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Remind Yourself Of This Every Morning (Episode 100)
967 Plays1 year ago
For episode 100, Caleb and Michael discuss Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations 2.1.
Thank you for listening. Send us a note at [email protected] if you ever have any comments, questions, or requests.
(03:01) Reading 2.1
(04:32) Praemediatio Malorum
(09:44) Dealing With Others
(17:15) Seeing Goodness
(24:46) No One Can Harm Us
(27:15) Overcoming Anger
(36:16) Working With Others
(41:44) The Obstacle is the Way
(44:40) Summary
(47:14) One Hundred Episodes
***
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Transcript
Celebrating 100 Episodes & Intro to Meditations 2.1
00:00:01
Speaker
Hi all, welcome to Stoa Conversations. This is our 100th episode. Thanks for listening this far. In this conversation, Michael and I decided to celebrate by discussing Marcus Aurelius's Meditations 2.1. It's one of the best encapsulations of stoic theory and practice.
00:00:26
Speaker
And of course, if you're getting value out of what we've done so far this year, please leave us a review on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. Share the podcast with a friend or communities of people interested in stoicism, philosophy, especially philosophy as a way of life.
00:00:45
Speaker
and send us a note to stoa at stoameditation.com. We read all of our emails and have had a number of guests on and conversations because of listener requests. So, questions, comments, or requests, ideas, always appreciated. Here is our conversation.
Significance of Meditations 2.1 in Stoicism
00:01:09
Speaker
Welcome to Stoa Conversations. My name is Caleb Monteverros. And I'm Michael Trombley.
00:01:15
Speaker
And today we are going to be talking about Marcus Aurelius's meditations. We're going to be doing a reading through 2.1. That's the very beginning of Marcus Aurelius's second book from the meditation second notebook.
00:01:33
Speaker
Yeah. And this is one of those, for those, once we start reading it, most of you will probably be familiar with it. If not, that's great. It's, it's, it's a one worth getting familiar with, but it's one of those paragraphs that, um, so much of it covers so much of stoicism. Um, it touches on so many different parts from the ethics to the, to the worldview. So there's, there's a lot of stoic wisdom in this one paragraph. And so taking the time to pull it out bit by bit and discuss some of the implications of what Marcus talks about here.
Stoic Practices for Adversity
00:02:03
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. The first time I read this, I didn't recognize how much of stoicism was encapsulated in it. And then also it wasn't until later that I realized some of the references that Marcus was making here. So what we'll do was we'll read through it, tease out some of that stoic background as we do so and maybe connect it to whatever else comes up to our practice or philosophical thoughts.
00:02:29
Speaker
And that's one of the best things about socialism I would say is the first time you read it, it seems like common sense or it seems like, Oh, this, this just makes sense. This is good advice. Uh, but then there's, uh, there's always many deeper ideas behind it. Uh, so we'll try to hit it at both those levels. Yep. Yep. All right. You ready? Let's do it. Born ready. Very excited to deep dive.
00:02:52
Speaker
All right. Y'all can't see it, but Michael's ready to do some textual analysis. It just pops me up. So I'll read from Robin Waterfield's new translation. There are plenty of fine translations of meditations, but I've been using this one as a reference source lately. So I'll read from this one.
00:03:16
Speaker
And we'll see how far we get. At the start of the day, tell yourself I shall meet people who are officious, ungrateful, abusive, treacherous, malicious, and selfish.
Understanding Human Flaws through Stoicism
00:03:30
Speaker
In every case, they've got like this because of their ignorance of good and bad. But I have seen goodness and badness for what they are, and I know that what is good is what is morally right, and what is bad is what is morally wrong.
00:03:48
Speaker
and I've seen the true nature of the wrongdoer himself and know that he's related to me, not in the sense that we share blood and seed, but by virtue of the fact that we both partake of the same intelligence, and so of a portion of the Divine.
00:04:04
Speaker
Nice.
00:04:32
Speaker
Yeah, so that's the full section from Meditations 2.1. That's the complete passage as it were. And right from the start, you have this idea of practice at the start of the day, at the beginning of your day.
00:04:48
Speaker
remind yourself of the following that you're going to meet with people who will prove to be obstacles or you're thinking of people who are imperfect and that connects to this first stoic idea of pre-meditatio morlorum, the visualization, the preparation,
00:05:13
Speaker
for meeting obstacles.
