Meditations #40

 You cannot hope to be a scholar. But what you can do is to curb arrogance; what you can do is to rise above pleasures and plains; you can be superior to the lure of popularity; you can keep your temper with the foolish and ungrateful, yes, and even care for them.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Eight

Damn, MA, I already feel bad about my lack of scholarly production, way to pile on. 

Actually, I've always loved this passage from the Meditations. As I think about my upcoming talking for the Vermont Public Philosophy Week I suspect that this passage will find it's way into the talk. My point is that, when thinking about the books that made me a better person - or at least gave me the tools to be a better person - I would always include the Qur'an (and I first said this before I ever converted to Islam), the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, and Proust's Remembrance of Things Past. I think it is a potentially rich topic because they are, on the surface, three remarkably dissimilar sources. And yet, I think there are definite liminal spaces where the three converge, one of them being a sense of your relationship to a larger world, and the role that you can and should play in it. There are things that we, no matter our station or position in life, can do, and one of the first is to, as MA reminds us, "curb arrogance." Certainly the Qur'an reminds us of that, including the consistent reminder to control our temper. I think Proust says the same thing, although in a roundabout and maybe contradictory fashion; that is, I think it shows us the folly of those actions, as compared to merely lecturing us on them.

Meditations #39

 The daily wearing away of life, with its ever-shrinking reminder, is not the only thing we have to consider. For even if a man's years be prolonged, we must still take into account that it is doubtful whether his mind will continue to retain its capacity for the understanding of business, or for the contemplative effort needed to apprehend things divine and human. The onset of senility may involve no loss of respiratory or alimentary powers, or of sensations, impulses and so forth; nevertheless, the ability to make full use of his faculties, to assess correctly the demands of duty, to coordinate all the diverse problems that arise, to judge if the time has come to end his days on earth, or to make any other of the decisions that require the exercise of a practiced intellect, is already on the wane. We must press on, then, in haste; not simply because every hour brings us nearer to death, but because even before then our powers of perception and comprehension begin to deteriorate.

Marcus Aurelius Meditations, Book Three

And since I mentioned my upcoming talk during the Vermont Public Philosophy Week, I guess I should get back into the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, not simply because of the event, but also because it continues to be an essential human activity.  I always come back to this justifiably famous and influential passage from the Meditations. It helps explain why learning Portuguese or giving talks like the upcoming one for Philosophy Week (or my one in the fall on Fernando Pessoa) or finishing the Epics and Ramadan in Winter books are so important to me.  I think it also helps explain why I dropped off of Facebook and Twitter and Instagram. We simply don't have that much time, and before we ever end altogether we start to decline mentally. I need to keep living and exploring, even if it's "just" an intellectual quest.

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. 

Meditations #37

 A branch severed from an adjoining branch necessarily becomes severed from the whole tree. A man, likewise, who has been divided from any of his fellows has thereby fallen away from the whole community. But whereas the branch is lopped by some other hand, the man, by his feelings of hatred or aversion, brings about his own estrangement from his neighbour, and does not see that at the same time has has cut himself off from the whole framework of society. Nevertheless it is in our power, by grace of Zeus the author of all fellowship, to grow back and become one with our neighbour again, so playing our part once more in the integration of the whole. Yet if such acts of secession are repeated frequently, they make it difficult for the recusant to achieve this reunion and restitution. A branch which has been partner of the tree's growth since the beginning, and has never ceased to share its life, is a different thing from one that has been grafted in again after a severance. As the gardeners say, it is of the same tree, but not of the same mind.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Eleven

