Meditations #38

 "As surgeons keep their lancets and scalpels always at hand for the sudden demands of their craft, so keep your principles constantly in readiness for the understanding of things both human and divine; never in the most trivial action forgetting how intimately the two are related. For nothing human can be done aright without reference to the divine, and conversely."

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Three

I initially chose this passage because of the opening sentiments, but eventually it was the closing reflections that mean the most to me (which shows how we change - and hopefully grow - with age). Yes, you definitely need to "keep your principles constantly in readiness."  Over the years of this blog, which are now quite a few, I reflected upon what those principles entail. For a long time I would have said that it was mainly the foundational concepts laid out in the Meditations. They still come back to me almost unbidden. Not surprisingly over the last decade I would have enriched that philosophical worldview with concepts from the Quran and the Hadith. Oddly, I think I would have rounded it out with more precise, and literary, reflections from Proust's Remembrance of Things Past and now Pessoa's Book of Disquiet. Of course, MA is getting at something far more profound: that is, it's not simply enough to have read these works; rather, you need to constantly work to incorporate them into your daily life, to make sure that they're not simply quotes that you write down, but instead are treasured and active maxims that shape your life.

So that is the opening section, but what about the closing one? This is what Islam has brought to my life. It has also deepened my understanding of the Meditations. Before my conversion I don't think I would have understood how "intimately" the human and divine are related. Now I feel that you can not begin to understand one without the other - and thus understand life without either.