Daily Stoic Preparations
00:05:16
Speaker
Premeditate malorum, that just means premeditating on evils, but you can think of it as negative visualization. And doing that for the sake of, I think as you can see in this passage, you do it for multiple reasons. One is just to sort of practically prepare yourself, psychologically prepare yourself for that. But also for the sake of
00:05:39
Speaker
bringing to mind an obstacle and discerning its character, its actual character. When you're meeting someone who is ungrateful or abusive, what's actually happening? What's the stoic account of what's going on in that case? And that's what Marcus goes on to continue to describe. But I think the very first sentence
00:06:01
Speaker
you have this idea of pre-Manitatio Malorum, you have this idea of practice. This is something that one does at a specific time of the day to prepare oneself to live well.
00:06:12
Speaker
Yeah, there's in the premeditatio malorum. I mean, as you said, there's two parts to it. There's verse first, you know, understand those things that you're afraid of that you think could happen. Get a grasp for what they really are. And I think that's where the second sentence goes. But that first sentence is just, don't be surprised, be prepared, have it on your radar, be aware of its eventuality. And that I think is the, you know, when you wake in the morning, that idea of
00:06:41
Speaker
You need to kind of put on a frame of reference. It's not preparation because, I mean, it is preparation in a sense, but when we think of preparation, we think of it as, I don't know, I sometimes think of it as adding something new, like, oh, I'm preparing for a race. I'm going to train my body over time. It's not like that. It's really like a focusing of your attention.
00:07:05
Speaker
So you're preparing because you're, you're, you're less likely to be offended, but you're not adding any, you're not really adding new information. You're just refocusing your attention. You might've forgot that there are selfish, arrogant, you know, deceitful people in the world. And you need to really, you need to refocus that. So the first time it comes at you, it doesn't catch you unaware. Um, and I think that's a, I mean, that's a, that's a common stoic practice though. Uh,
00:07:32
Speaker
using your attention as a tool as one of the most valuable tools you have for navigating your life successfully. Yeah, it's I suppose using your attention, seeing things at the right scale, such that you aren't surprised. I suppose what I what I mean by that is one way to wake up and start going about your day is
00:07:57
Speaker
think about you if you're very systematic maybe thinking about specific plan I'm gonna do this and this and this and so on just maybe you might do this almost in a conscious way via some routine and often either out of a sense of rigidness or sort
Cosmopolitanism in Stoic Philosophy
00:08:15
Speaker
of almost unreflective easy-goingness perhaps one could say or unreflective ease we end up being surprised when
00:08:24
Speaker
Uh, something emerges and I think one of the key stoic psychological insights is that the surprise is behind many of our negative emotions. Why'd we get, we would be less upset in traffic if we just expected to encounter it. It's traffic is just something that happens when one on one drives, but it's, you know, maybe most frustrating when it's something we hadn't reminded ourselves, uh, exists.
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I think that's dead on another thing. Another thing I was thinking of in, in, in a physical metaphor, there's this description or people sometimes talk about the difference between health and hygiene, health being something that you develop over time. Hygiene is being almost like a maintenance, you know, like you, you, you've got to brush your teeth every day as your hygiene. Uh, and then if you don't do that, that's going to have long-term implications on your health. And I can kind of think of this, you know, wake up in the morning and tell yourself that like,
00:09:19
Speaker
shitty people exist and you're going to bump into them. That's not really like, that's not health in some kind of profound way, but it's, it's almost thinking about that as like a hygiene. Like, you know, you're not, you're not just, um, you're not just brushing your teeth and having a shower, but you're also doing your mental hygiene, getting that prepared for the day. Uh, and if you don't do that long enough, you know, your health will suffer.
00:09:43
Speaker
Yeah, so the next sentence Marcus adds is, in every case they've got like this because of their ignorance of good and bad.
00:09:55
Speaker
And in a sense, you might think the beginning opens almost in a pessimistic note. You know, remind yourself that terrible people exist is one gloss on it. But the next step Marcus makes shows that I think that's a mistaken reading. So he notes that people, they're going to have these specific
00:10:22
Speaker
specific vices. So they'll be malicious, they'll be selfish, certainly something he's got to deal with as a politician. But they're like this out of ignorance, not out of some inherent flawed character or something of this nature. And I think that needs some, to explain that a little bit more, one of the key stoic, one of the ideas the stoics have about our motivations is that
00:10:52
Speaker
everyone is trying to do good by their own lights. And that's something we shouldn't forget. So if you think about, Robin Waterfield has a nice example here. You think about someone who enjoys smoking. On a stoic account, they don't enjoy smoking because they believe it's bad for them. They think it's good for them.