Once more Marcus Aurelius reflecting upon the human condition and the need to remember and focus upon the oneness of the human condition - and once again using nature as the fitting metaphor. I guess I'm thinking about this admonition this morning for a couple reasons. One of them I suppose is purely personal. I was strolling through the great idiotic wasteland of Facebook this morning and came across some shared post (those ones which are either generated by a company to get business or as a scam to steal your personal information; in regards to the latter, I'm always amazed by the posts that ask questions like, "What was your first car?" or "What was your favorite pet's name?", when they should just go ahead and ask for your passwords . . . but I digress) which caught my eye. This one asked your favorite memory from high school. I started to type, "When I walked across the stage at graduation and never looked back," which is true but also more than a bit of a self-serving snarky statement, so I didn't write anything. In this way I intentionally cut myself away from the tree, although, geez, it's Indiana, so it's no great loss. Still, it speaks to MA's observation. Of course, if I hadn't made a very deliberate effort to leave I'd potentially be watching FoxNews, voting GOP, and actively supporting the establishment of a racist and theocratic state. Sometimes you did need to cut the branch because the tree is rotten, and hope for a successful graft somewhere else. All of this then brought me back to Facebook and social media where it had begun, and where I actually came back into contact with many of the folks I went to high school with (at least the ones I didn't unfriend because of their very thinly veiled racist or homophobic or Islamophobic statements). The great myth of social media, much like the internet that generated it, was that it would be the instrument that brought us all together or back together. Actually, it does exactly the opposite. The illusion of connection and the reality of isolation and, at times, anonymity, actually pushes us apart and facilitates that separation. 

Meditations #36

 Are you distracted by outward cares? Then allow yourself a space of quiet, wherein you can add to your knowledge of the Good and learn to curb your restlessness. Guard also against another kind of error: the folly of those who weary their days in much business, but lack any aim on which their whole effort, nay, their whole thought, is focused.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Two

As I continue to settle into our life here at the cabin this also seems like a natural fit. I didn't consciously decide to retreat from the world and look for a retreat like this cabin here in the woods, but it does seem to fit my current emotional state. As MA reminds us, like attracts like. It also, in a way, reminds me of the book I just finished, Fernando Pessoa's The Book of Quiet, which I'll have a lot to say about, I suspect. It moved me more than any book I can think of in a while.

Meditations # 35

 To refrain from imitation is the best revenge.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Six

I guess this seemed like the appropriate MA passage as I began to mentally and emotionally unpack the experience from my recent mad dash to Indiana. It sometimes amazes me how little I actually have in common with my father, especially since way too many people somehow think we are exact copies of one another. My Dad one time cracked that it was a good thing he existed because that allowed me to figure out what to do and think: that is, exactly the opposite of what he does and thinks. I guess all fathers think things like this, although it's especially true in regards to my father's solipsistic nature. It doesn't seem that I consciously made a decision to do and think exactly the opposite of my father, although I suppose I wouldn't recognize that even if it were true. Here's the thing, maybe if I had stayed in Lawrenceburg, Indiana I would have ended up thinking that way, as also seems to be the case of everyone I went to high school with who stayed there (if Facebook is any judge).

Meditations #34

 Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Ten

I mean, well duh, but at the same time it is one of the most profound things Marcus Aurelius ever said. Not to be too pedestrian, but are you going to talk the talk or walk the walk? All too often we, and intellectuals (or pseudo-intellectuals like me) talk endlessly about what a better world might be, but do little or nothing to make it a reality. Steve and I have this conversation at the Food Shelf all the time: that's another box of food loaded into another person's trunk, and that's the best thing I'll do this week. I'm not saying I'm a good person, because I'm obviously not, but the point is that we tried to do something tangible, even in a small way, to make someone's life a little better. There have been times at division meetings when we'll be talking about the efforts of Techdren to bring laptops to Zanzibar, and one of my more effete colleagues will sniff about White Savior Complex, to which my response is something like, "Look, paraphrasing Archer, you need to shut up and keep shutting up." Actually, my response is usually angry and profanity laden, but . . . Anyway, the point is, what are you doing to make the world a better place? Do something, try and be a good person, that little action means more than all your philosophizing.

