"'I don't deny it,' answered Swann in some bewilderment. 'The fault I find with our journalism is that it forces us to take an interest in some fresh triviality or other every day, whereas only three or four books in a lifetime give us anything that is of real importance.'"
Marcel Proust, Swann's Way, p. 27
Doubtless I will end up revisiting this passage - and this concept - several times. I'm flashing back to Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death and the Trump phenomenon, but the question of the three or four books in a lifetime is something I definitely believe is true. Years ago when I taught at Georgia Perimeter (nee DeKalb) College, the president, the excellent Marvin Cole, would regularly invite me to his annual president's retreat in the north Georgia mountains (imagine, an administrator who liked me - a strange world). One time as a warm-up he sent around a question wherein we had to list 10 books which had profoundly influenced us. I remember Brenda joking that I should go ahead and list the last 10 books that I had read because every book profoundly influenced me (I think it was in the neighborhood of a compliment, but not within walking distance of one). That said, I suspect that in the end there probably are only about three or four books in our lifetime that are of real importance.
The fact that I would start with the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius would come as no surprise to any of my friends (or enemies, sadly). A couple years ago my great friend Cinse Bonino (who is known for her killer gifts) gave me a gift of a mason jar full of Marcus Aurelius quotes, decorated with a picture of MA and the quote, "What would Marcus say?" It was a beautiful reference to one of my (many) annoying habits of standing up at faculty meetings during times of contention and/or confusion and say, "Comrades, what would Marcus say?" At which point, while usually ducking flying objects, I would paraphrase some line from the Meditations that, at least in my besotted mind, promised to lead us to the truth. It is one of the few books that will make you a better person, and I have read my ragged copy repeatedly, especially during times when my own soul was disquieted. After 9/11 Champlain held a memorial in the Alumni Auditorium, but, typically, I didn't attend. Rather, I sat in my office and read the Meditations while listening to Tchaikovsky.
By the time you get to the end of the seven pages that make up Book 2 of the Meditations you've learned more than volumes or religious texts will ever tell you.
"2. A little flesh, a little breath, and a Reason to rule all - that is myself. (Forget your books; no more hankering for them; they were no part of your equipment.) As one already on the threshold of death, think nothing of the first - of its viscid blood, its bones, its web of nerves and veins and arteries. The breath, too; what is that? A whiff of wind/ and not even the same wind, but every moment puffed out and drawn in anew. But the third, the Reason, the master - on this you must concentrate. Now that your hairs are grey, let it play part of a slave no more, twitching puppetwise at every pull of self-interest; and cease to fume at destiny by ever grumbling at today or lamenting over tomorrow."
"11. In all you do or say or think, recollect that at any time the power of withdrawal from life is in your own hands. If gods exist, you have nothing to fear in taking leave of mankind, for they will not let you come to harm. But if there are not gods, or if they have no concern with mortal affairs, what is life to me, in a world devoid or gods or devoid of Providence? Gods, however, do exist, and do concern themselves with the world of men. They have given us full power not ro fall into any of the absolute evils; and if there were real evil in life's other experiences, they would have provided for that too, so that avoidance of it could lie within every man's ability. But when a thing does not worsen the man himself, how can it worsen the life he lives? The World-Nature cannot have been so ignorant as to overlook a hazard of this kind, nor, if aware of it, have been unable to devise a safeguard of a remedy. Neither want of power nor want of skill could have led Nature into the error of allowing good and evil to be visited indiscriminately on the virtuous and the sinful alike. Yet living and dying, honour and dishonour, pain and pleasure, riches and poverty, and so forth are equally the lot of good men and bad. Things like these neither elevate nor degrade; and therefore they are no more good than they are evil."
"14. Were you to live three thousand years, or even thirty thousand, remember that the sole life which a man can lose is that which he is living at the moment; and furthermore, that he can have no other life except the one he loses. This means that the longest life and the shortest amount to the same thing. For the passing moment is every man's equal possession, but what has once gone by is not ours. Our loss, therefore, is limited to that one fleeting instant, since no one can lose what is already past, nor yet what is yet to come - for how can he be deprived of what he does not possess? So two things should be borne in mind. First, that all the cycles or creation since the beginning of time exhibit the same recurring pattern, so that it can make no difference whether you watch the identical spectacle for a hundred years, or for two hundred, or for ever. Secondly, that when the longest- and the shortest-lived of us come to die, their loss is precisely equal. For the sole thing of which any man can be deprived is the present; since this is all he owns, and nobody can lose what is not his."
"16. For a human soul, the greatest of self-inflicted wrongs it to make itself (so far as it is able to do so) a kind of tumour or abscess on the universe; for to quarrel with circumstances is always a rebellion against Nature - and Nature includes the nature of each individual part. Another wrong, again, is to reject a fellow-creature or oppose him with malicious intent, as men do when they are angry. A third, to surrender to pleasure or pain. A fourth, to dissemble and show insincerity or falsity in word or deed. A fifth, for the soul to direct its act and endeavours to no particular object, and waste its energies purposelessly and without due thought; for even the least of our activities ought to have some end in view - and for creatures with reason, that end is conformity with the reason and law of the primordial City and Commonwealth."
This is something I believe in quite passionately. It is amazing, and depressing, how many problems in the world are caused by people who are determined to be a cancer. Like the monks in Melmoth the Wanderer, they are engorged spiders, and can only alleviate the pain by biting others and distributing the venom. I know this is definitely simplified and warmed over Marcus Aurelius, but I really do believe that if you do nothing else that leave your little corner of the world better than you found it then you've lived a remarkably successful life.
"17. In the life of a man, his time is but a moment, his being an incessant flux, his senses a dim rushlight, his body a prey of worms, his soul an unquiet eddy, his fortune dark, and his fame doubtful. In short, all that is of the body is as coursing waters, all that is of the soul as dreams and vapours; life a warfare, a brief sojourning in an alien land; and after repute, oblivion. Where, then, can man find the power to guide and guard his steps? In one thing and one alone: Philosophy. To be a philosopher is to keep unsullied and unscathed the divine spark within him, so that it can transcend all pleasure and all pain, take nothing in hand without purpose and nothing falsely or with dissimulation, depend not on another's actions or inactions, accept each and every dispensation as coming from the same Source as itself - and last and chief, wait with a good grace for death, as no more than a simple dissolving of the elements whoereof each living things is composed. If those elements themselves take no harm these their ceaseless forming and reforming, why look with mistrust upon the change and dissolution of the whole? It is but Nature's way; and in the ways of Nature there is no evil to be found."
Years ago my son was telling the story of a friend of his who was being pressured to get on some sort of medication by his parents, and, sadly, that does seem to be the answer to every problem now a days as the rapacious pharmaceutical industry is little more than actual drug dealers. Gary said, "What he really needs is his mother to give him a copy of Marcus Aurelius." I thought he was tweaking me, but he was actually sincere. At a certain period in high school when he was struggling I gave him a copy of the Meditations, and even years later he assures me that it was exactly what he needed; not medication, but instead a guide to life. Even today he will routinely quote passages to me. I think I screwed up plenty as a parent, but maybe, just maybe, I got one right.
I will definitely have to revisit this question once again, and I think I know what my other three or four books will be. I'd tackle them now, but I got so caught up in rereading the Meditations that the afternoon is getting away from me - and I need to get back to writing - and Marcus would not approve of me not having a more directed purpose for the afternoon.
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