00:11:16
Speaker
in certain respects, which is why they do it. They value the pleasure that comes from smoking and they are more attached to that pleasure than they are to judgments about their long-term health. So likewise, people who are malicious or selfish have mistaken beliefs about what is good for them.
00:11:41
Speaker
And we can think about them in the same way one can think about the smoker who's confused about their welfare. Yeah, so even the first line, we get practice premeditatio malorum, kind of daily rituals. In the second line, we get intellectualism, which is, as you said, the view that everybody's trying to reach for their conception of the good.
00:12:10
Speaker
You know, someone's selfish because they think, well, it's better to serve my own interests. Or they have some sort of mistake of, well, if I'm not selfish, this person's going to screw me over first. You know, if I, if I don't get them, they're going to get me. They have some sort of a mistaken, mistaken worldview, or they think, you know, what matters is my success more than if I harm other people. People have the, they're ignorant. And what we mean by ignorant is in a literal stoic sense, it's like they lack knowledge.
00:12:40
Speaker
So they're ignorant in that they don't know the truth of the fact, which is that for the Stoics, what is most important is your character. And so because you've prioritized other things or because you have mistaken beliefs, you have a poor character.
00:12:58
Speaker
I'm almost skipping ahead a bit so I mean stop me if I'm getting too excited but there's also this like um you alluded to this a bit in this there's this idea that we're all the same so all the bad people and all the good people we're all the same we're all trying to pursue our conceptions of the good and so we're all the same kind of people
00:13:19
Speaker
Some of us are more ignorant than others. Some of us are more knowledgeable than others, but we're all the same type. And that really, I think it's something beautiful about stoicism, it really gets away from this kind of us versus them thinking. You know, the stoics say other things about how we're all, everybody except the sage is equally vicious or everybody except the sage is ignorant.
00:13:41
Speaker
It's not like there's good people and bad people inherently. We're all trying to pursue our conception of the good and some people have less knowledge than others.
00:13:53
Speaker
We don't really talk about that in this podcast, Kayla, but I think there is that kind of prevalent thinking, at least in, I don't know, at least in my friend group or in people that I've encountered this idea of like some people are just bad people. Some people are rotten or some people are wrong. And this really, I think it pushes back against that at the very least that recontextualizes that.
00:14:18
Speaker
But I think it pushes back against that. And so it encourages you not to use us versus them thinking, even though you've just acknowledged all these negative qualities with people you're going to encounter.
Applying Stoic Principles
00:14:32
Speaker
Right. Yeah, I think in the if you think about some of the worst cases of vice or terrible behavior, I think what the stoic would urge is to see people who do these terrible things as ignorant people who don't know how to
00:14:57
Speaker
live well and thereby bring misery on themselves and others. And almost like people who one should have a similar attitude towards people who are seriously physically sick or physically disabled. Not of course the exact same, but the analogy is made, I think Epictetus will make this analogy explicit that
00:15:23
Speaker
You know, some people are physically blind, other people are morally blind. They don't know what's good for themselves or for others. And it's that move as opposed to perhaps thinking of someone as inherently on the wrong side, right? They might be possessed in certain ways, but you have that idea that
00:15:44
Speaker
in different spiritual traditions that someone has aligned with the wrong force. They've chosen to be on the wrong side and now they're tainted. That's who they are. Whereas that's not how the Stoics would frame it.
00:16:01
Speaker
Which is nice. Evil people, as you say, you could frame this as, I'm put on your shield, put on your armor against the enemy. But we get that first line of prepare yourself, but the second line is not, as we'll see, and we'll get into it more, but they're not your enemies. That's the second part too. You got to prepare yourself, but they're not your enemies.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, I think there's always an issue, are some people curable or not? And I think the studies have different takes on that, but regardless.
00:16:37
Speaker
If you get into our normal lives in modern countries, we're encountering people who are malicious and selfish. Often we have these sorts of traits ourselves and taking on this frame as these sorts of things are done out of a matter of ignorance or imperfection, not
00:17:02
Speaker
and not immediately moving to, as you said, the us versus them type nature of things, but always thinking about how can we, and we'll get to this later as well, but how can we cooperate as a whole, as a social creatures that we are? And so the next line we have from Marcus Aurelius is, but I have seen goodness and badness for what they are, and I know what is good and what is morally right, and what is bad is what is morally wrong.
00:17:32
Speaker
So if you think back to the example of the smoker, a smoker, someone's confused about what's ultimately good for them, maybe they just value that pleasure. Marcus Aurelius is saying, but I know what's good for me is virtue, essentially, living in accordance with nature. And because of that, he continues. I've seen the true nature of the wrongdoer himself and know that he's related to me.