Meditations #33

 Without an understanding of the nature of the universe, a man cannot know where he is; without an understanding of its purpose, he cannot know what he is, nor what the universe itself is. Let either of these discoveries be hid from him, and he will not be able so much as to give a reason for his own existence. So what are we to think of anyone who cares to seek or shun the applause of the shouting multitudes, when they know neither where they are nor what they are?

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Eight

For several reasons, none of them particularly surprising, this passage from the Meditations jumped out at me this morning. At several places in the Meditations Marcus Aurelius discusses the city and the individual, or, to think of it another way, the macro and the micro, or maybe the external and the internal. Last night we were watching the first public broadcast of the January 6th Commission. As the committee members laid out the treasonous actions of Trump and his followers it provided more proof (or, as Sandy Zale would opine, as if we needed more proof) of a nation that has clearly lost both an understanding of "the nature of the universe" and also of "its purpose." As I said to Janet last night, for probably the thousandth time, it's not simply the actions of one deranged, sociopathic leader, but the one hundred million Americans who are completely cool with his actions - apparently democracy is just one of those quaint ideas from the past, or simply something that happens to other people. Now, on the smaller, more personal, more internal level, these words resonated with me as well. Yesterday I finally, officially, physically, moved into Janet's cabin in Calais. Obviously, to get to this moment I've needed to devote time to trying to understand both the nature of the universe and its purpose, but it's also clearly just the beginning of the process. Every time we cross a boundary it is the perfect time for that manner of self-reflection, and this is no exception.

Meditations #32

 In your action let there be a willing promptitude, yet a regard for the common interest; due deliberation, yet no irresolution; and in your sentiments no pretentious over-refinement. Avoid talkativeness, avoid officiousness.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Three

Two years ago, as the pandemic was just taking over the world, I proposed to someone that COVID had turned life into one expansive Ramadan. I think I cited several aspects of it, but at this moment I'd like to just focus on the one that seems most important to me at this moment: intentionality. During Ramadan you have to plan your day. When do you start your fast? When and where do you end your fast? Did you eat and drink enough in the morning to carry you through the whole day? Where will you be during the day during prayer times? What extra volunteering and service will you be performing? In some ways COVID was like that. You had to think about every act, not simply because you wanted to minimize the chances of getting sick, but also because what if you got sick and died? Were you affairs in order, not simply financially, but also emotionally? Have you told all your friends that you love them and how much they mean to you? And while we all miss the spontaneity - both during Ramadan and during the depths of COVID - the importance of leading an intentional life, or a life of, to quote MA, "due deliberation," is a valuable lesson to remember. 

Meditations #31

 Always think of the universe as one living organism, with a single substance and a single soul; and observe how all things are submitted to the single perceptivity of this one whole, all are moved by its single impulse, and all play their part in the causation of every event that happens. Remark the intricacy of the skein, the complexity of the web.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Four

This has always been one of my favorite passages from the Meditations, and I suppose it is striking me as even more true and powerful as we're a few days into another Ramadan. Over the years I know I've proposed this several times, but we do such a disservice to Ramadan when we simply turn it into a physical act; that is, when we turn it into nothing more than fasting. Sadly, I suspect we do this because it is more easily quantified, and thus critiqued and judged. You will frequently have brothers ask you if you're fasting or if you got your hours of fasting in, but I can never remember a brother asking if I read the Qur'an or the Hadith or related works or if I was satisfied with the number of hours I spent in meditation and self-reflection. Again, my favorite part of Ramadan is the time I spent in the latter.  What strikes me more every year, and with every rereading of the Qur'an, is the "intricacy of the skein," as MA would have it.

Meditations #30

 "A poor soul burdened with a corpse," Epictetus calls you.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Four

I really do need to design a Champlain course based around the Meditations. A couple years ago I put in a proposal for a first year course as part of our new curriculum, but it wasn't chosen. While I suspect this particular passage wouldn't resonate with my students (if anything resonates with them . . .) but it definitely speaks to me as I slide deeper into my 60s. 

