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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.
Good morning, Tom.
Hey Paul.
How you doing?
Doing all right.
Doing all right.
We're recording on a Monday morning.
Yeah.
It's actually quite beautiful and sunny.
Yeah, it's nice in San
Francisco right now.
The birds are chirping,
but you can't hear 'em.
On here.
On here.
Yeah.
Because we've done such a good job.
Soundproofing my apartment.
This That's right.
Excellent studio.
We've assembled by putting
one blanket over one door.
Yeah.
And otherwise we have
very bouncy walls in here.
Yeah.
Yeah.
We are getting better
at sound engineering.
The two of us.
There's there's two blankets.
Yeah.
Okay.
There's, yeah.
Now there's a comforter as
well on my record player.
They're So you're welcome, listener.
Yeah, exactly.
Enjoy this audio experience.
Yeah.
Tom, I didn't sleep well last night.
Oh no.
Yeah.
Sorry to hear that.
No that's okay.
How do you, so I have certain actions
that I take when I can't sleep.
Okay.
To try to make myself feel better.
Okay.
And I'm curious how they
compare to yours and how.
Perhaps they compare it to Marcus Aures.
Okay.
So this is just full on speculation about
how Marcus Aurelius put himself to sleep.
I'm sure one of these chapters,
he's gonna talk about it.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right.
Let's do it.
Let's find out.
Okay.
What do you do?
So I usually tell, I usually go through
a process where I tell myself that, Paul,
you actually don't need that much sleep.
Like you've had nights where
you sleep three hours and then
the next day you're just fine.
And so how bad can it be, okay.
Interesting.
Do you like follow that logic
through and say, okay, I guess I
can get up and walk around now.
Like I don't need sleep.
I actually think that
part of that is important.
If, what I find is that if I just
force myself to lay in the bed, yeah.
I have a harder time falling asleep.
But if I say, you know what,
it doesn't even matter.
And I go and I, use the restroom,
I go get a glass of water.
Yeah.
You think that helps?
And I sleep better.
Interesting.
Yeah.
So you think some of it.
Am I right in understanding that some
of it is maybe anxiety driven where Yes.
You have a you feel that you
go to bed feeling like I need
a certain amount of sleep.
Yes.
Which is why I'm going to bed now.
And then you Okay.
Yeah.
I see.
Interesting.
I don't maybe have quite as much anxiety
about that, I think, because I don't
really have that experience of oh no.
I need to get a certain amount of sleep,
but I'm not falling asleep right now.
This is a lame answer, basically.
Why?
Because you always fall asleep on time.
I'm pretty good at falling asleep.
I, this is a unrelatable answer
to I, that's just the truth.
I had no, lots of people who are
insomniacs or whatever else, but I just.
Fall asleep when I, so one thing
that helps, this is a weird all
our listeners have now, Sourd.
Yeah, I know.
Yeah.
Tom was so relatable.
I don't know that I'm not
relatable to begin with, but
yes, I'm cementing it right now.
We're a good Midwestern.
Yeah.
Boy.
Okay, so here's one thing
that I do recently that I
think really knocks me out.
I don't know if this will help you or not.
This came about.
Accidentally, which is that I've
started using an eye mask before
sleep, like a heated eye mask where
you put a thing over your eyes and
like it warms them up basically.
And I'm doing that for a medical reason,
but also I've discovered that when I do
it, holy crap, be that the combination
of the warmth and the fully blocked
out light at night just knocks me out.
Wow.
Okay.
The devices are cheap.
Could be worth a try.
I don't know that it would really
ameliorate your anxiety about I need
to get a certain amount of sleep,
but I find it very relaxing and
it puts me to sleep really quick.
Okay.
That's, I was originally gonna make fun
of you, but now I think I'll try that.
Okay, cool.
I thank you.
I I think you're right though.
I guess I have definitely
had the experience of.
Getting into a night knowing, oh,
I'm not gonna get as much sleep.
Yeah.
As I would like tonight.
Yeah.
And I guess I also do the thing you're
describing of just being like, you
know what, for one night or whatever,
you're gonna be fine tomorrow.
It's not that.
Yeah.
Big a deal as a way of letting go.
Yeah.
The anxiety about the next day.
The other thing I do is, And this
works really well, actually, if I
can actually convince myself of it.
So I lay there and I'm actually
pretty close to a window.
Okay.
And so I know that if I was just, if I
was a few feet, in a different direction,
basically out the window, it'd be outside.
It'd be cold.
Yeah, it'd be cold.
And it's there's like a mosque growing
and like I'd be laying on some rocks.
And so I.
Think about how it's
so nice that I'm here.
I'm not a few feet over to the left.
Okay.
So it's like a gratitude exercise yeah.
And then all of a sudden
I feel so, so comfortable.
I'm just like, wow.
I don't even need to, like why
should, why, just being here is nice.
Yeah.
Even if I'm not sleeping,
it's just nice to be indoors.
Yeah.
That's a nice perspective for sure.