00:18:01
Speaker
not in the sense that we share blood and see virtue of the fact that we both partake of the same intelligence and sow of a portion of the divine. He knows what's good, be virtuous, and that means showing virtue with respect to the rest of humanity living well with the people who are ungrateful and abusive, a high charge.
00:18:28
Speaker
And this idea about sharing as all being can, or sharing being related, not physically related, not literally related, but we all share in the divine, this connects to a couple of things. I mean, one, it connects to this idea of cosmopolitanism, which for a philosophy founded in the Greek city-states, like Athens, where they were polises, poli,
00:18:58
Speaker
To say that your polis is the cosmos, to say that your city is the whole universe. We're all citizens of humankind, essentially. Not even humankind, because that limits it. We're all citizens of the universe.
00:19:14
Speaker
And so we all have a kind of obligations to each other the same way that Athenians would protect Athenians and maybe they'd fight Spartans, something like this. We actually have those obligations to all people. And everyone in that way is our brother, our sister, our family in a certain sense. And this also connects with a metaphysical, and this is what you were saying about how so much of Stoicism is in this, there's a metaphysical argument here. So the Stoic actually thought that
00:19:44
Speaker
Basically, they were physicalists, so everything is matter. But there's different types of matter. And you have inert matter or something that's like a rock. And then maybe you have something like a plant that grows and something like an animal has sense experience. And then the highest
00:20:09
Speaker
The most divine form of this was what was found in our psyche or human souls, which is really just our minds, was this capacity to reason and reflect. This was the most divine, really physical matter in the universe. It was considered to be on par.
00:20:26
Speaker
with with God. And so that's what he means about, you know, we actually have a share of the divine in us, is that we have a little piece of this God like matter and quality, this ability to reflect, be self conscious, consider our decisions. And we share that with all people. And sometimes that goes wrong. Sometimes that's why that's when people don't understand good and bad. But it's something that we all share.
00:20:50
Speaker
And I mean, that's what he's referencing to. It's easy to see these things and say, we all possess ish. We all share in the divine or have a, have a share of the divine doesn't think of that as some sort of, you know, that's kind of nice. It's a nice metaphor, allegory or analogy or whatever you want, but it's like, no, he's like, he's literally describing stoic theory there. Right. The fact that we all possess a little bit of this, of a little bit of this God like quality in us, in our reason.
00:21:18
Speaker
Right, right. The Stokes were a kind of pan theist. They thought God was nature, and in particular, God had this aspect of reason and also providence. And you can think of that as ability to order, to direct, but if you think of providence as having a telos, a purpose that is geared towards the good.
00:21:45
Speaker
in some way. And what Marcus is saying is that each of us, by our own ability to reason, by our own rational minds, have that aspect of reason, order, and also we're social, which in a sense mirrors that ability, that aspect of nature that contains providence.
00:22:09
Speaker
we can pursue the good for ourselves and for others as well. And in that way, we truly are fragments of the divine.
00:22:16
Speaker
Yeah, and so to clarify, I think that's really well put, and to clarify what I was saying, because you could read my thing, well, there's rocks, and then there's people, and people are like God, and the rocks aren't like God. But that's not what I meant, I swear. When you give the pantheistic position, the idea was that all matter was imbued. Well, all matter had both a passive principle, which is inert,
00:22:43
Speaker
has extension and then an active principle. And that was the divine, but just some of it has more active principle than others, right? Or some of it has a more refined active principle than others. So we find the most refined or concentrated active principle in our reason. And that's why even though God is in everything, some things are more divine than others. I would say some picture like this, as you said, because
00:23:09
Speaker
you know, the ability to be self-reflective, to engage with Providence, to direct ourselves, to contemplate the universe. These are reflections of the more divine part of ourselves that, you know, for them, plants and animals wouldn't have. Right, right.
00:23:28
Speaker
And if you think about how far we've gotten so far from the practical perspective, at least what I would take from this is we've got, we'll dip back into the philosophy, but what I've got from this so far is that you've got that aspect of preparation, preparing to meet adversity from others, reminding yourself that
00:23:47
Speaker
their actions are driven by their own idea of ideas of what is good and insofar as they're acting poorly that they're ignorant and whereas
00:24:04
Speaker
Marcus's actions are driven by his view on virtue.
