9781945186240

those you decide to make responsible. Much of our bad behavior stems
from trying to apply those criteria. If we limited “good” and “bad” to our
own actions, we’d have no call to challenge God, or to treat other people as
enemies.
42. All of us are working on the same project. Some consciously, with
understanding; some without knowing it. (I think this is what Heraclitus
meant when he said that “those who sleep are also hard at work”—that they
too collaborate in what happens.) Some of us work in one way, and some in
others. And those who complain and try to obstruct and thwart things—they
help as much as anyone. The world needs them as well.
So make up your mind who you’ll choose to work with. The force that
directs all things will make good use of you regardless—will put you on its
payroll and set you to work. But make sure it’s not the job Chrysippus
speaks of: the bad line in the play, put there for laughs.
43. Does the sun try to do the rain’s work? Or Asclepius Demeter’s?
And what about each of the stars—different, yet working in common?
44. If the gods have made decisions about me and the things that happen
to me, then they were good decisions. (It’s hard to picture a god who makes
bad ones.) And why would they expend their energies on causing me harm?
What good would it do them—or the world, which is their primary
concern?
And if they haven’t made decisions about me as an individual, they
certainly have about the general welfare. And anything that follows from
that is something I have to welcome and embrace.
And if they make no decisions, about anything—and it’s blasphemous
even to think so (because if so, then let’s stop sacrificing, praying, swearing
oaths, and doing all the other things we do, believing the whole time that
the gods are right here with us)—if they decide nothing about our lives . . .
well, I can still make decisions. Can still consider what it’s to my benefit to
do. And what benefits anyone is to do what his own nature requires. And
mine is rational. Rational and civic.
My city and state are Rome—as Antoninus. But as a human being? The
world. So for me, “good” can only mean what’s good for both communities.