Meditations

Marcus notes his proclivity for seeking physical retreats—“in the country, by the sea, in the hills”— and urges himself to retreat “into his own mind,” where the ease of “a well-ordered life” can be found (23). He reminds himself not to be resentful of others’ behaviors or to become distracted by fame. His life is a “minute cranny” of the entire earth, which is “a mere point in space” (24). Two thoughts he exhorts himself to return to are 1) that externals cannot cause him anxiety, only his own judgments, and 2) that the nature of the universe is change. Death is one of nature’s mysteries. It cannot be prevented and should not be feared; rather, it should fill him with a sense of urgency to “become good” while he is alive and able (26). He exhorts himself to attend only to his own actions, staying on a straight path guided by reason.

Praise, Marcus notes, does not affect the nature of a thing, nor does it forestall death. An emerald, for example, does not gain or lose its beauty from praise or lack of it. The universe is an ordered, interconnected Whole, “comprising one substance and one soul” and “all is absorbed into this one consciousness” (31).