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A lighthearted reading of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations. Join us as we read his private journal from 2,000 years ago and talk about how it makes us feel.
All right, ready?
Go.
What?
Yeah, we're starting already.
Okay.
I had a beer up to my lips.
This is a special episode of this
podcast because usually I think we've
said this before, this is a morning
podcast, but tonight it is a night
podcast and Paul and I have been drinking.
So this will have a different feel.
We had, we started the night with some
dinner and some nice peach soju and
now we're having a beer while we read.
So listen to how Excited Thomas.
So here's something I've noticed.
Okay.
Lately.
Okay?
Okay.
In the last few months,
let me put it this way.
Wow.
I think you have grown more and
more excited about this podcast.
I think you're, I see your
energy levels are higher.
I think you're more likely to remind me
about recording on Thursday mornings.
That's true.
Yeah.
And I think it's love.
Hi, APAR.
. Okay.
No, I think you know, we're cutting this.
We're cutting this,
we're cutting this out.
The podcast a part listens.
No, we're cutting this outta the podcast.
We're cutting this out.
The, and I've never seen
you so cy, so boyish.
Okay.
Since middle school days.
Wow that's very sweet.
It's a backhanded.
We have to cut this out of the podcast.
We're not including what?
He's all red now.
It's Great.
He's so red Even the
top of his head is red.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
It is love because I love
doing this podcast Yeah, okay.
That's my Answer to that, but I will say
thank you to the person who bought the
peach soju that we enjoyed Yes, thank you
this podcast yes, and the stewie Enjoyed.
Yeah.
Yep.
Alright, part of the reason that
I'm being maybe extra cheery today
is that Paul messaged me before
he came over tonight and said he's
feeling a little grumpy tonight.
I am.
And so I think I might be
over correcting a little bit.
No.
You're balancing the scales of nature.
Yeah.
I don't know if that's a good
idea or not, but it's the
thing that I instinctively do.
You had an ear to ear smile
when you opened the door.
It was so frustrating.
So the truth is that I have been Just
totally separate from how you're feeling.
I worked from home yesterday and
that always leaves me the next
day feeling like I want to see
people and hang out with them.
And there weren't that many
people at the office today.
So I'm still like craving some interaction
and it's not that you're not special.
I like hanging out with you especially.
Yeah.
So that's why I had a big,
stupid grin on my face.
That's right.
Okay.
And I like that are yeah.
Semi solution to you feeling grumpy is
to read from our favorite most cheery
most optimistic book That's gonna be
my lens today is I'm gonna I think
there's something very comical about
Eeyore that framing I'm just gonna
try to think you're gonna be Eeyore.
I'm gonna try to be Eeyore.
Okay.
All right We'll see how that goes if
you are Eeyore then The thing that you
naturally, the tension that naturally
creates is that I have, I get to be the, I
get to be, is Tigger the happiest of them?
He's anxious.
Oh, wow.
Boy, you remember these
characters better than I do.
They're all mapped to
psychological Oh, really?
What's Neurological issues.
Yeah.
What's Piglet's deal, then?
Piglet is, Yeah, I forget.
He's schizophrenic or something.
No, I'm serious.
I'm not joking.
Can that possibly be true?
Hubert is, I forget what He's
got something going on too.
Isn't he just like depressed?
No, that's Eeyore.
Eeyore's depressed.
He's got a light depression,
whereas Eeyore's not.
Eating disorder.
Oh, he's got an eating disorder for sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
There's an owl.
There's an owl.
There's a kangaroo.
Yeah, they're all mapped to things.
Okay, wow.
I didn't know this part.
Okay.
I was gonna Choose whoever the
most optimistic of them is.
A ticker seems right to me.
Or Rabbit.
Rabbit's got like this
frenetic energy about him.
I don't even remember Rabbit, honestly.
Okay, I'll be a happy friend to Eeyore.
I was thinking, actually, as I was walking
home, I had already received the news
that Paul would be grumpy when I got here.
That in some ways we have been reading
the meditations at the wrong time when
we record this podcast because it's
the morning and we're happy and we
have consistently said, I think, over
the course of the podcast that this
is, when Marcus was writing in this
journal, we think it was more like the
end of the day and it was a release for
him when he was feeling not so good.
And so it is I am curious, to see
if we connect with it a little more.
When we're maybe in a more similar
state of mind for, the way he used
this philosophy or we think, anyway,
evening vibes and He says at some point.
