9781945186240

To pass through this brief life as nature demands. To give it upwithout
complaint.
Like an olive that ripens and falls.
Praising its mother, thanking the tree it grew on.
49. To be like the rock that the waves keep crashing over. It stands
unmoved and the raging of the sea falls still around it.
49a. —It’s unfortunate that this has happened.
No. It’s fortunate that this has happened and I’ve remained unharmed by
it—not shattered by the present or frightened of the future. It could have
happened to anyone. But not everyone could have remained unharmed by it.
Why treat the one as a misfortune rather than the other as fortunate? Can
you really call something a misfortune that doesn’t violate human nature?
Or do you think something that’s not against nature’s will can violate it?
But you know what its will is. Does what’s happened keep you from acting
with justice, generosity, self-control, sanity, prudence, honesty, humility,
straightforwardness, and all the other qualities that allow a person’s nature
to fulfill itself?
So remember this principle when something threatens to cause you
pain: the thing itself was no misfortune at all; to endure it and prevail is
great good fortune.
50. A trite but effective tactic against the fear of death: think of the list
of people who had to be pried away from life. What did they gain by dying
old? In the end, they all sleep six feet under—Caedicianus, Fabius, Julian,
Lepidus, and all the rest. They buried their contemporaries, and were buried
in turn.
Our lifetime is so brief. And to live it out in these circumstances, among
these people, in this body? Nothing to get excited about. Consider the abyss
of time past, the infinite future. Three days of life or three generations:
what’s the difference?
51. Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned—to speak and
act in the healthiest way. Do that, and be free of pain and stress, free of all
calculation and pretension.