I don't know that kind of gratitude would
help put me to sleep personally, but
it's a good way of being alive, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah, why not?
But I guess you've never had
this problem, so you're not
exactly an expert on the top.
Yeah, I guess that's fair.
Yeah.
I'm just totally speculating.
But I feel like for me, gratitude
exercises like that are good and they
make me feel good about the way I'm
living my life, but I don't really
associate them with, ah, relaxing,
they're the opposite of anything to me.
They're like a, appreciating the,
temporariness of life and a bunch of
other stuff, which, It not usually
ideas that are putting me to sleep.
Yeah.
It is a brainy thing to be, yeah.
To be worried about.
Yeah.
That's fair.
I guess Marcus would just
say, this is part of nature.
Blahdi blah.
Be one with nature, lay awake.
Yeah.
Another way of looking at it is
I think he also would maybe drill
into the anxiety a little bit.
What's worrying you so much about
needing to get that much sleep?
Every night.
Why is it so important that it's d
doing this counterproductive thing of
you need so much sleep that it worries
you and therefore you don't get sleep?
Yeah.
If that's defense of
the empire, something.
Yeah.
So I guess in his case it's he would
have a good reason for some sleepless.
Nights.
Yeah.
It's the Kuwaiti.
Yeah.
The quai, have we established
that The quai are, they're
on the river grande, Tom.
Yeah, they're on the river
grande among the quai.
Yeah, among the quai.
They're all around.
Yeah.
I gu So among, to me, is a weird part of
speech to use if that's the enemy we're
among, I guess we've infiltrated the kuai.
If we're understanding
if we're among them.
That's a good question.
Maybe there's that feeling of
you're at a camp and it is.
They're truly bewilder.
They be anywhere, could
somewhere above them.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
I guess that's right.
Yeah.
I have never heard of the Kuai before.
It does not as a word, it doesn't
sound like a German word to me at all.
They're just, yeah.
Dirty Germans is what they are.
Yeah.
They sound like it sounds
like a kind of monster.
The Kuai.
That's right.
It doesn't sound like a people.
Yeah.
Okay.
With that, should we actually
read some, should we?
Yeah.
Should we do some reading this time?
Let's do it.
Okay.
Okay, we're back.
Okay, cool.
We are still in book two, which is
called on the River Grand among the
Kuai, and we are on bullet point
11 of that, chap of that book.
So 11, you could leave life right now.
Wait, we already read this?
Nope.
We read that.
It's 12.
We already know already.
We're on number 12.
We're gonna edit all this out.
Yeah we are on number 12.
Number 12, the speed with
which all of them vanish.
The objects in the world and the memory of
them in time, and the real nature of the
things our senses experience, especially
those that entice us with pleasure or
frighten us with pain or loudly trumpeted
by pride to understand those things.
How stupid contemptible, grimy,
decaying, and dead they are.
That's what our inter
intellectual powers are for.
And to understand what those people
really amount to, whose opinions and
voices constitute fame and what dying is.
And that if you look at it in the abstract
and break down your imaginary ideas of
it by logical analysis, you realize that
it's nothing but a process of nature
which only children can be afraid of.
And not only a process of nature, but
a necessary one, and how man grasps God
with what part of himself he does and how
that part is conditioned when he does.
Boy, this one's abstract.
Yep.
And a bummer.
Who's he talking about?
Who's them?
Just the people with his life
think who disappoint him, I think.
Yeah.
Them is weird here.
I think he's actually saying the
things that he lists after the them,
the speed with which the objects
and the world and the memory of them
in time vanish is what he's saying.
Okay.
In that first sentence.
So things are census experience,
especially those that give us
pleasure, frighten us or, yeah.
All these are trumpeted with pain.
So all of those things
abstractly, disappear.
Disappear.
Yeah.
It's about the temporary ness of, and so
only children should be afraid of them.
Should be afraid of death.
Sure.
That's right.
So then he switches to talk about dying.
Yeah.
Those, those are, those go hand in hand.
I think what he's saying is all the
stuff that makes up our lived experience,
the scary stuff and the fun stuff and
the prideful stuff and the objects
and the world, they all disappear.
They're all temporary.
They all disappear very quickly.
And not only do they disappear,
but our people's memories of them
disappear too because of death and.
If you just look at death totally
rationally, setting aside your
irrational fears of it, you see
logically that it is just a part of a
natural, a regular, natural process,
and therefore nothing to be afraid of.
Why is he keep repeating himself?
I feel like 11 started with
you could leave life right now.
We, yeah, we've heard this before, right?
But he's just reminding himself,
it's just nice for him to write it.
Is it, is that the meditations for him?
It's meditations.
For us, it's repetitive writing.
It does feel repetitive to me too.
But I think part of the reason it
feels repetitive maybe to us is that
this is an idea we've all heard in
the modern world that like, yeah, life
is short and et cetera, et cetera.
Feels like almost a cliche to us and
to what it feels like to me is going on
for Marcus is the thing that happens.