Obligations of Understanding Stoic Truths
00:24:09
Speaker
And so that he's calling himself, don't be surprised when others act poorly, pursue virtue. And one way to do that is remember, ultimately, we're all on the same team. And you share not just the rational capabilities, but in a real sense,
00:24:30
Speaker
partake in the same reasoning process. When you encounter adversity in the shape of others, that's when you can remind yourself to focus on what's good, remind yourself that others are aiming to do the exact same.
00:24:45
Speaker
I always felt like there was a, to add to that, I think it was well put, but to add to that, I always think there was a little bit of Spider-Man in this quote too of like, with great power, some Uncle Ben, with great power comes great responsibility, like these, like, they're ignorant, but I've seen the truth and I'm not going to kind of sink to their level.
00:25:02
Speaker
Uh, I'm not going to, I now have this obligation or this potential to stay above that because I know, I know what's what, you know, I know, I know what's going on here. I know this stuff doesn't matter. I know it's not worth getting dragged into. And so I need to do that. I don't need to get pulled into it. Uh, I need to use my, my knowledge well. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. That's a, I think, I think that's, that's exactly right.
00:25:29
Speaker
You also get some of that same energy when he says, none of them can harm me anyway, because none of them can affect me with immorality. So that's that thought that
00:25:40
Speaker
reminding himself that if virtue is truly what is good, vice is what is truly is bad, no one can be an ultimate obstacle to my happiness. And there he's probably referencing, if you want to bring out another philosophical reference here, he's referencing Socrates in the Apology, who notes that when he's standing on trial, his accusers
00:26:05
Speaker
cannot harm him because it's against nature for a better man to be harmed by a worse one. Which has a little some cheekiness in it that Marcus released his line doesn't have but does share the same teaching that the Stoics got from Socrates which is this idea that you know the vicious cannot harm the virtuous
00:26:30
Speaker
I was thinking that I've got two moods, which is either stoicism or I guess pop culture. Cause I was like, this is some Taylor Swift energy. This is some haters going to hate, hate, hate. And you got to shake it off energy right here, right? You got to see the world for what it is. And, uh, you know, you got to shake it off and don't let them, don't let them bring you, don't let them bring you down. Uh, because ultimately you'd be bringing yourself down, right? Cause it's not within their power to harm you.
00:26:58
Speaker
It's within your power to get dragged into the messiness. That's totally up to you. And you can totally make that mistake and ruin your own day, but they can't ruin your day. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. I don't know. I don't know. I'll send a playlist after. Okay, great.
00:27:17
Speaker
So Marcus continues, nor can I become angry with someone who's related to me or hate him because we were born to work together like feet or hands or eyelids, like the rows of upper and lower teeth.
00:27:36
Speaker
So this, of course, this idea also includes, I think just sort of extends this idea that we are humans, deeply the same, sharing the divine, sharing that intelligent, sharing our rational.
00:27:51
Speaker
capacity which suggests that we were born to work together. What's virtuous involves cooperation, involves forming social groups that move together well, forming, if you want to think about this in ancient terms, forming excellent cities, families,
00:28:16
Speaker
in more modern terms neighborhoods companies what have you and that is part of our purpose is this is a social purpose and it's not it's not something where your
00:28:34
Speaker
main goal is something that's deeply individualistic. There's no sense in becoming angry with another because they're related to you and involved in the same project and the same project of human life.
00:28:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I think what's cool there is that that's holding you to a higher standard than forgiveness or sympathy or pity or mercy or these kinds of things. It's not saying to look down. The eyelid doesn't look down at the, I don't know.
00:29:13
Speaker
But the pair of hands don't look down. The left hand doesn't look down at the right and vice versa. They cooperate. They work together. The rows of teeth don't look down at each other or, or, um, they cooperate. And so what that means is.
00:29:29
Speaker
I don't know, maybe not exiling people, maybe not saying, well, you know, I'm not going to be angry at that person, but I'm, I'm going to totally cut them out of my life or I'm going to not treat them like a person. It's no, it's a higher standard that engage with them, communicate with them, cooperate with them. That's a kind of a.
00:29:47
Speaker
To view the person you're fighting with or arguing with or frustrated with as one part of a pair that you're the other part of, that's different than just cutting them off. Because we often think of stoicism about focusing on that inner self, that inner citadel, which is something that Marcus Aurelius brings up.
00:30:10
Speaker
You know, an inner citadel is not, uh, one pair of hands working, a pair of a hand working with another hand. That is just, uh, a single hand by itself. This is the, this is that higher goal, again, of cooperation, which is something I aspire to. And going through this in detail, I could probably do a better job cooperating with the people that make me angry versus learning how to just like numb myself to them or not be upset by them.
