I was reading Marcus Aurelius today and came across a particular page that sums up my thoughts on the irrelevancy and needlessness of so many common pursuits: rushing to work (working at all), instant dinners, impressions, fashion (not just the cut of the clothe, but also fashionable thoughts and judgments), falsities, being offended, getting your child x+1 birthday presents (celebrating birthdays), chasing material things, complaining, extending life support, whoring, the white picket fence.
22. If it does not harm the community, it does not harm its members.
When you think you’ve been injured, apply this rule. If the community isn’t injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer. Show the offender where he went wrong.
23. Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone – those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the ‘what’ is in constant flux, the ‘why’ has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us – a chasm whose depths we cannot see.
So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress. Or any indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted.
24. Remember:
Matter. How tiny your share of it.
Time. How brief and fleeting your allotment of it.
Fate. How small a role you play in it.
25. So other people hurt me? That’s their problem. Their character and actions are not mine. What is done to me is ordained by nature, what I do by my own.
26. The mind is the ruler of the soul. It should remain unstirred by agitations of the flesh – gentle and violent ones alike. Not mingling with them, but fencing itself off and keeping those feelings in their place. When they make their way into your thoughts, through the sympathetic link between mind and dont, don’t try to resist the sensation. The sensation is natural. But don’t let the mind start in with judgments, calling it ‘good’ or ‘bad.’