PHIL 3160 – Philosophy of Happiness
What is it, how can we best pursue it, why should we? Supporting the study of these and related questions at Middle Tennessee State University and beyond. "Examining the concept of human happiness and its application in everyday living as discussed since antiquity by philosophers, psychologists, writers, spiritual leaders, and contributors to pop culture."
I have not heard this quote before, but it is quite the interesting one. It seems that Aurelius here is, in his own way, asking us to "stop and smell the roses." In other words, we need not forget to engage with nature and the universe from time to time. The second half sits almost as a reminder that you yourself are part of that nature, subject to the same passage of time as the heavenly bodies.
ReplyDeleteThough, I will admit that I have not looked into the meaning elsewhere, nor do I know the context in which it was said. If someone could fill me in on the matter, that would be much appreciated. All that a quick Google search brings up is those cheesy "Top 10 Inspirational Quote" sites.
It's in Book XXVI of the Meditations, "Out of Plato," on transcending death in the imagination. A different translation, but you get the gist:
Delete"...For it is not the part of a man that is a man indeed, to desire to live long or to make much of his life whilst he liveth: but rather (he that is such) will in these things wholly refer himself unto the Gods, and believing that which every woman can tell him, that no man can escape death; the only thing that he takes thought and care for is this, that what time he liveth, he may live as well and as virtuously as he can possibly, &c. To look about, and with the eyes to follow the course of the stars and planets as though thou wouldst run with them; and to mind perpetually the several changes of the elements one into another. For such fancies and imaginations, help much to purge away the dross and filth of this our earthly life,' &c. That also is a fine passage of Plato's, where he speaketh of worldly things in these words: 'Thou must also as from some higher place look down, as it were, upon the things of this world, as flocks, armies, husbandmen's labours, marriages, divorces, generations, deaths: the tumults of courts and places of judicatures; desert places; the several nations of barbarians, public festivals, mournings, fairs, markets.' How all things upon earth are pell-mell; and how miraculously things contrary one to another, concur to the beauty and perfection of this universe." https://www.gutenberg.org/files/2680/2680-h/2680-h.htm
Maria Popova is a good interpreter of Aurelius -- https://www.brainpickings.org/tag/marcus-aurelius/
DeleteMarcus Aurelius on Embracing Mortality and the Key to Living with Presence--
“The longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.”
Popova: "we remain material creatures, spiritually sundered by the fact of our borrowed atoms, which we will each return to the universe, to the stardust that made us, despite our best earthly efforts."