00:30:36
Speaker
Yeah, there's there's a he explicitly calls out the passion of anger which is going to be judgments about others judgments that one has been harmed and that Maybe perhaps a form of revenge is justified that one should harm others Several other episodes on on anger But it's not just saying, you know, don't be angry. Don't be disturbed as you say it's reframe your focus to
00:31:06
Speaker
work well with these people, live well with them. But I'm sort of thinking about Seneca has a quip that it takes two to have a fight, it takes two to have a conflict, which is that reminder that you can
00:31:25
Speaker
as an individual make a serious difference in ensuring that bad social, negative social dynamics don't occur. You can make a large difference in that. But it's probably equally true that it takes two or more people to make
00:31:46
Speaker
those really excellent accomplishments that we see in human history, right? Where it's not, even if you think about
00:31:57
Speaker
individuals who have been famous artists, there are people who live in societies whose needs are met by others who are inspired and have interacted with past artists, their contemporaries, and so on. And perhaps just as it takes, I suppose all I'm trying to get at is that many of our most, many of the very good things in the world are necessarily require more than
00:32:23
Speaker
one person. So purely forming that inner citadel isn't enough. You need to be thinking about a kingdom or something of that sort.
00:32:35
Speaker
Yeah, I've got some terrible metaphors today. So when you kept saying it takes, I kept thinking it takes two, tango. And I guess a tango could be a bad thing, but a tango could be a very beautiful thing. And so you don't want to not get on the dance floor, I guess. You want to stay there. You want to stay there with the other people and you want to teach them how to dance. You don't teach them the rules of the dance floor so they can become good dancing partners. Not just kick them out or not just remove yourself.
00:33:05
Speaker
That's a twisted metaphor. I mean, I think this comes up best. I was thinking about family. Like, who are these people that, you know, you're, you're, you're really figuring out, well, how can I make this work? How can we cooperate? Usually that comes in the form of family, coworkers, people that you find yourself in a position. It's a little bit easier to kind of refine your friends, but Marcus Aurelius is writing this here as emperor.
00:33:27
Speaker
talking about, you know, the, the, presumably whoever is high enough politically up to be in his day to day life. These are not people that Marcus has a choice with, but does have a huge impact in how well they can cooperate in the literal, you know, not the literal kingdom, but I guess the, the little empire of Rome. So yeah, don't, don't just kick them out or remove yourself, figure out how to figure out how to tango. All right. Right.
00:33:57
Speaker
I suppose I also get the sense when I read this passage that Marcus Aurelius, he does have some power in choosing who the officials are, which cases he gets to see.
Universal Challenges and Stoic Responses
00:34:09
Speaker
whether a particular Roman should be moved into higher stations or lower stations, what have you. But ultimately, he can't escape the social life of just the fact that even with that power, he's going to run into the selfish, the malicious. And perhaps, I've certainly
00:34:32
Speaker
Notice in the past that temptation, you know, if I just change jobs or if I just move into a different social group then everything will be
00:34:44
Speaker
will be much better. And certainly there's some truth to judgments like that sometimes, but there's the fact that one should expect at the start of every day, one should remind oneself that you'll face that social adversity no matter where you are. Emperor of Rome, much lower stations, employee, family, friend groups.
00:35:09
Speaker
Yeah. That's why, I mean, that's why the passage appeals to us so much is that we didn't, we don't read this and go home.
00:35:14
Speaker
Sucks to be emperor. That's too bad for you, Marcus. I never deal with anybody who's selfish or ungrateful or dishonest. That must be really strange of an experience. Like, no, people are people, as you said. And no matter your station or your context, you're going to encounter them. So this advice, yeah, it cuts across every, cuts across any domain as long as it's a social one. And that temptation, as you said, the law,
00:35:41
Speaker
Yeah, well, they're not going to be like this at this other company. Some cultures are better than others. I'm going to be wrong. Some groups of people are better than others, and you should cultivate a friend group and a social group that benefits you. I'm not saying don't do that, but wherever you go, you expect people to be people to a certain extent.
00:36:00
Speaker
Yeah. And if you, if you don't have a, if you don't, if you're not mentally prepared for people to be people, you're going to either have to remove yourself or be very fragile and you want to, you want to hopefully be able to muck through it and get in the, get in the weeds without being either of those things.
00:36:16
Speaker
Right, right, yep. So the last sentence we have from in this section is, to work against each other is therefore unnatural and anger and rejection count as working against.