For people who are working on new
ideas, which is that you try to say
them like 10 different ways and kind
of step back and squint at all of them.
And it's which one of these said
the thing I was trying to say?
He's taken a couple runs at
expressing the same-ish idea.
Maybe because it was a more novel idea to
him at the time than it seems to us today.
Okay.
So for our For our Spark Notes readers
out there, 12 was this too shall pass.
Yeah.
And nothing to death, nothing to
be scared of because it's, you're
like, the only reason you're afraid
of it is your dumb animal brain.
And yeah it's a natural process.
The last sentence about how man grasps
God and with what part of himself he
does and how that part is conditioned
when he does, first of all, I think it's
the first instance that I remember in
this text of a capital G God singular,
which seems a little bit Oh yeah.
Different than, the gods as they have
been referred to in the text previously.
Interesting.
I don't think of Marcus
as a monotheistic dude.
But maybe I'm wrong about that.
Maybe he would believe in a capital G.
God.
What do you think about that?
Does that seem wrong to you?
Boy, I'm outta my depth for
how the Romans perceived.
Single gods versus, I know that
every Roman emperor prescribed
themselves a particular deity
in the Pantheon, as their deity.
Perhaps he's referring to that one.
I don't know who Oh, sure.
The God of wet blankets
for Marcus over here.
But J Yeah.
I don't know.
I guess maybe, yeah, maybe this was
an era where referring to a singular
unambiguous God is fine, and also
referring to the gods collectively.
Is also fine.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I He's certainly not talking about
the father of Jesus Christian.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah.
Yes.
Yeah.
Okay.
Interesting.
Would love to get a little translation
note from the translator on that one.
I wonder what the text in
the original email us at.
Yeah.
Tom and Paul podcast gmail.com.
That's right.
Yeah.
We'll set it up at some point.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah.
Nobody beat us to the punch.
Listeners, please.
Thank you.
Yeah.
All right.
And we're back.
Okay.
The other thing that's interesting about
that sentence is this, with what part
of himself he does and how that part
is conditioned when he does, which I
think is saying that, like he's talking
about when you really grasp God, you
do so with your spirit or something
like that, as opposed to and that.
That part is conditioned in some sort of
good or humble way to truly grasp God.
So I think he's saying I'm just
speculating, but it's all a part of how
the sort of structure of the gods and how
they've made the world makes death and
all the stuff that happens to us humans,
just normal forgivable parts of the
process and nothing to be afraid of that.
That's how I read it.
That if when you experience death and
grasping God or whatever, you'll be
ready for it and it'll all work out
because they've designed a good system.
I be, I believe you.
Okay, you, but which really means
that you think, I'm just speculating.
I have no idea what this means.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's, but there's sounds very smart.
There's my, okay.
There's my totally
unwarranted and completely un.
Backed up reasoning about what?
That last sentence I like it means.
Okay.
Thank you, Paul.
Okay.
Wow.
The first sentence of this next
one is really catching my eye.
Number 13.
Nothing is more pathetic than people
who run around in circles, delving
into the things that lie beneath
and conducting investigations into
the souls of the people around them.
Never realizing that all you have
to do is to be attentive to the
power inside you and worship it.
Sincerely.
Okay.
New topic for Wow.
For Marcus here.
Wow.
Nothing is more pathetic than these
people is running around in circles,
dev, delving into the things that lie
beneath and conducting investigations
into the souls of other people.
So he loves to, he really
believes that you shouldn't care
about the souls of other people.
Yeah.
That it's not, you
shouldn't moralize yeah.
You know their souls.
Yeah.
And who are these pathetic
little people in his life?
They're gossipers and rumor moners.
They're just his court basically.
Yeah.
They, yeah.
I, that's what I would think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
The judgemental or Yeah.
Small minded military officials
who are jealous of one another's
power or whatever else.
It's easy for him to say he's the emperor.
Yeah.
I agree.
Yeah.
He's and he's got this soul
that's like beyond reproach or
the way he acts is so right.
Yeah.
Yes.
I agree with the, it's easy for him
to say reaction to this sentence.
I also think having just talked about
Christianity in Jesus in, in relation to
the last sentence that this first sentence
strikes me as a very jesusy sentence
that, It's, you don't judge others, you
just worry about your own behavior and
the content of your own soul, basically.
Oh, is that a Christian thing too?
That strikes me as a
very Christian sentiment.
Oh, yes.
Wow.
Interesting.
That, yeah, I, it's, there's, I think
there's a fair amount I'll flag this as
it happens in the future, but there's
a fair amount of stuff that Marcus
says that I'm sounds pretty similar
to some stuff at the Bible to me.
I guess the.
I guess judo, Christianity
just gobbled up all the best
philosophies and put 'em into one.
Yeah.
Although that predates this text, right?
Isn't this text from like 280?
It does, but does it, then all the
apostles go out and basically just say,
oh, okay, this is what you believe.
