Meditations

For Marcus, since the only thing humans can control are their thoughts, it follows that a key to the virtuous life lies in controlling thoughts so that they align with what Fortune, Nature, and Providence have determined. In this, Marcus again invokes the contrast between Epicurean theories about the random movement of “atoms” and Stoic “natural order”: In either case, outcomes are beyond human control. Because Marcus believes in “natural order,” he accepts that “the part should not complain at what happens in the interest of the whole” (91). Thus, the virtuous life lies both in controlling thoughts and in ensuring that one’s actions benefit the Whole. Material comforts (food, clothing, physical pleasure, etc.) and rewards (fame, adulation, etc.) may be preferable, but they have no moral value. To pursue them or equate them with the good life can distract humans from virtue’s true source: developing self-mastery and benefitting others.

In the first book of Meditations, Marcus lauds his adoptive father, Antoninus Pius, for modeling “the arts of a man with an eye for precisely what needs to be done, not the glory of its doing” (7). He also credits an unnamed tutor for teaching him “to be deaf to malicious gossip” (3). Across his Meditations, Marcus warns himself not to concern himself with whether his actions are celebrated by others. These same people, Marcus reminds himself, often have poor judgements of their own acts. He asks himself, “Do you want to please a man who can't please himself?” (81). On the flip side, as others’ approval is irrelevant to living the good life, so is their censure or malicious gossip. As long as he focuses on aligning his thoughts with what the gods have determined and works to benefit others, he can be neither helped nor harmed by others’ praise or blame.

Further, how people speak of him (whether to celebrate or criticize him) is beyond his control. Rather, he should ask himself whether his actions are those of a man who is living his purpose in the life he has been given. At the same time, he repeats several times his openness to being corrected when a better view than his own is presented to him. If his happiness lies in benefitting others, then he should welcome productive suggestions that enable him to improve or correct himself, another quality he ascribes to Antoninus Pius as well as to Rusticus (a Stoic politician).

In the first book, Marcus thanks his mother, Diognetus (his painting instructor), and Antoninus Pius, respectively, for teaching him to appreciate “simplicity of living,” “the camps-bed, the hide blanket, and all else involved in the Greek training,” and not being “particular about food,” clothing, and physical beauty (3, 7). Across Meditations, he returns to the idea that material comforts, while they can be pleasurable, have no moral value. To desire them is to mistakenly believe that they do. In this instance, he should use his reason to strip away his perceptions and get “to the heart of the real thing and penetrating through it, so [he] can see it for what it is” (47-48). A prized wine, for example, is simply grape juice, a fine purple cloak sheep hair “soaked in shell-fish blood” (47). In Book 6, he remonstrates himself to “take care not to be Caesarified, or dyed in purple” (51), meaning not to allow his thoughts to become stained by desire for the material comforts and rewards associated with Roman emperors (51). Rather, he should keep himself “simple, good, pure, serious, unpretentious, a friend of justice, god-fearing, kind, full of affection, strong for [his] proper work” (51). None of these virtues depends on, or follows from, either material comfort or material rewards.