Damn I'm Tired... What Say You Marcus Aurelius ???

[WillyT]

Of human life the time is a point, and the substance is in a flux, and the perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to putrefaction, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing devoid of judgement. And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour, and life is a warfare and a stranger's sojourn, and after-fame is oblivion. What then is that which is able to conduct a man? One thing and only one, philosophy. But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man free from violence and unharmed, superior to pains and pleasures, doing nothing without purpose, nor yet falsely and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man's doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from thence, wherever it is, from whence he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is compounded. But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each continually changing into another, why should a man have any apprehension about the change and dissolution of all the elements? For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.

Link: http://classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.2.two.html

:applause:

:boring:

[wtmusic]

1. Stoicism rocks,

except the part about being "superior to pleasures".

I guess I'm Stoic Lite.

[WillyT]

2. Psst... I Was Turned On To This By Reading...

'The World According To Garp' by John Irving.

One of my all time greatest books!!! Er... That I've read... you know what I mean.

:shrug:

[wtmusic]

3. Haven't read it...I'll have to check it out

but all the pleasure the book brought you has Zeno rolling over in his grave :D

[OffWithTheirHeads]

4. Manifest destiny or free will?

It's all bullshit.

[WillyT]

5. I Think That's The Point...

It's all bullshit.

Sort of...

:shrug:

[bridgit]

6. Marcus is trippy; wherever I think Hamlet to be morose I trend toward Marcus...

Maybe here maybe there... But it can be like panning for gold: "Observe constantly that all things take place by change, and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the Universe loves nothing so much as to change the things which are, and to make new things like them."

[pa28]

7. I need to read this book again.

Thanks for the reminder WillyT

:fistbump:

[Blue_Tires]

8. kick for the philosopher...

[MilesColtrane]

9. He's out of his Vulcan mind!

[Hekate]

10. A calming thread in GD... how rare...

Thanks you and KnR.

Hekate