Meditations

Several chapters in Book 7 meditate on the theme of transience and death. Marcus notes that many famous people and those who celebrated them have disappeared. All matter is destined to disappear into “the universal substance” and all causes taken into “the universal reason” (59). Everything is constantly changing; universal nature melts matter down like wax and reforms it. Death will either result in a dispersal, if humans are atoms, or change, if all are one. Eventually he will forget and be forgotten.

On the matter of unity, Marcus reflects that all rational beings are as “limbs” that “were created for a single cooperative purpose” (60). To think of himself as “a part” of the whole rather than “a limb” means he does “not yet love your fellow men from your heart” but as a duty (60, italics in original).

Reminding himself that principles are active and not passive, Marcus exhorts himself repeatedly across Book 7 to remain on a straight path focusing only on what is in his control, including his judgments about what he experiences. Nothing can harm him if he refuses to believe he has been harmed. His specific exhortations include not to be ashamed to ask for help, not to worry about the future, not to fear change or death, not to concern himself with others’ judgments or criticisms, not to desire what he does not have but to take moderate pleasure in what he does have.