This is what we also believe.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
Yeah, so I don't know enough about
the history of when the Bible Bibles
actually go into publication or whatever.
Obviously I think it's right
around this time actually.
Okay.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Interesting.
Yeah.
Okay.
All right let's finish this bullet point.
So he is talking about worshiping
the power inside you, sincerely.
And then he says to worship it is to
keep it from being muddled with turmoil
and becoming aimless and dissatisfied
with nature, divine, and human.
What is divine deserves our
respect because it is good.
What is human deserves our
affection because it is like us.
And our pity too sometimes for its
inability to tell good from bad as
terrible, a blindness as the kind
that can't tell white from black.
You're making a confused face as you
read those last couple of sentences.
Reading.
Yeah.
Ire, the structure of those
sentences is not easy.
I think what he's saying is, in the
first sentence that we read, He's
saying all that matters is the contents
of your own mind and soul, basically.
And then he's saying, how do you,
how do you actually worship your own,
keep clean your own mind and soul.
You have to maintain the
appropriate attitudes towards
both the divine and the human You.
I really this is very
interesting actually.
So this is a common.
Modern philosophy as well, which is
that okay, you are the way, you are.
Just accept it.
Don't try to fight it.
Or nature.
You know that he uses the word nature.
Yeah.
And it's interesting that he splits
it into nature, into two things.
The divine and the human.
Yeah.
I'm guessing what he means by the
divine are just like the things you
can't control the whole realm of
the world that you can't control.
Yeah.
I, that's about how I read it too.
So what does Divine deserves
our respect because it is good.
Yeah.
All that stuff, which is awesome actually.
It is good.
All the stuff that, that God's created.
Yes.
It's all the things you can't
control deserves our, deserve
our respect because they're good.
It's a good system.
Yep.
All right.
Moving on balance.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So those are the things you can't
control and what is human deserves
our affection because it is like us.
Yeah.
Yep.
I like that too.
That it's a cool line actually.
Yeah, I agree.
This one resonates for me.
So like you your human
Tennessee deserve affection.
And everything else deserves respect.
Yeah.
This is a more sympathetic Marcus
than I think we sometimes get.
He's saying that, yeah, we should be
humans who he says, are pretty bad at
telling good from bad a lot of the time.
A lot of his previous writing seems
to have to do with, and that makes
them stupid and bad basically.
And that's that's your problem is you
can't tell what's good and what's bad.
Yeah.
Here he's saying.
Yeah, but we're all like that.
And so we should be nice to each
other because, we're all these
limited, somewhat blind beings.
And we should not only be affectionate,
but even pity one another when we,
when those limitations come to pass.
This is a very nice Marcus.
I agree.
This is, I like this, Marcus.
This is a much closer to my
own philosophy of life, marcus.
I feel like I would grab
a beer with this, Marcus.
Yeah, I agree.
This Marcus is yes.
I agree with you.
I really like the perspective
on recognizing that human beings
are limited, but trying our
best that I get from this Yeah.
Sentence.
Yeah.
And then, and therefore
we should just try to be.
He says pity, but I interpret
it a little bit too as give
people the benefit of the doubt.
Sure.
And charitable it's interesting that he.
Says that right after just, calling
these people who, yeah, the most
pathetic people who run around in
circles conducting investigations
to the souls of those around them.
Yeah, those people deserve
some pity as well, don't they?
Yeah.
I think that's a lovely duality that
is at the heart of what we're picking
up on, about Marcus is, on the one
hand, he is really willing to be like,
this is the worst thing humans can
do, is to, to really gastric people.
And then he within.
The same breath he says, but also this
is at the heart of being human and
we should be not only P, but even be
affectionate towards this behavior.
This feels very similar to the section
where he talked about the two kinds
of wrong wrongdoing, one caused by
anger and one caused by jealousy.
Right?
And how the anger one is much better.
That seems to be his whole shtick, is
that he's as long as it was caused by, by.
Being focused on yourself, then it's fine.
And as soon as it's caused by being
focused on others, it's terrible.
Yeah.
That's a nice connection.
I think that's right.
I do think, yes, he cares very much
about motivation and like where beh
human behavior comes from, much more
than what the behavior is itself,
which is part of what lend this.
Text, it's abstractness cuz he's
so rarely actually talking about
any specific human behavior.
He is just abstractly talking about
this kind of behavior because he
only cares how it's motivated.
Yeah I think that's right.
I like that.
This one.
Also, maybe I'm repeating myself here.
I like that he is recognizing
for once that telling good from
bad is not a trivial exercise.
Which it so frequently seems like.
He just assumes that everybody, just by
inspecting a situation, can instantly
tell what the morally good option is
and what the morally bad option is.
And all you have to do in life is choose
the good one, which has always struck me
as a part of this philosophy that doesn't.
Do much for me because yeah.
At least in my life, it
doesn't feel that obvious.
What's the good choice and what's
the bad choice a lot of the time.
Yeah.
I, yeah.
I like to hear him at
least acknowledge that.
