Meditations

I've been reading Meditations - the private journal of the Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius. What amazes me most about the book is how little men have changed in thousands of years. Marcus, as a Roman emperor, struggled with the same fights and fears that I do today. Marcus himself recognized that the nature of man is unchanging:

"[A]ll the cycles of creation since the beginning of time exhibit the same recurring pattern, so that it can make no difference whether you watch the identical spectacle for a hundred years, or for two hundred, or forever." Book II, 14

The more I delve into history, the more I see that the nature of man has not changed a whit. Men lie, men cheat, and men steal - all to obtain power and money. I watched the History channel's special on the Brooklyn Bridge last night, and had to burst out laughing at the part where it was discovered that a wire contractor was switching good wire for bad to increase their profits. Some things never change, do they? Corruption seems inexorably tied to man.

Perhaps the passage of Meditations that speaks the loudest to me is Book II, 4:

"Think of your many years of procrastination; how the gods have repeatedly granted you further periods of grace, of which you have taken no advantage. It is time now to realize the nature of the universe to which you belong, and of that controlling Power whose offspring you are; and to understand that your time has a limit set to it. Use it, then, to advance your enlightenment; or it will be gone, and never in your power again."

Much can be learned of wise men from the past; without the complications of today's modern life, men like Marcus were more able to focus their brilliance on the true nature and problems of man. Their work, therefore, has a simplicity and a purity to it that can't be found in self-help books that give advice about how to juggle your schedule around your favorite TV shows.