00:36:32
Speaker
So there's this idea we've been circling around, human good is found in social flourishing, as Marcus Aurelius references at another point in the meditations. What's good for the hive is what's good for the bee, and therefore you can infer that
00:36:54
Speaker
just like the bee-human's goodness is found through working with others, living with others, and to do otherwise is in the traditional Stoic sense against nature. It's unnatural.
00:37:12
Speaker
And then you have this, I think something that's nice about this last sentence is he calls out anger and rejection. And you can think of those as, those are two ways in which we might not work well with others. The first is by having negative passions, these mistaken judgments, losing sight of the purpose of our actions, that's anger. And then rejection, that's the actual decisions we make on the day to day.
00:37:42
Speaker
Basis so you as he I think the way I read this is he should write himself to you. I
00:37:50
Speaker
cultivates good emotions in himself, refrain from anger, anxiety, and what instead cultivates a kind of calm, perhaps stoic joy on one hand, and then on the other, remember to, in the details of day-to-day life, make the decisions that involve working with others as opposed to against them.
00:38:19
Speaker
Yeah, dead on. And I mean, we've done a lot of episodes recently, Caleb, about the nature of anger because if you haven't listened to those or you disagree with the Stoics, you might think, well, anger is a pro-social emotion. It's something that I do to get people in line. It's something I do when somebody breaks the social norm to encourage them back in the social norm.
00:38:39
Speaker
But the Stoics talk a lot about never anger because anything you can do with anger, you can do without. If you need to punish somebody so they learn their lesson, if you need to punish somebody for the greater good of the whole, you can do that without being angry.
00:39:01
Speaker
And then second, we shouldn't ever aim to punish for the sake of harming the person. Their mistake is harm enough. We talked about this at the start of the paragraph. Their ignorance, their thinking, things that aren't good is good in pursuing those things, thinking things that are bad are good in pursuing those things. That's punishment enough. So we shouldn't ever feel angry or try to punish. Sometimes we might want to try to correct, try to teach,
00:39:28
Speaker
but not in this not in a kind of righteous anger where we deserve to harm somebody for what they've done and so yeah this anger is really kind of it's not it's not pro-social in any sort of way it's not the thing you need to feel to stand up for those that need standing up for or to teach those that have done wrong or correct those that have done wrong
00:39:50
Speaker
Yep. Yeah. So if you want to connect to some other ideas in this passage, anger is that which over leaps reason, which over leaps that our purposes, our ability to maintain our intelligence, align ourselves with nature, align ourselves with others. Anger instead takes on a logic of its own. You become a puppet to whatever circumstances
00:40:20
Speaker
caused the passion of anger in you and what Marcus Aurelius is calling us to do, what the Stoics call us to do is maintain that ability to reason, to think, well, don't lose one's head, but instead see things as they are. And as you noted, then our motivation is going to be completely different. We're going to remove the risks of making mistakes that
00:40:48
Speaker
Uh, so many, so many passions costs that civil, I mean, so much of stoicism in this passage, that reason is our share of the divine, right? That reason is the best part of ourselves.
00:41:04
Speaker
And so when, as you said, when we overleap reason, when we, I mean, Epictetus makes this metaphor, we become like beasts. And I mean, poor Epictetus really, you know, trash in the animals. Some, some beasts are quite sweet. But the point there is we become, we become
00:41:22
Speaker
cause and effect, reactive to our environment. We just, we respond to what happens to us. Somebody insults us, we get angry, we respond. We've overleaped that part of the, that divine part of ourselves, the best part of ourselves, the part that can recontextualize, re-understand, re- I mean, we'll mitigate that anger and reframe it as something productive and helpful.
00:41:43
Speaker
There's another one of the other most famous passages from meditations is the line that the impediment to action advances action, what stands in the way becomes the way.
00:42:00
Speaker
And Marcus Aurelius continues that passage with, it is in a sense our proper duty to pursue others good, but when they obstruct our proper duty, they become irrelevant to us, like the animals, the wind and the sun, which is an interesting extension of this idea, which is this thought that, uh,
00:42:30
Speaker
other people if they are consumed by passions, whether they are abusive or treacherous. They, in a real sense, are like for the Stoics, the animals. They're something one needs to work, you know, it's just sort of something one needs to take into account. You don't judge animals because of their behavior. You don't judge the wolf because of how it acts.
00:43:01
Speaker
but just sort of take them into account as a fact of life. I think that's the sort of the stoic advice where there's a lot of wisdom and truth to it, but I suppose there's also that risk, which is that one might too quickly assume that others are irrational
00:43:27
Speaker
consumed by their passions and bowl over them in the pursuit of what we perceive as our duties, where it could very well be the case that we're the ones who are missing out on reality.