Yeah.
That's hard sometimes.
Yeah.
It's weird that he, he does both.
Yeah.
But there's a duality there that I
think is the, is the text like, This
is all that matters and it's hard
and these people suck, but also we
should be generous towards them.
Yeah, it's a little contradictory.
It's a work in progress private journal.
Yeah.
Okay.
Number 14.
Even if you're going to live 3000 more
years or 10 times that, remember, you
cannot lose another life than the one
you're living now or live another one
than the one you're losing the longest
amounts to the same as the shortest.
The present is the same for everyone.
Its loss is the same for everyone, and
it should be clear that a brief instant
is all that is lost for you can't
lose either the past or the future.
How could you lose what you don't have?
Remember two things.
One, that everything has always been
the same and keeps recurring, and it
makes no difference whether you see
the same things occur in a hundred
year or 200, or in an infinite period.
Two that the longest lived, and those
who will die soonest lose the same thing.
The present is all that they can give up.
Since that is all you have and what
you do not have, you cannot lose.
Okay.
Wow.
I'll make a small remark, which
is I like the timeframes in which
those guys think 3000 more years.
Yeah.
It doesn't, he doesn't talk
about a hundred more years.
Yeah.
3000 more years or 10 times that.
Yes.
Yeah.
He's really he would be, he
would still be alive even in the
small version of that 3000 years.
Yes, absolutely.
Yeah.
He would still be comfortably
alive at this point.
Yes.
Marcus thinks big.
Yes.
It's interesting.
It's big, but that also,
he never goes bigger than.
10 times that is not that big.
If you're, the point he's making is
about very long time friends he hops
from that would be unrealistic town,
but he, he does refer to an infinite
period later on, but yeah, he hops from
30,000 years to an infinite period.
Oh, so they have the concept of infinity.
Yeah.
I feel like he's actually some
math, some quick maths he's doing.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think he's He's reasoning about infinity
a little bit here with this bullet point.
He's saying that the value of all the
time that you might have left still
only sums to the same thing as the value
that some short-lived PE person has.
Oh you read that as like it's
an integral that he 3000 times
infinity is still infinity.
Yeah, that is how I read it, basically.
That's very nerdy of you.
Yeah.
I think that is what he
is saying though, here.
That the sentence about sure it is
the same loss for everyone and the
presence is the same for everyone.
Yeah.
It should be clear that a brief,
instant dissolve that is lost.
That's a great reading, Tom.
Thank you.
That's nice.
I think, how do you, how do you
react to this philosophy overall?
I don't know that I
totally agree with this.
Again, I feel so abstracted and there's
so many layers of abstraction here.
I guess what he's saying
is Live in the present.
That's for my Spark Notes readers.
And before he does live in the present.
Yeah.
And then he just gives a very
extreme example of how much
he believes that to be true.
So even if you live for 300,000
years, you sh you would still
just live in the present.
Yeah, it's, he is failing
composition 1 0 1.
Like topic sentence?
Yeah.
Like supporting evidence kind of stuff.
He is just here's an argument and here's
the same argument without the reasoning
for the argument being presented.
I guess there's some reasoning
here, but I don't think I, yeah.
Don't you agree with basically the notion
that, Th this to me implies that if you
truly live in the present or whatever
it means, don't plan for the future.
You should make decisions as if
you're gonna be dead tomorrow.
And I don't think I, I don't think
I like that as a life philosophy.
I appreciate the perspective of, the
present is important and you don't let
your anxiety or plans about the future.
It's an easy mistake to make, to let
those cannibalize the present for you.
But also, I don't think it's an
actionable philosophy to say, it
does not matter how long I live.
It's all the same.
Let me just decide, let me
live my life as if it's all
gonna disappear at any instant.
Yeah.
I think that's a paralyzing
life philosophy would lead
to horrible decisions.
Yeah, that's true.
And for example, if he.
If he really cares about his job or
his kids, then it does matter how
long he personally is going to be
around, because that impacts the
kind of projects he can take on.
Yeah, totally.
And the kind of investments
he should be making.
Yeah.
And especially for a guy who's invested
in something like the Roman Empire,
this enormous, long waved project.
Yeah.
I yeah.
My other reaction to this was Al was just,
it felt very like, It felt like nihilism.
It was just nothing matters basically.
Yes, I agree.
I also get a nihilistic
whiff off of this paragraph.
Yeah.
Okay.
What's the more charitable
reading for Marcus?
We, rather than just saying this
sucks and we hate it and it's nihilism
and stupid that he's like poo bear.
He is I wake up and it's a great day
and that's the only thing that matters.
Yeah.
Control what you can control,
which is the presence.
Yeah.
It's just like a perspective exercise of
freaking out about whether or not you're
gonna be dead in 20 years or 30 years.
Yeah.
Stop it.
It doesn't matter.
Just live the thing that's
in front of you right now.
Maybe that's, I think what we're missing
is I would love to just look at this
through the lens of Marcus the human.