Meditations #29

 Injustice is a sin. Nature has constituted rational beings for their own mutual benefit, each to help his fellows according to their worth, and in no wise to do them hurt; and to contravene her will is plainly to win against this eldest of all the deities. Untruthfulness, too, is a sin, and against the same goddess. For Nature is the nature of existence itself; and existence connotes the kinship of all created beings.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Nine

As we're dragging towards the end of Year Two of COVID, and considering the implications of Year Three and Year Four, I'm drawn back to this passage from the Meditations. As usual MA is correct when he pointed out that "existence connotes the kinship of all created beings." The great trick of capitalism is to make us forget this fact, and to instead celebrate the individualistic accumulation of as much as inhumanly possible, and to decry compassion for our fellow human beings as weakness. I'd hate to think how many COVID-related statistics I've posted on Twitter or Facebook which then cried out for the same tagline: "But my freedom . . ." In the end individual freedom doesn't mean much when it endangers the collective good. Aren't we told this on every visit to our houses of worship (well, not the Evangelical mega-churches), and yet we forget it as we pass out the door.

Meditations #28

 Press on steadily, keep to the straight road in your thinking and doing, and your days will flow on smoothly. The soul of man, like the souls of all rational creatures, has two things in common with the soul of God: it can never ben thwarted from without, and its good consists in righteousness of character and action, and in confining every wish thereto.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Five

During the year on this blog that I devoted to reflections on faith I noted, way too many times, the fact that in the Quran the essential concepts of faith and righteous deeds are linked over fifty times. For example, Surah 103: "By the declining day humanity is a state of failure, with the exception of those who believe, perform righteous deeds, and enjoin each other to truth and patience." This has always been one of my favorite surahs because, while we can't understand the divine, we can, to be the best of our abilities, focus our attentions on those four concepts. Cycling back to faith and righteous deeds, I would propose that they are naturally linked; essentially, I would argue that we most clearly practice faith when we're devoting our time to the small kindnesses that we should direct towards all living beings. I'm making this point because it is so remarkably similar to what Marcus Aurelius is saying in the Meditations. Of course, I suppose all religions and philosophies say something similar, or at least they should.

Meditations #27

 All of us are creatures of a day; the remember and the remembered alike.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Four

I think it's time for another Proust reread. The other day in my sophomore classes, which are focuses this semester on Ibn Khaldun's Muqaddimah (because, why not), and we were discussing the importance and nature of history, which led me to reflecting upon the nature of all memory. So, of course, it got me thinking about Proust. Reading Remembrance of Things Past is one of those intellectual and spiritual exercises which must be carried out every so often to get us in shape and to keep us focusing on the nature of all things.

Meditations #26

 Childish squabbles, childish games, 'petty breaths supporting corpses' - why, the ghosts in Homer have more evident reality!

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Nine

This almost feels more like a Marcus Aurelius rant than a studied reflection on the nature of all things. That said, it's still spot on. I was talking to my sister yesterday and she referenced the constant internecine struggles that have torn my family apart since the passing of my mother; the last time we were ever in the same shared space was at her funeral, and I suspect the next, and last, will be at my father's. Oddly, the only person who gets along with all of them is me, the one who has traditionally been the most distant (and doubtless there's a lesson to be learned there, in both directions). I also refuse to be drawn into the nonsense, stopping each and every one of them as they begin to launch into a complaint or an investigation into the failings of the others. Part of this relates to what MA is getting at here: why do we focus so much time on the absolute transient foolishness of life, the "ghosts in Homer"? Maybe because it distracts us from the deeper, more unknowable facts - or maybe we're just easily amused - or we're simply not that nice of a species. 