00:43:47
Speaker
I think that's a good point, the idea of like, we don't judge the wolf, but we also know all wolves are wolves. If we're not sure if it's a wolf or a person, it gets pretty confusing. And I think that comes back to the thing we were saying at the start, right? You actually do end up with a bit of a, I guess a bit of an us versus them mentality, but only in the most extreme situations. And so I guess the lesson there is like, be very, very careful about doing that.
00:44:15
Speaker
And it's the right thing to do in the right situation. There are some people that deserve that, but I guess be careful because you'd hate to be self-righteously applying that too liberally. Right, right. We want to avoid being in cases where
00:44:32
Speaker
we look back and think, it was me who should have, who was consumed by our passions. It was me all along. Yeah, I think this is one of the most famous passages in meditations, probably because it comes early, but also because it does have that connection to something that's so, it does have the fact that Marcus Aurelius, he's an emperor of Rome, but he's reminding himself
00:44:58
Speaker
to do something that's very relatable, meet others.
Marcus Aurelius's Universal Insights
00:45:03
Speaker
It's not always going to be pleasant, but remind yourself of what your purpose is. Remind yourself of the fact that ultimately we're all on the same team. In addition to having some of these deeper notes about what stoicism is, that philosophical system of stoicism in the passage.
00:45:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's a very, it encapsulates as just as we hit on the beginning, you got your practical ethics, you've got your strategies, you've got good advice for day to day, but you've got a connection to a broader idea about meaning about what matters for humans.
00:45:45
Speaker
Well, what we share on a metaphysical level, what connects us as part of the, uh, cosmopolis. And so all of that in one of five or six sentences, um, that's pretty, it's pretty, it's pretty tight and like pretty, um,
00:46:01
Speaker
well written and focused. And I think that's a good thing. Well, this is the nice thing about the meditations too. There's also this idea of remind yourself. And so when we go back and we reread this, we read it for the first time, we read it again. We do a deep, deep dive like today. This is another way of reminding ourselves, right? I don't think there's anything, there's maybe one or two things here that we learnt.
00:46:25
Speaker
Uh, but a lot of this for you and I Caleb is just going back and we'll just remind yourself these things, but keep them at the front of your mind. Reflect on them more so you can actually digest them and make it a little bit easier to practice each time.
00:46:42
Speaker
Right. Yeah. It's about keeping those principles on hand. I think one aspect of this that's instructive is its concision. The fact that it's short, memorable, these memorable images of the malicious and grateful, but also the purpose of the teeth being made to work together. And that's the sort of thing one can make practice of returning to again and again. Awesome.
00:47:12
Speaker
Anything else?
Reflection and Listener Gratitude
00:47:14
Speaker
Well, if people have made it this far, and if we release this as our 100th episode, it's really exciting to see people continue to listen to Michael and I's conversations this year. In addition to the interviews and conversations we've had with people come on to the podcast, it's great to get both emails, Instagram messages, messages on Twitter, what have you from
00:47:42
Speaker
people who are offering suggestions, offering guest suggestions, but also, you know, asking additional questions, helping us, prompting us to learn more about Stoicism ourselves. So I've certainly learned and I imagine we'll continue to learn.
00:48:01
Speaker
a lot both from Michael but both from y'all as an audience so glad that we've made it this far and I think we'll continue to you know make this one of the best podcasts so or at least even perhaps even broadly
00:48:18
Speaker
philosophy podcasts. Uh, so thanks for listening. That's, uh, that's my note. I don't know if you want to add anything to that, Michael. Yeah. Well, just, I mean, for anybody listening, thank you so, so much for the support in terms of high scale. In terms of listening, reaching out, um, any sort of engagement is much appreciated.
00:48:37
Speaker
I've got to learn so much over doing these episodes. We just hit on, in this episode, part of it, oh, well, I'm learning something new or I'm digging into something I haven't done before or making a comparison to something we haven't done before. But some of it's just going back over the same text you've read up time and time again and getting time to sit down and chat about it, dig into it in detail. This is a really worthwhile experience for me, so if that can
00:49:04
Speaker
be of interest to other people and add value. I'm really, really happy about that and looking forward to continuing to grow and getting better at what we do too and providing better episodes for you and ones that are more relevant and more interesting as we go on. So thanks again, everyone, for listening. Episode 100 is very, very cool. Absolutely. All right. Thanks, all. Thanks, Michael. Cool. Thanks, Al.