Yeah.
I guess maybe he is really
obsessed with his own longevity.
Yeah.
I mean that maybe that's that would be
a typical Emperor thing to be, yeah.
Yeah.
Because the last, so 11 started
with you could leave life right
now, 12 was everything Vanishes 13.
13 wasn't a side about the most pathetic.
Also, I hate these people.
14 are back to dying.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think that's right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Certainly he's obsessed
with dying and life.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I do think that's probably the right
way of looking at it, is that this
is very much personal to Vargas, that
he's not just abstractly philosophizing
about how a human should live.
He's very much reacting to his
own concerns about his own demise.
I guess something along the lines of
Y a spear landed next to him Yeah.
On the battlefield today.
And he thought about his
own death and he's reminding
himself that it doesn't matter.
And he knows that his like, fuck up
son is not ready to take the throne.
And he's trying to figure out which of his
other 17 children might be able to do it.
Yeah.
But he's worried that if he dies now,
then his fuck up sound takes the throne.
I guess there's, yeah, there's
a bunch of context there.
Yeah.
Presumably it's something we've I think
we talked about it in our first episode
too, about how if we assume that he is
deeply attached to the world, that he
has all these like intense connections
and he cares about all this stuff very
deeply, then this kind of makes sense
to me as a reminder of okay, just
remember all you can lose is the present.
Like it's all you have.
So the.
You're paralyzing fear of losing all
these things you love in life, let go of
that fear because you never really had
all those things to begin with basically.
Yeah.
That is a kinder reading to Marcus,
I think, than just, this sucks.
He's an nihilists and his life
philosophy is insanely myopic and stupid.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's fair.
Okay.
Number 15, quote.
Everything is just an impression, end
quote, monos the cynic and the response is
obvious enough, but the point is a useful
one if you take it for what it's worth.
Wow, fascinating.
Fascinatingly, opaque here.
Mark, what do you think the
obvious response to everything is?
Just an impression.
It is.
That's a hard question.
Don't trust anything.
I guess if it's all just an impression,
don't take anything at first.
First glance, what did you,
what do you think it is?
It's obvious, Tom.
It's obvious.
Yeah, enough.
I agree.
It's not obvious.
Obvious to me.
Okay, so here's the
process that I go through.
Cynicism is this philosophy
that I think, right?
Marcus is in opposition operating
in opposition to, so I don't
think he's gonna concur with this
sentiment or what he's gonna say.
My obvious response to this is a so what?
Let's say it all is just an impression.
Should that change how we live our lives?
Maybe not, is I guess how I react
to that, but I'm not sure that's
the, that's obvious necessarily if
you take it for what it's worth.
Okay.
So you're saying like, so the
re so yes, a cynic says, yeah.
Life is just an illusion, sure.
It's this fall in your head,
Plato's Cave or whatever.
Yeah, exactly.
And you know the correct response
to that is, is just more cynicism.
That's what this, but he says,
but the point is a useful one.
So I think the way in which Marcus agrees
with the Senti sentiment to me is that it
implies a sort of temporary ness and a,
and also I think it agrees with Marcus's
focus on process that like, it might
be an illusion or it might not, but if,
but Marcus thinks that if you follow his
process for living life, it doesn't matter
I'm buying.
Is that okay?
I, that's, I guess I'm just specul you
don't have a lot to go off of here.
I'm just speculating.
Yeah.
Anything else that's straight.
So you think the obvious
response is Yes, that's true.
Everything is just an impression.
Everything is just an illusion and
the response is obvious enough that
you should only trust yourself and all
the things he's already been saying
in the last 14 bullets, basically.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
I think we're on the same page about that.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This one's hard to that to parse apart.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Marcus clearly thinks there's some
pithy response to this that would be
in agreement with his own philosophy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I think we're having trouble
putting our figure on exactly
what that would be, but, yeah.
Yeah.
Okay.
That's a tough one.
Number 16, the human soul
degrades itself, colon.
One above all, when it does its best to
become an abscess, a kind of detached
growth on the world to be disgruntled
that anything that happens is a kind
of succession from nature, which
comprises the nature of all things.
I should point out that was a capital
end nature, a kind of succession from
capital end nature, which comprises
the lowercase end nature of all things.
Let's talk about that before
we continue with this list.
So I think what he's
saying is your soul if you.
If you try to stand aside from the world
and be unhappy with what is going on
in the world, you degrade your soul.
So this is his shtick
about living with nature.
Yeah.
In his concept of accept the things that
happen to you in the world, and if you
just complain about them and say, oh
no, I'm too good to be sick, or whatever
else, then you degrade your own soul.
Yep.
Nature of the capital N is.
The realm of things you can't control.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
Number two, the human soul degrades
itself when it turns its back on
another person or sets out to do it,
harm as the souls of the angry deal.
So calling back to the
angry versus jealous.
Although here he is condemning the angry,
which, who were the folks who he seemed to
think were acting better than the jealous?
Yeah.
Better, but still not great, yeah.