I think that you only need the
philosophy when life is testing you a
little bit that's the most frustrating
part is that life is not testing me.
Okay.
It's like slightly rainy and a few
things are you know Not exactly
the way I like them, and that's why
I'm grumpy, okay that's a kind of
dismissive way of looking at it, though.
I would invite you to practice a little
more generosity towards yourself, and
maybe, it's okay if things, even if they
seem minor, I think you can still say life
is throwing you a curveball, or whatever.
Anyway, I, if possible, I'd
encourage you to look at it that way.
Thanks, Tom.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's fair.
Okay, so we're picking
back up in book five here.
Our feeling, I think, from the first
two episodes we've done in book five
is that he's, Marcus is finding his
groove a little bit as a writer.
We thought he's, he had been very
repetitive and aimless in books
two through four, let's say.
But he's got more
interesting stuff to say.
We've gotten some great
quotes about how nice bed is.
We've gotten some some interesting kind of
he was pretty hard on himself in moments
in the last episode, I think, but then
he also had some nice thoughts about
what philosophy was for, and so we're
picking back up, I think, with 11, and
it starts with a nice lighthearted entry
number 11, what am I doing with my soul?
Interrogate yourself to find out
what inhabits your so called mind
and what kind of soul you have now.
A child's soul, an adolescent's,
a woman's, a tyrant's soul, the
soul of a predator, or its prey.
Wow.
Those are the options?
Those are the options.
A child's soul, an
adolescent's, or a woman's.
Okay, this really wasn't the direction
I thought he was going to take it.
I thought it was With the
first sentence you made.
Yeah, I thought, what
am I doing with my soul?
Would have been more about morality
and high ground and his usual spiel.
And here he's just categorizing souls.
Yeah.
I guess you can be an
emperor with a child's soul.
That's the statement he's making.
He does say, there's almost a
contradiction in terms in here for
me, which is we think of souls as the
sort of like eternal part of ourselves
or the part that's pretty unchanging.
But he says, find out what
kind of soul you have now.
That's an interesting concept, I think.
You don't think that's a quickly
find out what kind of soul you have.
That would be weird.
That's interesting.
I hadn't interpreted.
I had definitely interpreted
it as At this current.
Yeah, you haven't checked in a while.
What's your soul up to?
And I guess the fact that he's
positing that you can have a child's
or an adolescence or a woman's
implies that they change over the
course of a human's life as you age.
Then a tyrant soul.
What are you doing with your soul?
What am I doing with my soul?
Boy.
I, okay, I guess I'll say optimistically.
I actually think that he's phrased,
he's phrasing this a bit dramatically,
but I would say that this is a process
that I engage in, but I think in the
modern lingo for it is more like getting
to know yourself for improving your
understanding of yourself a little bit.
I think we just had an example of
this, actually, while we were having
dinner before we recorded this episode,
where I can notice now that I'm in a
little bit of a funk or whatever, and
I I know that I'm being impossible.
I realize that the simultaneous tensions
in me that are causing me to feel
that way where on the one hand I feel
lonely and I want people to hang out
with, but also I'm an introvert and I'm
stressing out because I have too many,
I've planned too many things where I'm
going to hang out with people in a row.
And it's I know how ridiculous that is.
And somehow that, knowing
that actually really helps.
feel better about it.
That's not, I don't know if that's
knowing my soul exactly, but it is like
an example of something that's happened
to me as an adult where I feel like
I know myself better and I can read
why I'm feeling certain ways better.
And so your, So what are
you doing with your soul?
You're knowing it?
You're studying it?
That's a topicality argument.
It does seem like it.
No I put you on the spot, and we're
gonna keep you on that same spot.
No, Tom, I don't mean it that way.
No, I'm, I, yeah.
You're getting to know you're
I think, yeah, I look at
the process more as a Right.
Okay, so you start with a
soul and throughout your life
you get to know it better.
Which seems to be different
if we're interpreting the now
the way you interpreted it.
It's that you're like working on
your soul or something like that.
That's what Marcus seems to imply.
You're like improving your soul?
Yeah, he also says what
inhabits your so called mind.
So called?
First of all, very funny.
I assume Is he insulting the reader?
I, yeah I assume he's insulting himself.
Yeah.
So called mind, wow.
Yeah.
Sure.
Yeah.
I don't think Yeah, this
is a man with no mind.
No.
Okay.
But it does seem like his
concepts of mind and soul might
be a bit different than ours.
