A Meditation

"My advice is really this: what we hear the philosophers saying and what we find in their writings should be applied in our pursuit of the happy life. We should hunt out the helpful pieces of teaching and the spirited and noble-minded sayings which are capable of immediate practical application--not far-fetched or archaic expressions or extravagant metaphors and figures of speech--and learn them so well that words become works."
- Seneca

Marcus Aurelius was a consummate pro. His writing is always smooth, can be jaw-dropping at key moments, generally burns off the pages when I read The Meditations. I have an already-dogeared copy on my desk I grabbed from Border's last week. I heard somewhere that he is a "standing reproach to our self-indulgence", which is something I've been dealing with a lot recently. Ryan Holiday has endless praise for Greg Hays' translation, so when I decided to get it, I knew which version to pick up. Having never really given a shit about individual translators before, let me just say: jesus. I was blown away. I'd tried to read The Meditations on some shitty website for a long time, but couldn't because it was so fucking boring; but Hays' version? It's written so clearly, lucidly, that it almost feels obscene. Which it is. The Meditations were written by Aurelius for Aurelius alone; they're a notebook where he reminded himself of what's good in life and why. (Reading it is like peeking into the daily struggles of a great mind--the same concept as this blog, except extremely much better.) It's a diary of sorts, meant as a way for Marcus to reinforce his thoughts by arguing them rhetorically. If he were to find out he was listed as one of the great authors of all time, his first reaction would be, "What do you mean? I never wrote a book!"

That feeling doesn't come across in any translation except for Hays'. The others are weighed down with a thick syrup of pretentiousness, where it sounds like a Roman emperor declaiming Real Truth from on high, trumpeting righteousness into the ages. Here, see for yourself. This is the same passage, the first version from the Internet Classics Archive, the second from Hays.

ICA:

Often think of the rapidity with which things pass by and disappear, both the things which are and the things which are produced. For substance is like a river in a continual flow, and the activities of things are in constant change, and the causes work in infinite varieties; and there is hardly anything which stands still. And consider this which is near to thee, this boundless abyss of the past and of the future in which all things disappear. How then is he not a fool who is puffed up with such things or plagued about them and makes himself miserable? for they vex him only for a time, and a short time.

Hays:

Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone--those that are now and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the 'what' is in constant flux, the 'why' has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us--a chasm whose depths we cannot see. So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress. Or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted.

Oh shit!! Did you feel that? Did you get some of that Aurelius??

I know I am. I'm only a short way into it, and reading it in tandem four or so other books, but there's just something about it--about simple wisdom, beautifully and repeatedly argued--that I can actually feel changing the way I look at the world. It may or may not last (and now, I know, I shouldn't care), but I tossed my smokes in the trash a couple of days ago, passed on hanging out and getting lifted with a friend of mine a few days back. I haven't had a drink in a week, and even things like junk food and Coke are beginning to lose their luster. I'm slowly turning into an ascetic.

A lazy, fuck-you kind of ascetic, but I'm getting wasted a lot less. There is so much world out there to see, so much yet undone, and it is so rewarding to be able to take myself seriously that I can't see the point in fucking around any longer.

The best part, hands down, of Aurelius is his revelation that you don't avoid doing bad shit because you're going to get caught, but because it damages your character. Even if no one sees you do it, you're still the kind of person who would do that thing. And now you have something to hide when you talk to others. You'll find yourself looking over your shoulder. When you open your mouth, you can say the right thing but you'll still be a hypocrite. And the world at large won't really mind it, hell, might even encourage it--so you'll never become greater than they are. If you do what they want, and you lie like they do, you'll very conceivably get away with it. But then shit like this happens, and all your success and money and everything else you used to make up for your stultifying lack of self turns on you, it becomes a liability whose only worth is to make the punchline funnier. It's hilarious when it doesn't happen to you.

GodDAMN

Is anybody else watching the USA vs. Spain men's basketball match?? This shit is BRUTAL. It looks like the Harlem Globetrotters versus the remedial school B team. Or like an AND1 mixtape being broadcast over a live feed. It's...it's beautiful.

Focus

Like a wobbly projector, I slip in and out of it. It's a firework igniting an inch away from my face, a white-hot burst of light blinding and burning, that fades to smoke as quick as it lit. An attention span like I'm a prizefighter who just took the last punch of the night. Missed calls and irate voicemails, bills past due and I don't even know what they are. Focus. I slip in and out of it.

To get to this sentence, you read over roughly a day's work. I started this post about this time yesterday. In between I: took a final exam, gave a presentation in Spanish, did someone else's Spanish homework, played Max Payne 2 a whole shitload, started reading The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius, flirted with girls in my class, flirted with girls in my phone, slept, shit, and worked my way through a couple thousand breaths, among other things.

The enemy is within.

I get this ants-in-my-pants feeling whenever I sit down to write a post or do my homework or anything else strictly "productive". It's like trying to stare at the sun, you just have to look away. I can't work on one thing at a time because I have this irresistible, irrepressible urge to do stuff. I can't stop reading, which makes doing work on an internet-connected computer impossible. My weird mind wanders from topic to topic, leaving in its wake a trail of half-eaten apples--napkin sketches, one-page book ideas, to-do lists pockmarked with eleventeen neat (if empty) little checkbox squares. My mind is impossible. If I could invent a Jack jack and plug a set of headphones directly in my brain, it would be like listening to a hyped-up five-year-old switching all the radio stations in the car fast as humanly possible, faster even.

The enemy is in your head.

I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world, but I was born in a state of information paralysis and stayed that way. The downsides can be vicious. I'm sorry I forgot to call the company about refunding that thing, but I just realized that Baby Fratelli is in the key of G so I had to sit down and tab it out. I would have remembered to come to your thing, but somebody else asked me if I was free the same night and I said yes because I wasn't thinking. I can be insensitive, I will be forgetful, and I am prone to selfishness when not paying attention. And also when paying attention. So I often end up breaking promises, which leads people to not be able to take me seriously, which is why I'm still in college wrestling with bullshit instead of already being out there, doing.

My enemy is me. Your enemy is you. It's not money, time, or mistakes. It's not your job, your government, or someone else's religion. As Ryan Holiday put it, "Let's not kid ourselves, there is more to good and bad than just perception. It's not honest to pretend like you have total control over your emotions. We scientifically do not. You do, however, have the ability to create perspective. Almost nothing takes away your ability to inject that into the situation. So use it."

"Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone--those that are now and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the 'what' is in constant flux, the 'why' has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what's right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us--a chasm whose depths we cannot see."
- Marcus Aurelius