Meditations
This week we are reviewing Meditations by Marcus Aurelius and the importance of freedom of thought. If you’re avoiding YouTube, the video version can be seen on Rumble. Marcus Aurelius was born April 26, 121 and he was not born to be emperor. He was adopted by the emperor and groomed to become emperor. Part of that training was philosophy, particularly the school of Stoicism. He was made emperor in 161 and reigned until his death in 180, so about 19 years. He was then succeeded by his son Commodus, who was sort of a waste of space; however unlike in the movie Gladiator, he likely did not cause Marcus Aurelius’ death. Aurelius most likely died of a plague which was sweeping through Rome at the time.
Meditations was never meant to be published. Aurelius did not write this with the intention of having it published, he wrote it as a personal journal. Journaling is part of the discipline of stoic thought. It helps them to process the goings on of the day. It was written while on military campaign during the last ten years of his life. It was written in Greek, then translated to Latin, then to English multiple times.
It was not easy reading, based on the translation, but it was good reading. It was the thoughts of a genuinely humble man. But his thoughts would have had him canceled.
So, for this review, I picked out the top ten reasons cancel culture would have come for Marcus Aurelius.
1. To my tutor Fronto, I owe the realization that malice, craftiness, and duplicity are the concomitance of absolute power. And that our patrician families tend, for the most part, to be lacking in the feelings of ordinary humanity.
My thoughts: Man…. nothing changes. Two thousand years later and the current political class is just as sleazy and self-serving as ever. Yes, there are good politicians. I can name them on one hand. Politics suck and make you dirty by default. The political class are not your friends.
2. A man must stand erect. Not be kept erect by others.
My thoughts: get off the dole. How can you claim to be an adult if you depend on others for your livelihood and happiness? If you are dependent on others for your wellbeing, you will never find your place in the world.
3. Never value the advantages derived from anything involving breech of faith, loss of self-respect, hatred, suspicion, or execration of others, insincerity, or the desire for something which has to be veiled and curtained.
My thoughts: That basically invalidates every argument social justice warriors make. Their whole schtick is built on hatred for others. Envy for what others have. I mean, there’s nothing there. There’s no THERE there, as a good friend of mine used to say. So, if you follow that particular philosophy, you really can’t follow any SJW credo.
4. Put from yourself the belief that I have been wronged, and with it will go the feeling. Reject your sense of injury, and the injury itself disappears.
My thoughts: Now, that addresses victim culture directly. Victim poker goes right out the window if you choose to NOT be offended. Now, of course there are ACTUAL victims. And that comes with its own set of problems and mental anguishes. But if you are constantly claiming to be a victim to garnish social currency, you’re going to be miserable. You can be anything…. Why would you CHOOSE to be a victim?
5. Nobody is harmed by the truth. Ignorance and self-deception cause harm.
My thoughts: When you lie about yourself, you only hurt yourself. When you lie about others, you hurt others. And that’s how innocent people get hurt. The truth, as Martin Luther King Jr. said…the Truth Shall Set You Free.
6. Pretentiousness is the arch-deceiver and never more delusive than when you imagine your work meritorious.
My thoughts: Congress! Totally pretentious, right? Congress pretends like they give a damn about We the People. We the people…who hire them. They work for us! But we the people seem to forget that pretty conveniently when it’s our guy in power. Congress cares about themselves. And that’s it. Goes for SJW’s, post-modernism, it’s all utter bullshit. It’s pretentious. It’s garbage. Walk away.
7. When men are inhuman, take care not to feel towards them as they do towards other humans.
My thoughts: The woke culture. The woke scolds. SJW…everybody who thinks that if you don’t lockstep with their ideology, you’re the bad guy…They’re dehumanizing people. It’s easy to try and do the same to them, and I know I’m not helping by calling them woke scolds and SJW. It’s dehumanizing. Hard not to do when they’re attacking you. It’s hard not to cave to that and attack back. But retain your own humanity by giving them theirs. That’s a hard one, I know. I’m sure both the left and the right will cancel you for the middle ground. It’s hard not to hate people who are actively engaged in hating you.
8. When those about who you are venting their censure or malice upon you or raising any other sort of injurious clamor, approach and penetrate into their souls, and see what manor of men they are. You will find little enough reason for all your painstaking efforts to win their good opinion.
My thoughts: This can be summed up in three words. Fuck The Haters. You do you and ignore those who would drag you down to their level.
9. Whatever may happen to you was prepared for you in advance from the beginning of time. In the woven tapestry of causation, the thread of your being had been intertwined for all time with that particular incident.
My thoughts: Life is set. The hour of your death has already been written. This is very stoic philosophy. That death can come for you at any moment, so you should live your life to the best of your ability now, and not cower in fear from death. The only thing you can control in life is how you react to the slings and arrows of fate. You can’t control anything else. You can’t control other people. You can only control yourself. That is not at all a popular opinion. Not in a society where we’re trying to control everybody and make sure everyone plays nice with everyone else. As if you could convince seven BILLION people to play nice with you. If you just scold them enough.
10. Sincerity and goodness ought to have their own unmistakable odor so that one who encounters this becomes straight away aware of it despite himself. A candor affected is a dagger concealed. The feigned friendship of the wolf is the most contemptible of all and to be shunned beyond everything. A man who is truly good, and sincere, and well-meaning will show it by his looks, and no one can fail to see it.
My thoughts: Beware false friends. Be careful where you give your trust. That’s a particularly strong warning where leftist culture is concerned. And I gotta wonder…what does it feel like to live your life in fear, knowing that at any moment, you could be the one canceled next? Because they’re coming for you. Today you’re part of the mob. Tomorrow, you’ll say the wrong thing, and you’ll be the one canceled. Beware false friends.
So those are some of the lessons found in Meditations. It’s a timeless book, that’s been read by world leaders. The Daily Stoic is a good website if you want to know more about Stoicism. There is a great deal of universality to these ideas, and Meditations has been read by entrepreneurs, military leaders, presidents, and prime ministers.
Most people tend to see Stoicism as having no emotions, and that’s not accurate. Stoicism is controlling your emotions. You can’t control life, you can only control how you react to life. The easily offended are easily manipulated.
If any of the above deep thoughts offended you, then congratulations! You are a fascist piece of trash who would have canceled Marcus Aurelius, one of the world’s greatest philosophers and greatest minds to walk the planet.