Because I, like Returning to the framing
we were just using, my like thinking
about it would be something like,
you're born as a child and you, your
mind is underdeveloped at that point.
Like you don't consciously know
this much stuff about yourself,
but the soul was already there.
And then aging is a process of
the mind learning about the soul
on some level and in addition to
the rest of the world and stuff.
So the mind is changing, but I think of
the soul as the kind of constant stuff.
That's probably not like
a universally held belief.
I think people think you can work
on your soul or like whatever else.
Yeah.
But I think that's probably
what he's referring to.
I do, I think the reason he
says, do you have a child soul?
The reason that's even worth asking is
because you don't have to be a child to
have a child soul is the implication.
Yeah.
So you, so he's framing it as you
have a body, which is on a one.
Dimension, which is, could be
perpendicular to your soul, which
is on a whole different dimension.
And you can work on, you can age
your soul at a different pace
than your body ages or something.
I say, do you think I
like that reading of it?
I think you're right.
Yeah, yes, there is a way in which
this is maybe a very progressive
question that he's asking.
No judgment.
Sure.
You male reader might have
a woman's soul, says Marcus.
No, yeah, that's true.
The soul of a predator.
Do you think he's, he seems, okay.
All the examples he gives seem
to have negative connotations
in one way or another to me.
These are all groups of people that in
one way or another he would look down on.
None of them are like.
A lion's warrior's soul or whatever.
Yeah.
Um, what do you make of that fact that
they're all kind of negative examples?
Thanks.
Thanks.
Interrogate yourself.
He just sounds, he sounds sad, right?
He's be honest with yourself.
Like you're not actually,
you don't have a lion soul.
That's what he's saying.
Yeah.
You have one of these
souls, the soul of a prey.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And he's basically, it
just keeps getting worse.
He keeps listing more
and more possibilities.
And as it goes on.
Yeah.
Yeah.
You think that the worst thing on
the list is going to be the soul
of a predator, which obviously
sounds horrible to our modern ears.
And then he goes a step further and
says, no, you might not even have that,
you might have the soul of its prey.
Yeah, okay, boy, alright.
You're right at home in
this passage, I think.
Pretty bleak here.
What am I doing with my soul?
I guess the answer is developing
it, or something like that.
That should be the answer.
Is that what answer would he have given?
I don't know.
It's, it sounds like he's just
telling us to check in with it.
But it's, I'm not clear on what
his beliefs are in terms of what
can be done with whatever you find.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
A little cliffhanger.
Okay, yeah.
Let's see if he returns
to the subject of souls.
Okay.
Number 12.
Huh.
Huh.
I like the first sentence of this one too.
Another way to grasp what ordinary
people mean by quote unquote goods.
Okay.
Okay.
Suppose you took certain things
as touchstones of goodness.
Prudence, self control,
justice, and courage.
If you understand goods as meaning
those, you wouldn't be able to
follow that line about so many goods.
It wouldn't make any sense to you.
Whereas if you'd internalize
the conventional meaning, you'd
be able to follow it perfectly.
You'd have no trouble seeing the
author's meaning and why it was funny.
This entry goes on, but I'm confused.
Okay.
He's referring to some 2, 000 year
old Text that we're supposed to know.
Text that we, that everyone, yeah.
That uses the phrase so many goods.
So many goods.
Dot.
Okay.
Alright.
Okay, so he's saying, okay.
Another way to grasp what
ordinary people mean by goods.
He's struggling.
That's the title for this whole section.
He's struggling, that's right.
He's having a tough time understanding
what these ordinary people mean by goods.
By the phrase goods.
And I don't think they're
talking about like assets.
Or produce or whatever.
Yeah, I think they're
talking about like virtues.
Yeah which is weird translation.
Okay, so here's, let's figure out
what ordinary people mean by virtues.
Yes, another way.
Another, yeah.
I've already explained one way to
grasp what ordinary people mean by the
word goods, but here's another angle.
Suppose you took certain things
as touchstones of goodness.
A classic.
Marcus List here, prudent, self
controlled, justice, and courage.
Thank you for listing these virtues.
And it seems to me like what he's
saying is, imagine that you just
said those are the four that goodness
can be reduced to those four things.
That's what he means by
touchstones, I think.
It's just okay, when people talk about I'm
an alien who doesn't know what good means.
And I say, okay, good refers
to these four concepts.
And he, what he's saying is,
Whatever text we're referring to that
talks about so many goods would be
confusing to me, the alien, because
I'm like, there are only four goods.