Okay.
Degraded souls.
Yeah.
Nevertheless, degrading to your soul.
Number three, when it is overpowered by
pleasure or pain, human soul degrades
itself when it is overpowered by pain.
Huh, sure.
That's strikes me a little
bit odd overpowered.
You should always be in control
as Marcus, but it also seems like
the amount of pain you receive it.
To your soul is something that's
out of your control on some level
and the right Marcus seems to
think not according to Marcus.
Yeah.
I guess Marcus thinks
you can control that.
That's interesting.
I don't know that I agree with that.
Yeah.
Number four, the human soul degrades
itself when it puts on a mask and does
or says something artificial or false.
Sure.
Number five.
When it allows its action and impulse to
be, without a purpose to be random and
disconnected, even the smallest things
ought to be directed toward a goal.
But the goal of rational beings is to
follow the rule and law of the most
ancient of communities and states.
Wow.
This one is, this one's
follow the rules kids.
Okay.
The most ancients of
communities and states.
Does that just mean the Roman Empire?
I'm pretty sure he is
referring to himself here.
Yeah.
Okay.
What It allows his action and
impulse to be without purpose.
Yeah.
Okay.
So you should do things
purposefully towards a goal.
Be rational, basically, is what I
say, be rational and follow the law.
Yeah.
The, even the smallest things
ought to be directed toward a goal.
I generally agree with, but it is
a clause of a sentence that puts
distance between me and Marcus
because he sounds like such a scold.
He sounds like such a dish.
Yeah.
Being like, yeah, I imagine being this
guy's kid, you stupid animals, what
what was the goal behind this action?
Yeah.
And yeah.
Yeah.
He sounds annoying.
But yes, the human soul degrades
itself when it acts irrationally or
something like that, I think is what I
take away from that, which yeah, fun.
I agree.
This is the structure of this list.
It's, if this one feels the first chapter
was at least organized by this unified
principle of the different people to
whom I'm in, I'm grateful in some kind
of chronological order or something.
Yeah.
This one is just Here's morality.
Like here's how your soul functions.
Here's three bullet points
about how life is temporary.
Here's one bullet point
about people I don't like.
Yeah.
Did he write this in one sitting,
or did he come back day after day?
Yeah I think it has to
be the latter, right?
Yeah.
That's how I read it.
That's why it's so similar.
Each bullet feels pretty
similar to the other.
Yeah.
He's just rewriting the thing that he
already believes in a different format.
Yeah.
It's not all, he's got a couple of Yeah.
Things he likes.
I feel like there's four
to five different, he likes
kinds of bullet points.
Yeah.
We've got life.
He likes the presence.
We've got live with nature.
Yeah.
And don't be jealous.
Yeah.
Keep your soul in accordance with the
things that the gods have created.
Yeah.
And aligned with nature.
Yep.
We've got don't look at
other people's souls.
Yep.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And then those things
get recycled into, yeah.
Let's see.
Number 17.
Number 17.
This is the last bullet point of the book.
Human life.
Nice.
Yeah.
Very great.
I feel like we always these
books always crescendo towards
the end they get more yeah.
He just goes off, which, what causes
him to finally be like, okay, next.
There's no way.
I can't, I cannot this bigger.
Yeah.
Okay.
So this is a list of traits I think
of human life is what this one is.
Boy, the biggest picture
thinker imaginable.
Human life duration, momentary
nature, changeable perception.
Damn.
Condition of body decaying.
Oh my god.
Soul.
Spinning around What fortune.
Unpredictable, lasting, fame, uncertain.
Sum up the body in its parts are a river.
The soul, a dream and mist.
Life is warfare and a journey far from
home lasting reputation is oblivion.
Then what can guide us?
Only philosophy.
Which means making sure that the
power within stays safe and free from
assault, superior to pleasure and pain.
Doing nothing randomly or dishonesty, and
with imposter, not dependent on anyone
else's doing something or not doing.
And making sure that it accepts what
happens and what is dealt as coming
from the same place it came from
and above all, that it accepts death
in a cheerful spirit as nothing but
the dissolution of the elements from
which each living thing is composed.
If it doesn't hurt the individual
elements to change continually into
one another, why are people afraid
of all them changing and separating.
It's a na, it's a natural thing,
and nothing natural is evil.
Yeah, that's a pretty
good summary of Mark.
That's great.
This is ick.
I feel like I, I like the list
of human life and its traits.
I agree with pretty much all of them.
I think actually, I think
perception dim is very funny.
It's very funny.
Very, I think like that is,
that very much lines up with
my perception of human beings.
As well, including myself.
And I really like soul spinning around.
They're, we, yeah.
So the first couple felt
very like cliche and Yes.
Okay.
Duration momentary and nature changeable.
Yeah.
And then soul spinning around is
much, it feels very different.
And certainly not the modern way
we describe people's souls, but
it feels like the truth, right?
Yeah.
