9781945186240

1. Another encouragement to humility: you can’t claim to have lived
your life as a philosopher—not even your whole adulthood. You can see for
yourself how far you are from philosophy. And so can many others. You’re
tainted. It’s not so easy now—to have a reputation as a philosopher. And
your position is an obstacle as well.
So you know how things stand. Now forget what they think of you. Be
satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as your nature
demands. Focus on that, and don’t let anything distract you. You’ve
wandered all over and finally realized that you never found what you were
after: how to live. Not in syllogisms, not in money, or fame, or selfindulgence.
Nowhere.
—Then where is it to be found?
In doing what human nature requires.
—How?
Through first principles. Which should govern your intentions and your
actions.
—What principles?
Those to do with good and evil. That nothing is good except what leads
to fairness, and self-control, and courage, and free will. And nothing bad
except what does the opposite.
2. For every action, ask: How does it affect me? Could I change my
mind about it?
But soon I’ll be dead, and the slate’s empty. So this is the only question:
Is it the action of a responsible being, part of society, and subject to the
same decrees as God?
3. Alexander and Caesar and Pompey. Compared with Diogenes,
Heraclitus, Socrates? The philosophers knew the what, the why, the how.
Their minds were their own.