Listing to the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius this morning. According to the introductory notes, he wrote these for himself while on campaign. If this is true, it puts an ironic spin on some of this advice. If written for someone else, the advice not to spend too much time in books sounds like advice to be a man of action, not a scholar. As advice to the self it suggests that he as a lover of books and was afraid he was overdoing it. More ironic is the prevalence of advice not to fear death, that it is natural and of little consequence. As advice for someone else there is a Stoic quality to that advice, and in fact, Marcus Aurelius is often referred to as the last Stoic. As advice for the self, it suggests he was inordinately obsessed with his own death.
This is only one of many passages he writes to himself about death: "To
observe too who these are whose opinions and voices give
reputation; what death is, and the fact that, if a man looks at
it in itself, and by the abstractive power of reflection
resolves into their parts all the things which present themselves to
the imagination in it, he will then consider it to be nothing else than an operation of nature; and if any one is afraid of an operation
of nature, he is a child."
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