Beyond Stoicism: The Next Golden Works to Rise from Antiquity
Those that contend with Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations
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I was 15 when I first read Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. His notions on life were monumental in giving me a sense of belonging. Aurelius has a way of changing your framing of the world; away from the tendency to feel you are owed something by Nature, to instead discover what it is you can owe. A sense of duty. It is this purpose derived from duty that transcends happiness to something likely resembling contentment, or peace:
“You have power over your mind — not outside events. Realize this, and you will find strength” — which is akin to Epictetus’, “Happiness comes from knowing what is in your power to control and what is not”.
In brief, Aurelius champions, almost to the point of implausibility, personal responsibility, and utter commitment to aim for the higher in spite of the suffering curtailing us at every point, which tempts us to aim for the lower.
Meditations is a trending work due to the publicity it has received from public personas, whereas years prior it sat on the shelves of philosophy professors. It has only taken a few tweets of his writing to reach and inspire a new generation. But there are other…
