Marcus Aurelius Meditations
Marcus Aurelius: Let the several deaths of men of all…
Let the several deaths of men of all sorts, and of all sorts of professions, and of all sort of nations, be a perpetual object of thy thoughts,... so that thou mayst even come down to Philistio, Phœbus, and Origanion. Pass now to other generations.
The passage follows a public-domain translation of Meditations. The reading beside it is ours.
Marcus deliberately remembered the deaths of people from every rank and every era. Not to become morbid, but to puncture the fantasy that fame, wealth, talent, or status place anyone outside the human condition. The famous names disappear. So do the people whose names only their families knew. Eventually we become another generation someone briefly mentions, if they mention us at all. That sounds grim only if we have made permanence the condition of a meaningful life. Mortality can make the present more honest. It makes petty grudges look smaller. It makes the time you have with your parents, children, friends, and colleagues more valuable. You do not need to build a monument to justify your existence. You need to use the day you have with character. Let death clarify your priorities, not darken them.
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