Summary: Meditations (page 2)

If, on the contrary, we recognise that people have flaws, we will be neither surprised nor troubled when we encounter these imperfections.

This is why Marcus Aurelius advises: From dawn, say to yourself in advance: I will meet an indiscreet man, an ungrateful man, an insolent man, a deceitful man, an envious man, an unsociable man ¹.

Yet, when faced with such encounters, we must remain serene, keeping three things in mind:

- The wrongdoer acts out of ignorance, not malice.

- He can harm my body, but not my soul.

- By nature, man is a social being, and we must live together. To shun others would be contrary to nature.

This is the spirit of the following passage from the Meditations:

From dawn, say to yourself in advance: I will meet an indiscreet man, an ungrateful man, an insolent man, a deceitful man, an envious man, an unsociable man. All these faults have befallen these men through their ignorance of good and evil.

For me, having judged [...] that the very nature of the culprit is to be my kinsman—not by a shared bloodline or common ancestry, but by the bond of reason [...], I cannot be harmed by any of them, for none can defile my soul.

Nor can I be angry with a relative or hate him, for we are born to cooperate—like feet, hands, eyelids, or the two rows of teeth, one above, the other below. To act as adversaries to one another is therefore unnatural, and to show hostility or aversion is to act against nature ².

We must therefore accept the faults of others with equanimity, along with whatever harm they may cause us.

But are there not some individuals so despicable, so harmful to others, that hatred of them would be justified? No. We cannot blame those who harm us, even deliberately: either they act, as we have seen, out of ignorance, or they do so out of their very nature, and simply cannot do otherwise: To pursue the impossible is the mark of a fool. Now, it is impossible that the wicked should not commit some wickedness ³, remarks the author of the Meditations.

Hatred would disrupt the impassivity and serenity towards which the wise man strives: Anyone who cannot accept that the wicked will do wrong is like someone who refuses to accept that the fig tree produces fig juice, that newborn babies cry, or that the horse neighs—these things are simply part of the natural order. What can you tolerate if you are in such a frame of mind? If you find yourself exasperated, rid yourself of that disposition ⁴.

Finally, for Marcus Aurelius, our attitude towards others should combine love and patience: What comes from human beings is worthy of love, by virtue of our shared kinship; and at times, worthy also of a kind of pity, because of their ignorance of good and evil ⁵.

To achieve serenity, we must detach ourselves from the relentless flow of daily affairs in which we are caught—those countless activities that distress us and ultimately hold little meaning:

Stop letting yourself be swept up in the whirlwind. Foolish indeed are those who wear themselves out in ceaseless activity, yet have no goal towards which to direct their energies ⁶.

Stepping back from a life given over not to purposeful action, but to mere restlessness, does not mean withdrawing from the world. On the contrary, it means plunging—once freed from daily concerns—into the contemplation of the world, which we had been passing through without truly seeing.

We must contemplate the world and love it, for it is the harmonious Whole, of which we are but a part. It is a cosmos, not chaos, in that it is defined by great harmony, order, and beauty. The wise man is one who, through contemplation, has become aware of this harmony. And what feeling could such a revelation bring, if not a serene happiness?

¹ II, 1
² ibid.
³ V, 17
⁴ XII, 16
⁵ II, 13
⁶ II, 7