Meditations #25

 Your own mind, the Mind of the universe, your neighbour's mind - be prompt to explore them all. Your own, so that you may shape it to justice; the universe, that you may recollect what it is you are a part of; your neighbour's, that you may understand whether it is informed by ignorance or knowledge, and also may recognize that it is kind to your own.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Nine

As usual, MA is sharing some truth. Of course you should start with your own mind; as he tells us many times, always start with yourself first when you consider the deeper meaning of anything. If you start with yourself and make your primary goal one of justice then most of the wrongs that you impose on others will be eliminated. And isn't that the key? Start with living a just life, as compared to imposing justice on others. That said, always remember the role that you play in the larger whole, the universe, and never lose sight of the part that you play, and, well, try and remember what a small part you play. And only at the end turn your attention to your neighbors. How many of us start there, making our life one of comparison and envy, as comparted to considering their actions in regards to the simple question of ignorance and knowledge, and moving forward from there.

Meditations #24

 In death, Alexander of Macedon's end differed no whit from his stable boy's. Either both were received into the same generative principle of the universe, or both alike were dispersed into atoms.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Six

When we are in love (and I hope to feel that again someday) we act as if no one has ever felt as we feel at that moment - and when the love ends (and I hope to not feel that again someday) we act as if no one has ever suffered as we are that moment. In a way, of course, this is how we view out lives: utterly unique phenomena that change the world forever, which, of course, is absurd. Following that logic, and cycling back around to MA, wouldn't that also be true of our deaths as well? This is not to say that Alexander didn't change the world in a way that his stable boy didn't - I was just talking to my friend Kerry and Steve last night about how I'd like to teach a class on the historical and cultural influence of Alexander (as compared to what he did during his life). However, I agree with MA in that when Alexander and his stable boy lay dying, at that moment, what was happening to them, either for good or bad or nil, added up to the same thing.

Meditations #23

 Anything in any way beautiful derives its beauty from itself, and asks nothing beyond itself.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Four

This reminds me of the debate between Kant and Hume about the nature of beauty that used to be a staple of the sadly discontinued COR 220. Essentially, do we appreciate beauty because we, after study, possess the education and experience to see it (Kant) or is there something inherent in the beautiful thing that we pick up on unbidden (Hume). MA seems to be coming down on the side of the latter.

Meditations #22

 Life is short, and this earthly existence has but a single fruit to yield - holiness within, and selfless action without.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Six

Lately I've been thinking about this passage quite a bit for a number of reasons. First off, you can see why so many people of faith, no matter the faith, have been drawn to Marcus Aurelius over the centuries. Secondly, and most importantly, what an extraordinarily beautiful and essential message. Truthfully, is this not humans at their absolute best? That is, when we assiduously strive for that peace of green fields inside us all, while also living a life in service to others, aren't we living that "best life" (a term that people throw around so effortlessly without a shred of self-reflection)? Finally, and more personally, this is a passage that I've read countless times over the decades and it never resonated with me the way it does now. As I've grown into a person of faith, and found myself devoting more and more of my time to giving back through volunteering, the natural marriage between "holiness within, and selfless action without" became glaringly apparent. What is the point of any of this if this is not your goal? The point of this can't be to make money or become famous or to impose your will on others religiously. In Islam we are reminded that every act of kindness is charity, keeping in mind that charity is one of the requirements of the faith, one example among many of our attempt to emphasize the same thing that Marcus Aurelius is saying. Once again, MA nails it.

Meditations #21

 I travel the roads of nature until the hour when I shall lie down and be at rest; yielding back my last breath into the air from which I had drawn it daily, and sinking down upon the earth from which my father derived the seed, my mother the blood, and my nurse the milk of my being - the earth which for so many years has furnished my daily meat and drink, and, though so grievously abused, still suffers me to tread its surface.

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book Five

We never think of Marcus Aurelius is as an environmentalist, and, certainly, in the modern sense he was not, but this utterly poignant reflection on nature would make any modern lover of the environment nod their head knowingly and sadly. Of course the Earth has long suffered from a Stockholm syndrome-like relationship with its kidnappers, that is, humans. Considering what is happening with global climate change it looks like she has finally come to grips with how we have "grievously abused" her and may be packing up to leave. Alice doesn't live here anymore.