9781945186240

logos.” And with nothing to read, I subsist on it too.
31. Love the discipline you know, and let it support you. Entrust
everything willingly to the gods, and then make your way through life—no
one’s master and no one’s slave.
32. The age of Vespasian, for example. People doing the exact same
things: marrying, raising children, getting sick, dying, waging war,
throwing parties, doing business, farming, flattering, boasting, distrusting,
plotting, hoping others will die, complaining about their own lives, falling
in love, putting away money, seeking high office and power.
And that life they led is nowhere to be found.
Or the age of Trajan. The exact same things. And that life too—gone.
Survey the records of other eras. And see how many others gave their
all and soon died and decomposed into the elements that formed them.
But most of all, run through the list of those you knew yourself. Those
who worked in vain, who failed to do what they should have—what they
should have remained fixed on and found satisfaction in.
A key point to bear in mind: The value of attentiveness varies in
proportion to its object. You’re better off not giving the small things more
time than they deserve.
33. Words once in common use now sound archaic. And the names of
the famous dead as well: Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Dentatus . . . Scipio and
Cato . . . Augustus . . . Hadrian and Antoninus, and . . .
Everything fades so quickly, turns into legend, and soon oblivion covers
it.
And those are the ones who shone. The rest—“unknown, unasked-for” a
minute after death. What is “eternal” fame? Emptiness.
Then what should we work for?
Only this: proper understanding; unselfish action; truthful speech. A
resolve to accept whatever happens as necessary and familiar, flowing like
water from that same source and spring.
34. Hand yourself over to Clotho voluntarily, and let her spin you into
whatever she pleases.
35. Everything transitory—the knower and the known.