There could not be more than that,
because that's the definition of goods.
Sure.
And okay, so the ordinary people have
a conventional definition of goods,
which expands beyond those four things.
It incorporates presumably a
bunch of other virtues, too
many to name or whatever.
And so they get the phrase about so many
goods because to them there are a lot.
Is that how you understand it?
That their list is longer?
I think that's fair.
Let's see where he takes this.
Okay.
Yes.
All right.
Very convoluted thought.
Yes.
Okay.
There's a, I certainly am having
trouble seeing the author's
meaning and knowing why it's funny.
Yeah.
That part.
I'm not optimistic we're ever
going to get to the bottom of that.
We may never know.
Okay.
All right.
The entry continues.
Which shows that most people
do acknowledge a distinction.
Oh boy.
Otherwise, we wouldn't recognize the
first sense as jarring and reject it
automatically, whereas we accept the
second, the one referring to wealth
and the benefits of celebrity and
high living, as amusing and apropos.
Okay, I have a theory.
I think the person, the original
author who is using the phrase
so many goods is making a pun.
There's, there are multiple senses of
the word goods in the original Greek
or whatever in addition to our Sure.
We also have this kind
of going on in English.
Oh, so that's why the
word goods was being used?
I think, yes.
And that's why we're so concerned with
the word, with its meanings, because
I think this paragraph is saying
there's a sense that refers to wealth
and the benefits of celebrity and
high living goods means like riches
or something like that, in that sense.
And so when you took there's some
sort of passage that has a pun.
So many goods could mean so many virtues,
but it could be in so many riches.
And those kind of have like
opposite senses in a way.
One is about indulgence and one
is about, beneficence or whatever.
Sure.
Sure.
And maybe the reason he's so obsessed
with this concept is because he,
stoicism is a type of religion where
you give up goods for goods, yeah.
Yeah.
That's interesting.
And ordinary people grasp.
The wrong thing.
They think goods are luxuries,
whereas really they're virtues.
You think he's struggling?
He's talking, he's been talking to some
common people and using the phrase goods.
And there's some sort of Abbott
and Costello routine going on
where he thinks he's there.
He's telling them to get rich.
Exactly.
Okay.
There's one last little paragraph here.
Now go a step further.
Ask yourself whether we should
accept as goods, and should value,
the things we have to think of
to have the line make sense.
The ones whose abundance leaves their
owner with, quote, dot, no place to shit.
Okay, I think what he's saying, I think,
is that, goods aren't goods, basically.
That the second, we shouldn't
think of the second sense as goods.
Being literal goods.
I think he's very hung
up on the wordplay here.
The one whose abundance leaves
their owner with no place to shit.
I think I get that.
Your tone of voice is very sure.
I have a guess.
There's probably some old ass expression
about how if you've got a million
riches in your house or whatever.
Where do you poop?
You literally have no place, you're
so rich you have no place to shit.
That's my guess.
That's a good expression.
Yeah.
That should make it into our day to day.
Yeah, that's true.
Should we try to work that back in?
Should we get the little poster
with that phrase on it in
addition to the comfy bed one?
Okay.
Yeah.
Wow.
These are some old jokes.
Yeah.
This one, I got to say,
Mark, Marcus, I think.
Yeah.
It's not his fault.
He thought this was funny.
Yeah.
It's really the translator's fault.
Yeah.
What are you going to do, right?
Yeah, but for a book that is so frequently
about the universal, this one feels like
it's a little bit beneath him somehow.
It's about kind of small stuff in a way.
Like I get that it's about virtues and
riches and that kind of thing, but it
just somehow it feels like an annoying
guy's blog post more than his usually do.
Yeah, that's right.
Okay.
Number 13.
I am made up of substance and what
animates it, and neither one can ever
stop existing any more than it began to.
Every portion of me will be
reassigned as another portion of the
world, and that in turn transformed
into another, ad infinitum.
I was produced through one
such transformation, and my
parents too, and so on back.
Infinitum.
You learned a new word, . Yes,
I think that's right.
NB still holds good even if the
world goes through recurrent cycles.
nb, I think, I don't actually
know what that stands for.
I think it's Latin, but it's a thing
that authors use to it's like authors
note kind or note to self okay.
That's funny.
That's that.
What that makes it sound like.
Is he checked back in on this one?
He was like, he wrote this
and then he came back to it.
Is that right?
He was having some, he was having some
doubts because he realized that the
world went through recurrent cycles
and then he was like, Nope, nope.
