The Meditations by Marcus Aurelius

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The Meditations
Marcus Aurelius was a famous philosopher in 121 through 180 C.E. He lived a hard life and even though he was surrounded by crowds he was considered a recluse. He was known for his kindness and mercy. The last years of his life were spent on a military campaign. It is said that these years were the hardest and loneliest. However, instead of becoming bitter and angry Aurelius wrote The Meditations. This was a diary or journal of his personal thoughts. He believed that by writing this it was his duty to his soul. The Meditations, is a popular piece of stoic literature. In this paper I will be describing how Aurelius used stoicism in book two of The Meditations and what I liked and did not like about what he said.
Marcus Aurelius was a stoic. In the book Archetypes of Wisdom, Soccio defines stoicism as a philosophy that, “counsel’s self-control, detachment, and acceptance of one’s fate as identified by the objective use of reason. Stoics believed that everything is about your attitude and that happiness comes only through the detachment from all external things. In book two of The Meditations Aurelius writes that nothing can injure him because no one can implicate him in what is degrading. This would be considered a stoic thought because Marcus is not letting external factors influence his happiness. Another example would be that when he speaks of his brother. His stepbrother Verus was very incompetent, but Aurelius could not turn his back on him, because it would go against Nature. Nature is the same thing as Logos. Logos is a force that governs the universe. It is also known as World Reason, Cosmic Mind, God, Zeus, Nature, Providence, Cosmic Meaning, and Fate. He mentions several of these throughout the document.
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... and it does make sense. Stoics believed that by mastering their thoughts they could master their feelings. Aurelius gave the example of a man being hurt into an involuntary loss of control by injustice. Then on the other side a man’s desires move him to do wrong of his own volition. Both are emotions and as a stoic you control your feelings to achieve happiness, thus it contradicts itself.
Overall, The Meditations is in accordance to stoic thought. Marcus Aurelius wrote a lot about how to not let people, and of course externals affect your happiness. That we must, “take nothing in hand without purpose and nothing falsely or with dissimulation, depend not on another’s actions or inactions, accept each and every dispensation as coming from the same Source as itself.” If we live in accordance with stoic belief and what Aurelius wrote then we can achieve happiness.

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