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Background
Background
Marcus Aurelius (121 - 180) was a Roman Emperor and stoic philosopher. He is known as the last of the Five Good Emperors, and the last emperor of what is known as the Pax Romana, a period of relative peace, and considered a ‘golden age’ of Roman Imperialism —although that obviously depends who you ask —as we have seen, I’m not sure that the Jewish people considered the era to be that peaceful.
As well as being a ‘good emperor’, Marcus Aurelius was also known at the time as ‘the philosopher’ and is remembered for his work, Meditations. The book was probably never intended to be published and is a collection of his private thoughts and writings written as he travelled around the empire and planned military campaigns.
A 'Stoic' philosopher
A 'Stoic' philosopher
Marcus Aurelius is often called a stoic philosopher - that is influenced by the works of Zeno, Chryssipus, Seneca and others, although he doesn’t use the word himself.
A central theme of the book is how to live a happy life:
On very few things depends the happy life
ἐν ὀλιγίστοις κεῖται τὸ εὐδαιμόνως βιῶσαι
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 7...and we do this by developing a sensible perspective on things, not letting oneself get wrapped up in unimportant things. This idea is exemplified in following passages from Book 9:
Let there be freedom from perturbations with respect to the things which come from the external cause; and let there be justice in the things done by virtue of the internal cause, that is, let there be movement and action terminating in this, in social acts, for this is according to thy nature.
Thou canst remove out of the way many useless things among those which disturb thee, for they lie entirely in thy opinion; and thou wilt then gain for thyself ample space by comprehending the whole universe in thy mind, and by contemplating the eternity of time, and observing the rapid change of every several thing, how short is the time from birth to dissolution, and the illimitable time before birth as well as the equally boundless time after dissolution.
All that thou seest will quickly perish, and those who have been spectators of its dissolution will very soon perish too. And he who dies at the extremest old age will be brought into the same condition with him who died prematurely.
What are these men's leading principles, and about what kind of things are they busy, and for what kind of reasons do they love and honour? Imagine that thou seest their poor souls laid bare. When they think that they do harm by their blame or good by their praise, what an idea!
—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 9I think that we can get a similar sense of what Marcus Aurelius was getting at if we think about the famous photograph of earth, the Pale Blue Dot.
It may not look like much but it’s a photo taken in 1990 by the Voyager 1 space probe, 6 billion kilometres from earth. Voyager 1, which had completed its primary mission and was leaving the Solar System, was commanded by NASA to turn its camera around and take one last photograph of Earth across a great expanse of space, at the request of astronomer and author Carl Sagan. Sagan wrote about the significance of the photograph in his 1994 book, Pale Blue Dot:
From this distant vantage point, the Earth might not seem of any particular interest. But for us, it's different. Consider again that dot. That's here. That's home. That's us. On it everyone you love, everyone you know, everyone you ever heard of, every human being who ever was, lived out their lives. The aggregate of our joy and suffering, thousands of confident religions, ideologies, and economic doctrines, every hunter and forager, every hero and coward, every creator and destroyer of civilization, every king and peasant, every young couple in love, every mother and father, hopeful child, inventor and explorer, every teacher of morals, every corrupt politician, every "superstar," every "supreme leader," every saint and sinner in the history of our species lived there--on a mote of dust suspended in a sunbeam.
—Carl Sagan, Pale Blue DotTasks
Tasks
Outline Marcus Aurelius’ advice on how to remove the ‘junk that clutters your mind’ and explain it in your own words.
Are there any reasons why it might be a bad idea to remove the 'junk that clutters your mind'?
Evaluate the advice that we have read from Marcus Aurelius.
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