This one's still solid.
. I like that idea of Marcus leafing
back through the book to be like,
yeah, wait, was that one bullshit?
It's all fire.
This is good stuff.
It's all totally yeah concrete
Okay, I mean we've heard this
idea before the Everything
is one and one is everything.
Yeah, I the first sentence is probably
the most interesting bit to me where I
Made up of substance and what animates it.
Yeah, I guess so but We haven't heard
a ton about his like, philosophy
of what animates it, I think.
I where was I listening?
What was I?
It's the soul of a woman.
What , that's the one pulling the stress
was who was telling me about somebody
something or someone I was just listening
to or talking to was telling me about
how human beings back in the day, oh, it
was a book I was reading basically like
lots of old cultures had this question
about like where consciousness arises
from, like we are substance, but we're
also the thing that an animates it.
What is that thing and where?
And a lot of cultures basically believed
it was a little animal that lived inside
us that pulled the strings, basically,
which is an idea that I had never really
dealt thought about before, but now I
love that we all have a mouse or a snake
or a bird or something that lives in
us and is actually the just moving our
body around like a Gundam or whatever.
Sure.
And they often those cultures would
connect those ideas to, like, how
dreams work, too, where that animal
would get out of your body while you're
dreaming and go explore the world.
And that's what dreams are, basically.
And then, anyway.
Cool.
Yeah.
I'm just I'm babbling, but I do
think, I'm curious to hear him
talk about what animates substance.
Because I feel like we've had lots of.
Everything's natural, but not a ton
of like, how is it that my natural
flesh turns into the Conscious
thing that can write this text.
It's not something he talks about it.
Tom.
Do you know the expression?
It's good to want things
No, I shared this with you.
It's like the standard response.
When I was growing up in the house So as
yeah, you'd be like I want this and it's
like I want things I want candy And so I
think that's the expression I would use
to your statement about how you're curious
on what he means by animate because I
don't think you're ever gonna find out
I don't think, and, but I think that's
not a problem I think it's, it warms
you to want wanting is a form of love
Optimism, of joy, of being alive, and so
you should enjoy that feeling of wanting.
Yeah that's nice.
I think I do.
Chew on that, because, it's
all you're getting yeah.
I, that's nice.
I didn't know.
And the absence of wanting.
Is death.
Is bad.
Yeah, totally.
That makes sense to me.
Yeah, although, there's
also wanting too much.
It's being alive, you're, look how
alive you are when you want too much.
Yeah.
Or you mean, oh, you mean and so
therefore you're depressed or something?
Yeah, there's a, there's a beauty in the
moderation of wanting to or something.
I think depression is
the most natural state.
Wow, okay.
Thank you, Eeyore.
So I think it makes total sense to want
everything and therefore be depressed.
To want everything.
Yeah.
I think really when we're
at our best though, Yeah.
We can we can realize what we actually
want, like what real wanting is.
Yeah, we can be right on
the edge of alive and dead.
No, I think the thing I'm describing
makes us our most alive, I think.
Which is to not want that much.
Maybe it's to just Want the right amount.
To distinguish actually maybe between
what we want and what we need to.
Okay.
Sure.
Because, yeah, I think
that's actually hard.
That takes humans a while to figure out.
Some people never do it.
That's interesting.
So I actually, I'll take a different
stance on this, which is I think
it's you never stop wanting.
You just begin to relish the
act of wanting instead of
the outcome of that desire.
That's let's go down this path.
I haven't thought through
where this path leads.
Okay.
But let's go down the path.
That's what this podcast is for.
Where we both read mating Captivity.
I'm not done with it.
I've read like a quote.
You get that idea.
I've read a quarter of it.
Sure.
But you get the idea.
It's that, it's natural to want.
Yeah.
And her whole shtick is that
you're always gonna want things
you don't have in the relationship.
And that's normal.
Yeah.
So how I don't think you can
suppress, like you're, yeah, I'm
not advocating that we, yeah.
So you're not advocating you
should only want what's necessary.
You're saying, what exactly?
Okay, a really smart person in my
life gave me some advice about what
we actually need to do in our lives to
be satisfied, and this was her advice.
It was.
To figure out what you need and
then take responsibility for getting
it, which I think is pretty deep
and interesting advice, actually.
And the point that she's making
is to distinguish what you want
from what you need a little bit.
And that's not, I'm not saying that
as a way of abdicating wanting,
or wanting's bad, don't do that.
