Posted by: Michael Rickicki | 03/26/2020

Disdain in a Pressure Cooker

My Post (37)

Who knew that I’d be stuck in a tiny apartment with someone who holds only the lowliest opinion of me as a pandemic rages outside the walls of our tenement? It’s hard not to believe that the universe has a sense of humor at times like this.

Suppose any man shall despise me. Let him look to that himself. But I will look to this, that I be not discovered doing or saying anything deserving of contempt.

Shall any man hate me? Let him look to it. But I will be mild and benevolent towards every man, and ready to show even him his mistake, not reproachfully, nor yet as making a display of my endurance, but nobly and honestly, like the great Phocion, unless indeed he only assumed it.

For the interior parts ought to be such, and a man ought to be seen by the gods neither dissatisfied with anything nor complaining.

For what evil is it to you, if you are now doing what is agreeable to your own nature, and are satisfied with that which at this moment is suitable to the Nature of the Universe, since you are a human being placed at your post in order that what is for the common advantage may be done in some way?

Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, Book 11.13 (tr Long)


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Shillelagh Studies

A hub for the music, culture, knowledge, and practice of Irish stick-fighting, past and present.