One thing and only one, philosophy

Commentary on Meditations 2.17

How we see the world determines how we act. Because philosophy influences our perceptions, it shapes who we are. When practiced well, it safely guides a life.

That is what Marcus Aurelius is trying to do here – see through the fog of life in order to live well.

2.17

Of human life, time is a point, and substance is in a flux, and perception dull, and the composition of the whole body subject to decay, and the soul a whirl, and fortune hard to divine, and fame a thing empty of meaning.

And, to say all in a word, everything which belongs to the body is a stream, and what belongs to the soul is a dream and vapour, and life is a warfare and a stranger’s sojourn, and lasting fame is oblivion.

What then can guide a man?

One thing and only one, philosophy.

But this consists in keeping the daemon within a man free from violence and unharmed, doing nothing without purpose, nor dishonestly and with hypocrisy, not feeling the need of another man’s doing or not doing anything; and besides, accepting all that happens, and all that is allotted, as coming from wherever he himself came; and, finally, waiting for death with a cheerful mind, as being nothing else than a dissolution of the elements of which every living being is made.

But if there is no harm to the elements themselves in each always changing into another, why should a man have any fear about the change and dissolution of all the elements?

For it is according to nature, and nothing is evil which is according to nature.