But I think we want lots of
stuff, but only some of the stuff
that we want we actually need.
And that pursuing some
of the things you want.
can distract you from
getting what you need.
And we actually need a lot as humans.
Like I think it's easy for us to, or
like we live in this culture that's
about like minimizing our needs.
But there's something to be more
human about acknowledging that
you actually have lots of needs.
I think we were just talking about them
earlier in the podcast about I weirdly
need to be around people and I need them
to not be around me in very fickle ways.
Yeah, that's I guess what I'm talking
about, is I think, and the process
that we were describing earlier of
getting to know yourself is actually
about figuring out what you need.
Okay that's my spiel, but I feel like I
haven't maybe totally engaged with the
train of thought that you were going down,
which I was also finding interesting.
Uh,
Evening vibes.
Okay, I have one more thought related
to this, which is, I think it's a thing
that I like in Mating in Captivity that
she articulates this we're impossible,
basically, that we have these conflicting
impulses towards security and exploration.
So we want stuff, we want new stuff,
and then we want to run away and
have security, and then we get bored
and we want to go find new stuff.
And it's like we have these
impulses in us that are always
going to be at odds, basically.
And her book is about like how
that manifests itself in romantic
and neurotic relationships.
But it's also just like a, she's
making a deeper point about like
humanity or there's just truth about
what it means to be alive there.
To and in general, the pursuit
of novelty versus security.
And I think it's just it's true.
We want both those things
and we can't have them both.
And we're constantly changing our minds.
And I think the right thing to do from
my perspective, the best we can is to
celebrate that contradiction and just
be like, yeah, that's what I'm like.
Sometimes I want new stuff and
sometimes I want to be secure.
Sorry.
That's me.
That's all I can do.
Yeah, that's right.
And, there's level one, which is you
want things, so you try to get them.
Level two is you want a bunch of
things, but you convince yourself
that only some of those things you
actually want through sheer will.
And then level three is you are proud of
yourself for wanting all these things.
Yeah.
You acknowledge that you want them
and that, that makes you human
and that makes you a good person.
Totally.
But you don't necessarily partake
in those things when you know
that the consequences aren't good.
Yeah, I think we're saying the same thing.
That is maybe a better way of
saying the thing I was trying
to say earlier, I think.
Yes, totally.
And so it also takes your wants from a
place of like, infants want things, but
they don't know that they want them.
They couldn't articulate it as a want.
They just want.
Yeah.
And then we get better
and better at saying, Oh.
This feeling that I'm experiencing is a
want, and then yeah, dig a little bit even
deeper in the way that you're describing.
We get more and more able to
perceive our own wants and
say, ha, isn't it funny today?
Today I want something new.
And just yesterday I
didn't, what's level four?
It's Yeah, some sort of actualization.
Yeah, it's like sometimes giving in to
your wants that are actually not good.
That's level four.
It's like the grandma, you know like
The classic, cool grandma who just yeah,
let's smoke, let's yeah's It's let's,
I was about to say the same thing.
Let's, yes.
Yeah.
That's level four.
Yeah.
I think that's probably right.
Yes.
Which is like some blend of yeah, I
want, once you've mastered moderation.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Indulgence becomes this insane skill too.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Exactly.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Sweet, okay.
Alright, I feel like, yes, I feel
like we got to the bottom of that.
Yeah.
I don't know that, I don't think
Marcus, I don't think Marcus
helped us that much with this one.
I think, yeah, we met him more than
halfway there, but that's fine.
That's part of the deal too.
Okay, number 14 is short.
We call such activities directed
from the directness of their course.
Hoo, boy, Mark is very abstract and dry.
I gotta reread this.
The logos and its employments
are forces sufficient for
themselves and for their works.
Yes.
What do you mean, yes, Tom?
I, okay, what do yes.
I think, okay.
No.
I feel like it's like, when I hear him
say that, It's about how Logos to me means
reason, and math and logic and whatever.
And it's those are systems
that build upon themselves.
You start from a set of axioms or
whatever, and they their whole thing
is that they are they're abstract and
pure and self sufficient or whatever.
Okay.
Pretty philosophical, deep statement.
So that's what he's, that's what
he wants to get across with.
That's how I interpret it.
By the way, there are whole worlds
that can explain themselves and
are sufficient in themselves.
That's what he wanted to tell us.
