Adrian Buck’s Reviews > Meditations > Status Update

"...every man's mind is god and has flowed from that source; that nothing is our own property, but even our child, our body, our very soul have come from that source, that all is as thinking makes it so; that each of us lives only the present moment, and the present moment is all we lose." - and then a Buddhist moment.

"Therefore the fact that [even the best men do not survive death] (if indeed that is a fact) should assure you it ought not to be otherwise" - MA trying reconcile himself to his extinction at death. The beginning of the Christian hope that a good life ensures an good afterlife. I'm more sympathetic to the Homeric Greeks who struggled in life only to live on in fame and repute.

"All that you pray to reach at some point in the curcuit of your life can be yours now - if you generous to yourself. That is, if you leave all the past behind, entrust the future to Providence, and direct the present solely to reverence and justice." - isn't there something evangelical in this? There is also something of a split in his attitude to the divine: reverence - God the father; and justice - God the son?

"Kindness is invincible...What can the most aggressive man do to you if you continue to be kind to him? If...you gently admonish him and take your time to re-educate him?" - turning the o other cheek Stoic style. It probably works if you're Emperor of Rome.

"What a noble thing is the soul ready for its release from the body...prepared for whatever follows - extinction, dispersal, or survival. But this readiness must come from a specific decision: not in mere revolt, like the Christians, but thoughtful, dignified" - to MA, 'Christians' are like Jihardis for us. The difference for MA between a Stoic and Christian is a lack of dogma, about the afterlife.

"The properties of the rational soul...it gathers for itself the fruit it bears - whereas the fruit of plants and the corresponding produce of animals is gathered by others." - obviously, Aurelius doesn't anticipate Marx's theory of surplus value.

"A slave running from his master is a fugitive. Law is our master. A law-breaker is therefore a fugitive." - coming from an emperor of Rome, this expresses the essence of the concept of the rule of law, someting the prime minister of Hungary thinks is debatable.

" what [the Gods] want is not servile flattery, but the development of all rational beings into their own image: they want the fig tree to do the proper work of a fig tree, the dog of a dog, the bee of a bee, and man the proper work of a man." - Homer definitely assumed servile flattery was the order of the day. It looks like Plato rung in the changes.

"To continue the same man as you have been up to now, to be torn apart and defiled in this life you live, is just senseless self-preservation like that of half-eaten gladiators who, mauled all over and covered in blood by the wild beasts, still plead to be kept alive for the next day, when in the same state they will meet with the same claws and teeth." - Netflix and chill for the ancient Romans.

"Will you not convince yourself that all your experience comes from the gods, that all is well and all with be well for you, now and hereafter" - replace 'the gods' with 'God' and you have a perfectly Christian exhortation.