9781945186240

obliviousness or because they want to display “character.” Is wisdom really
so much weaker than ignorance and vanity?
19. Things have no hold on the soul. They have no access to it, cannot
move or direct it. It is moved and directed by itself alone. It takes the things
before it and interprets them as it sees fit.
20. In a sense, people are our proper occupation. Our job is to do them
good and put up with them.
But when they obstruct our proper tasks, they become irrelevant to us—
like sun, wind, animals. Our actions may be impeded by them, but there can
be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can
accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes
the obstacle to our acting.
The impediment to action advances action.
What stands in the way becomes the way.
21. Honor that which is greatest in the world—that on whose business
all things are employed and by whom they are governed.
And honor what is greatest in yourself: the part that shares its nature
with that power. All things—in you as well—are employed about its
business, and your life is governed by it.
22. If it does not harm the community, it does not harm its members.
When you think you’ve been injured, apply this rule: If the community
isn’t injured by it, neither am I. And if it is, anger is not the answer. Show
the offender where he went wrong.
23. Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone—those that are
now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the “what” is
in constant flux, the “why” has a thousand variations. Nothing is stable, not
even what’s right here. The infinity of past and future gapes before us—a
chasm whose depths we cannot see.
So it would take an idiot to feel self-importance or distress. Or any
indignation, either. As if the things that irritate us lasted.
24. Remember:
Matter. How tiny your share of it.