I think, I interpret this actually
is he's describing a shortcoming of
philosophy or like he's obliquely
hinting at a shortcoming of philosophy,
which is it's like It's all built on
top of itself and contained within
itself, but that makes it insulated
from the rest of the world, too, which
is like maybe good, but also maybe bad.
That is a that is a framework he
shared before that you can't just be
philosophizing all the time, right?
I feel like when he's talking about
the Logos and his its employment, my,
my like initial reaction is always
okay, he's feeling bad that he's
doing too much philosophy or he's
enjoying his philosophy too much.
And he needs to wean himself
off of it by reminding himself
that philosophy has its limits.
We call such activities directed
from the directness of their course.
Who's we?
Okay.
Yeah.
They're directed activities.
Because you think you know what's going
to happen as a result of doing them.
Oh, that's interesting.
I don't know.
I was interpreting it as like that
because they build on themselves,
they have this notion of this, then
this to them, which creates a, they
like, they build yeah, I'm just saying
that over and over again, basically
that they build it on themselves.
Man, he jumps around.
Yeah, we're back to this.
I feel like book five, he started
spit and fire, and now he is back to
scatterbrained Marcus, who is just like
having thoughts about different stuff.
Yeah.
Okay, but there's nothing
to do but to move forward.
So number 15, nothing pertains to human
beings except what defines us as humans.
No other things can be demanded of us.
They aren't proper to human nature.
It follows that they are not our goal,
or what helps us reach it, the good.
If any of them were proper to us, it
would be improper to disdain or resist it.
Nor would we admire people who
show themselves immune to it.
If the things themselves were good, it
could hardly be good to give them up.
But in reality, the more we deny
ourselves such things, and things
like them, or are deprived of them
involuntarily even, the better we become.
What?
Quintessential Marcus.
Quintessential Marcus here.
Wait, this is Quintessential Marcus?
Okay, yeah.
To me it's Quintessential Marcus because
the first sentence defines a certain
set of Objects in the negative he says
nothing pertains to human beings except
what defines us as humans So there's
some set of things that define us in
human and that's human and that's it
And then there's everything else is
what he's saying And what he's saying is
that everything else is what this whole
paragraph is about this set of things
that he is again Only defined in the
negative in the first sentence and he's
talking about how those other things are
irrelevant and we're better without them
Give me a second, Tom.
Yeah.
I'm just going to process this.
Yeah.
Just the structure of this strikes
me as classic Marcus because it
is so hard to follow, actually.
Wow.
This is amazing.
There's all, every one of these sentences
has a they or a them in it that is
referring back to that first sentence.
Something else.
You really think so?
Yes.
Okay, so he identifies the
object of the paragraph, which is
Things , that don't define us as human.
That don't define us as human, correct.
That is the subject of every
sentence of the paragraph basic
or the whatever, the object.
What are things that
don't define us as human?
I think what he does that
mean means is like I interpret
it to mean like temptation.
The m the things of
small-minded humans like.
And he thinks that doesn't define humans?
It doesn't pertain to us, by which
he means it's not relevant to us.
So they're like, there are And it says
no other things can be demanded of us.
Yes that, that is weird.
But I think what he's saying again, is
we as humans have a set of things that
define us that are also demands on us
to be good, to be loving, whatever.
And so the other distraction
things don't pertain to us and
they can't be demanded of us.
And here, by demand, I think he
means demanded by the universe.
So Tom, I think that this book
needs a translation where the words
aren't just translated literally,
but they're just explained.
Like the concept is
regurgitated back into the text.
the page, and I think you should
write that because, thank you.
Because I do not understand what's
happening in this paragraph.
I just don't, it's really Marcus's fault
because or I don't know, maybe it's
the translator's fault, but it's the
them's and the they's and the, it's that
make this such a hard paragraph, right?
There's just so every sentence
has a, they aren't proper.
What's not proper, Marcus?
Nor would we admire people who
show themselves immune to it.
It?
What's it, Marcus?
But I think the only sensible way to
read it is, he's referring constantly
over back to that first sentence, which
again is a very vague first sentence.
I think I like the kind of book
you're describing, but they're
often not as interesting as the
original text, unfortunately.
The funnest is what we're doing right now,
as much as it might not feel like fun.
Yeah, I think he's saying in a
very convoluted way, something
we've understood him just it's
just, he's just saying stoicism.
He's saying like, all the
stuff that doesn't matter.
That's what the whole thing says.
Brilliant.
Yeah, thanks, Marcus.
Yeah really insightful.
Just say that next time.
Alright.
