9781945186240

18. What dies doesn’t vanish. It stays here in the world, transformed,
dissolved, as parts of the world, and of you. Which are transformed in turn
—without grumbling.
19. Everything is here for a purpose, from horses to vine shoots. What’s
surprising about that? Even the sun will tell you, “I have a purpose,” and
the other gods as well. And why were you born? For pleasure? See if that
answer will stand up to questioning.
20. Nature is like someone throwing a ball in the air, gauging its rise
and arc—and where it will fall. And what does the ball gain as it flies
upward? Or lose when it plummets to earth?
What does the bubble gain from its existence? Or lose by bursting?
And the same for a candle.
21. Turn it inside out: What is it like? What is it like old? Or sick? Or
selling itself on the streets?
They all die soon—praiser and praised, rememberer and remembered.
Remembered in these parts or in a corner of them. Even there they don’t all
agree with each other (or even with themselves).
And the whole earth a mere point in space.
22. Stick to what’s in front of you—idea, action, utterance.
22a. This is what you deserve. You could be good today. But instead
you choose tomorrow.
23. What I do? I attribute it to human beneficence.
What is done to me? I accept it—and attribute it to the gods, and that
source from which all things together flow.
24. Like the baths—oil, sweat, dirt, grayish water, all of it disgusting.
The whole of life, all of the visible world.
25. Verus, leaving Lucilla behind, then Lucilla. Maximus, leaving
Secunda. And Secunda. Diotimus, leaving Epitynchanus. Then
Epitynchanus. Faustina, leaving Antoninus. Then Antoninus.
So with all of them.