I think I think that the thing we're
describing here where every ch,
every listical item, Seems, feels
like a, repetitive is happening
because we're not applying it.
My guess is the way you're, we
should read the meditations is we
have a thing in mind that happened.
Okay.
And we read it through that
lens, but it's so abstract.
It is really, but that's the only way to
I think, squeeze the juice out of Yeah.
These listical items.
I, and I'm gonna read this as I
had trouble sleeping last night.
So it's anyway, my life is momentary.
My nature's changeable.
My perception is dim.
Yeah.
My body's decaying anyway.
My soul is spinning around.
So what can guide me?
Philosophy?
Yeah.
What I've got is, is a rational sense of
how this doesn't actually matter, right?
Yeah.
Yeah, this is very much like a world
stardust, where specks on a big
spinning rock kind of paragraph.
I feel like, yeah, it's just big dose of
perspective and then yes, given that all
that's true, what we can control is the
same thing that Marcus loves talking about
in general which he calls philosophy,
which I think is pretty interchangeable
with his sort of process for living life.
Basically.
The, my philosophy is, yeah, living
in accordance with a certain.
Set a principle.
I actually prefer the word process
to philosophy in this case.
I think that's what, that,
that's how I'm reading it.
Yeah.
Is that, that he means philosophy feels
mushy, whereas process feels clear.
Yeah.
And philosophy seems abstract to me.
Yeah.
That seems like the thing that worries me.
One, one other thing I notice about
this list is that he is talking
about fame and lasting reputation,
which he ha hasn't done as much.
Yeah.
Which feels like him telling on
himself a little bit in the sense
that I think we're, it's revealing
that he is actually thinking about
what will, how will remember me.
Yes.
Will I be.
And he's kept that out of the text
so far, but here it sneaks in.
Yeah.
And I think that to me, does
enlighten how we read some of
these other points a little bit.
Yeah.
That, that he is concerned about
his own legacy and his own death
and how he will be remembered.
Yeah.
Which, yeah.
Which humanizes him I think I, that
makes him more relatable to me.
If he was someone who I don't think
about my own immortality and my fame.
But I think in many ways this,
that, that feels unrelatable to you.
I read this, this whole book could
be titled vain Emperor tries to talk
himself out of his own obsession with
his comforts himself with his life and
his fame, and his legacy with repetitive
and Sort of banal statements about
how it doesn't actually really matter.
Yeah.
That's, sorry, I, that's a
pretty negative reaction.
I, to me, I guess the fact that he
I'm guessing about how I would feel
if I was, if I had Marcus's life,
but to me, yeah, it seems like a, if
you were the Emperor Rome, Yeah, of
course you're gonna worry about this
reputation, lasting fame kind of stuff.
I agree that it's not something
that I worry about in my own life.
But I think if I was Marcus,
I would think about that.
Just because you're the emperor.
Because you're the emperor.
And it's the sort of once it's,
celebrities do this and whatever
else people get, once they reach
a certain stage of power and stuff
in their life, they start to worry
about their legacy or whatever.
I think that's normal.
I think that's a human.
Thing.
And I was worried, up to this point in
the text that Marcus was so philosophical
and cold that he was like no, I don't
care about my legacy, or I never worry
about my legacy or my reputation because
we're all just stardust and who cares?
Everything will be lost in time.
And he's admitting a human
weakness here a little bit.
That he does think about that stuff
and he needs to write this to remind
himself, wait, no, don't worry
about those things, cuz they're.
Sure.
Yeah.
You're right.
That is, there is that more
charitable framing where it's
because he's the emperor.
Yeah.
It's impossible not to
think about these things.
Everyone around him is constantly sucking
up to him and telling him how great he
is and how they're gonna construct all
these monuments to him, and how he's
the best emperor that's ever lived.
And he's been remembered forever.
Yeah.
And so he has to go home and
remind, remind himself that
all these things are not true.
Yep.
That's a very charitable interpretation.
Yeah.
And because, mere mortals like you
and I don't have to, aren't, are
not constantly being buttered up.
And so it's a lot easier for us to live
in a more w in accordance with nature.
Yeah.
Yeah.
This is one way in which Marcus has
it harder than we do, is that he's got
this whole thing to worry about with
his legacy and reputation and stuff.
And yes, people, even if he didn't
think about it, other people would be
jamming it in his face all day long.
And so how does he.
Let go of that.
He says it's all tied up with all this
temporary and permanent stuff, and the
thing I can't control is my process.
All right.
I like Marcus again.
Yeah, I agree.
This one is I think it'll be
interesting to monitor this trend
of ending his ch his books with
fireworks like he seems to be doing.
Yeah.
Because I think that was a big fireworks.
Ed entry that warmed me up again to him.
I think I seesawed on him a little
bit over the course of this book
where where he seemed a little
repetitive and a little harsh.
And but also he softened me up with
some moments of, I think he is actually
a pretty I mostly agree with its
understanding of human nature, I think.
I agree.
Yeah.
Until next time.
Yeah.
All right.
See ya.