.” Then leave life satisfied, as someone who does act dies, and be forgiving toward what opposes you.

Remember the ruling principle becomes unconquerable when it withdraws into itself and is satisfied with itself, not doing what it doesn’t want, even if it resists irrationally. What about when it judges something rationally and carefully? That’s why a mind free from passions is a citadel. A person has nothing more secure to retreat into and never be taken. Anyone who hasn’t seen this is ignorant. Anyone who has seen it and doesn’t retreat there is unfortunate.

Don’t tell yourself anything more than what first impressions report. You’ve been told someone speaks badly of you. That’s what you’ve been told—not that you’ve been harmed. I see my child is sick. I see that—not that they’re in danger. So always stay with first impressions. Don’t add anything from inside yourself, and nothing happens to you. Or rather, add something, but as someone who knows everything that happens in the universe.

Bitter cucumber? Throw it away. Thorns in the path? Go around. That’s enough. Don’t add: “Why do these things exist in the universe?” You’ll be laughed at by anyone who studies nature, just as a carpenter or shoemaker would laugh if you complained about seeing sawdust and scraps in their workshop. Yet they have somewhere to throw their scraps. The nature of the whole has nothing outside itself. But the amazing thing about its craft is that having limited itself, it transforms into itself everything inside that seems to decay, age, and be useless, and makes new things from these same materials, so it needs no substance from outside nor anywhere to dump waste. It’s satisfied with its own space, material, and craft.

Don’t be sluggish in action, confused in conversation, or wandering in thought. Don’t let your soul be completely contracted or dispersed. Don’t be too busy in life. They kill you, cut you to pieces, curse you. So what? How does that stop your mind from remaining pure, sensible, self-controlled, just? It’s as if someone stood by a clear, sweet spring cursing it—the spring keeps bubbling up drinkable water. Even if they throw in mud or dung, it quickly disperses and washes them out and isn’t stained at all. How can you have an ever-flowing spring and not a well? By guarding yourself every hour toward freedom, with kindness, simplicity, and modesty.

Someone who doesn’t know what the universe is doesn’t know where they are. Someone who doesn’t know why it exists doesn’t know who they are or what the universe is. Someone who misses any of this couldn’t even say why they exist. So what do you think of someone who avoids or pursues praise from people who don’t know where or who they are?

You want praise from someone who curses themselves three times an hour? You want to please someone who doesn’t please themselves? Does someone please themselves when they regret almost everything they do?

Don’t just breathe with the surrounding air—also think with the surrounding intelligence. The power of thought is no less poured out everywhere and pervades whoever can draw it in than air does for whoever can breathe.

Evil in general doesn’t harm the universe. Particular evil doesn’t harm others. It only harms the one person who has been given the power to be released from it the first moment they choose.

My neighbor’s choice is as indifferent to my ruling principle as their breath and body are. Even though we’re made for each other, still our ruling principles each have their own authority. Otherwise my neighbor’s evil would be my harm, which god didn’t want, so my misfortune wouldn’t depend on someone else.

The sun seems poured out and is poured everywhere, but not poured away. This pouring is extension—that’s why its beams are called rays, from extending. You can see what a ray is if you watch sunlight entering a dark room through a narrow opening. It extends in a straight line and presses against any solid it meets that blocks the air beyond. There it stops, neither slipping off nor falling. That’s how the pouring and spreading of understanding should be—not a pouring away but an extension. And it shouldn’t make violent or fierce impact on obstacles it meets, nor fall down, but stand firm and illuminate what receives it. What doesn’t transmit the light deprives itself[10].

Someone afraid of death fears either no sensation or different sensation. If no sensation, you won’t sense anything bad. If different sensation, you’ll be a different creature and won’t stop living.

People exist for each other. So teach them or bear with them.

An arrow moves one way, the mind another. Yet the mind, even when it’s careful or examining something, moves no less straight to its target.

Enter into everyone’s ruling principle. And let everyone enter into yours.