9781945186240

21. That before long you’ll be no one, and nowhere. Like all the things
you see now. All the people now living.
Everything’s destiny is to change, to be transformed, to perish. So that
new things can be born.
22. It’s all in how you perceive it. You’re in control. You can dispense
with misperception at will, like rounding the point. Serenity, total calm, safe
anchorage.
23. A given action that stops when it’s supposed to is none the worse for
stopping. Nor the person engaged in it either. So too with the succession of
actions we call “life.” If it ends when it’s supposed to, it’s none the worse
for that. And the person who comes to the end of the line has no cause for
complaint. The time and stopping point are set by nature—our own nature,
in some cases (death from old age); or nature as a whole, whose parts,
shifting and changing, constantly renew the world, and keep it on schedule.
Nothing that benefits all things can be ugly or out of place. The end of
life is not an evil—it doesn’t disgrace us. (Why should we be ashamed of an
involuntary act that injures no one?). It’s a good thing—scheduled by the
world, promoting it, promoted by it.
This is how we become godlike—following God’s path, and reason’s
goals.
24. Three things, essential at all times:
i(a). your own actions: that they’re not arbitrary or different from what
abstract justice would do.
i(b). external events: that they happen randomly or by design. You can’t
complain about chance. You can’t argue with Providence.
ii. what all things are like, from the planting of the seed to the
quickening of life, and from its quickening to its relinquishment. Where the
parts came from and where they return to.
iii. that if you were suddenly lifted up and could see life and its variety
from a vast height, and at the same time all the things around you, in the
sky and beyond it, you’d see how pointless it is. And no matter how often
you saw it, it would be the same: the same life forms, the same life span.