I guess there's one other idea at
the end about Not, the stuff that
doesn't, the stuff that doesn't
matter is actually there's virtue in
simplicity or parsimony or whatever.
Okay.
Last one.
Last one.
Number 16.
The things you think about
determine the quality of your mind.
Your soul takes on the
color of your thoughts.
Nice.
Color it with a run of
thoughts like these.
Oh, here we go.
Specific.
Number one.
Anywhere you can lead your
life, you can lead a good one.
I like that.
Okay, and this is, I think he's now
responding to something that I think is
effectively in quotes, although that's
not exactly how the translation presents
it, but I think he's, quote, lives
are led at court, and then he's, end
quote, he's responding to that quote.
Then good ones can't be.
Yeah.
Marcus can't get his head around
the fact that people at court
could actually be good people.
Yeah.
Fascinating.
Okay.
You think that means
like a court of justice?
No.
No.
I think that means his court.
Oh yeah.
Okay.
That's That makes more sense.
Yeah.
Subordinates.
Yes.
I see.
Okay.
But he's saying, yes, remarkable facts.
Yeah.
Good lives can be led, at course.
Yeah.
Some of these people, this is a good
thought to color your soul with.
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.
Thought number two, to
color your soul with.
Things gravitate toward
what they were intended for.
What things gravitate
toward is their goal.
A thing's goal is what benefits it.
It's good.
A rational being's good is unselfishness.
What we were born for.
That's nothing new, remember?
Remember?
Lower things for the sake of higher
ones, and higher ones for one another.
Things that have consciousness
are higher than those that don't.
And those with the logos still higher.
Whoa.
He's really . He's on one tonight.
Yeah.
11 to 16 are tough.
Yeah.
Okay, so these are the thoughts to think,
to color your soul the right color.
Yeah.
Okay.
Purple.
If we just took the first, like the
short bullet point form of those
two things to color your soul.
One is anywhere you can lead your
life, you can lead a good one.
And number two is things gravitate
toward what they were intended for.
I can get on board for both of those.
The second one is a little bit
like woo for me, personally.
Yeah.
Woo.
You know what I mean?
Oh, yeah.
Okay.
I'm like, I don't know,
new agey or whatever.
Puff.
Yeah, like hippies, I see.
I, but I like it.
Things gravitate towards
what they were intended for.
He didn't have the word gravitate.
That's right.
I wonder what he said.
Attracted to.
Yeah, yeah.
A thing's goal is what benefits it.
Okay, I will say, I like, a rational
being's good is unselfishness.
That's, he's not doing the
typical Marcus thing here, where
he lists a billion virtues.
He's picked one and said, that
is the goal of a rational being.
That feels good.
I don't remember him saying that.
Doesn't that go exactly against
the thing he just said, which is,
A thing's goal is what benefits it.
It's good.
So he's making a capitalist argument, and
then he's making a socialist argument?
We have a paradoxical existence,
I think is what he's saying.
Okay.
It's like, all things are gravitated
towards the thing that is good
for them, but for rational beings,
that thing is to be unselfish.
Remember?
Yeah, remember.
That's not funny.
Remember is very funny and condescending.
Remember.
But, I like it.
Bleeding Heart Me likes a rational
being as good as unselfishness,
what we were born for.
Works for me.
I would like to set up a system
where everyone can just be selfish.
But okay.
Yeah.
School is what benefits it.
It's good.
Okay.
Marcus.
He touched on, he circled back
to two different words that he
was hung up on in earlier entries
here, which were soul and good.
We got a little more concept
of his soul thought here.
It's colorful.
It takes on the color of your thoughts.
So he's imagining a pretty interesting
interplay between the mind and the
soul, which we thought of as a much more
kind of one directional poking around.
We can be out.
Pink prey.
Yeah, but I, he's being very, Yeah,
he sounds like a hippie to me when
he says color your soul with some
thoughts like these It sounds like
he's passing you a joint, all right
We will never surrender, Marcus.
We will keep reading.
Yes, my enthusiasm.
Despite these like six
entries which were rough.
My enthusiasm is undimmed.
Your philosophy has taught me well.
Yeah, exactly.
Nothing can stop us.
That's right.
One foot in front of the other.
Yeah.
What's the expression?
Anywhere you can lead your
life, you can lead a good one.
Damn even sections 11
through 16 of book five.
Yeah, even on the wrong end of a
microphone while we're reading this book.
All right, cheers.
All right, good night.
Good night.