Meditations

I’ve read about a third of Meditations: A New Translation by Marcus Aurelius, updated by Gregory Hays.

Based on how much Ryan Holiday has gushed about Meditations, I expected to be blown away. But so far, that hasn’t happened.

I agree with Pierre Hadot that the entries seem like “spiritual exercises”. In his Introduction, Gregory Hays says, “The Stoicism of the Meditations is fundamentally a defensive philosophy…”

This doesn’t match my philosophy of life (to the degree that I’ve defined it). For one thing, I appreciate the value of physics much more than Marcus Aurelius. From what I’ve read so far, I feel like Marcus concerns himself with a fairly narrow perspective of what is possible in life.

There is more to experience in life than what can be determined by logic alone. Perhaps, I’m not being fair. Marcus says, “Does anything genuinely beautiful need supplementing? No more than justice does—or truth, or kindness, or humility.” And I completely agree with this sentiment.

However, his distaste for the “desires of the soul” does not make sense to me. Sometimes, we have a hard time explaining the logic of what our souls want. This doesn’t make it wrong.

I like this statement of his on how to act: “No surplus words or unnecessary actions.”

Marcus says, “Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people—unless it affects the common good.” While I agree with this statement, I also agree with the Eagles when they say, “Maybe someday we will find That it wasn’t really wasted time.”

I like his appreciation of Nature. I like how he recognizes the impermanence of any human life. I probably place a higher value on our capacity to create art than Marcus Aurelius.

Maybe I’ll have more to say after I finish reading Meditations!