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| Marcus Aurelius |
Wait, you what?
You heard me. I read the writings of an emperor of ancient Rome - Marcus Aurelius.
Okay, I’ll back up just a bit.
I don’t remember exactly how I found Ryan Holiday, but it was probably in another of my searches for good books to read. Ryan is an online presence who basically promotes living like a Stoic. (More on that in a minute, because it’s not what most of you think.) He had a list of over a dozen books that he suggested you should read. One of them was Meditations.
Meditations is a misleading title because it seems that Aurelius’ writings were never meant to be read by anyone but himself and he certainly didn’t give his notes-to-self this heading. Powerful emperor though he was - and a pretty nice guy, from what little I’ve read - he felt the need to remind himself how to be a good person. After all, being emperor did have its downsides.
Ryan Holiday takes many cues from Aurelius and another Stoic named Epictetus. (Yeah, that one’s a mouthful for present-day Americans.) When I was checking to see if our local library had Meditations (which it did), I stumbled upon a book by Holiday (and a co-writer) called The Daily Stoic. That book quotes Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, and a few others and has comments by Holiday that attempt to bring Stoicism to the modern reader. At least one of my Facebook friends has discovered Holiday’s website called DailyStoic.
When you think of a stoic, you probably think of someone with no emotions. Before reading the above, I would have too. Being a real Stoic, though, is more about being the best person you can be, humanly speaking.
And there’s nothing wrong with being good. In fact, that’s pretty much the definition of “good” - not being wrong or evil.
On the surface, there are many similarities between Christianity and Stoicism. Apparently there are many similarities between the writings of Paul and Seneca too. But obviously you can’t just look at the surface.
The main difference (again, from the little I’ve read and apart from no mention of Jesus) is that a Stoic doesn’t believe that a person is evil (sinful) from conception (and birth). A Stoic believes that a person is good from birth.
Humanly speaking, I can believe a person is good from birth too. If it were only possible to be evil from birth, people - all of us - would act a lot worse than we do.
Of course, there’s a lot more to being a Stoic when you get into the details. They talk a lot about death, for example, and how everyone ends up the same. That’s not something new, but it does seem to be a point of emphasis. Right along with that is the idea of living sparsely. I can get into that too. I’ve always said that I wouldn’t know what to do with my second million.
I’m not trying to convince anyone here to be a Stoic or to be a Christian. If I had to choose between the two, I’d pick being a Christian because of what I believe happens to a person after death. You either go to heaven or to hell. You can say you don’t believe I’m right about that, but what if I’m right and you’re wrong?
So I’m still a Christian. I could almost say I’d take the good parts of being a Stoic and mix them with being a Christian, but I don’t really have to. All the good, correct parts that matter are already part of Christianity.
Meditations is a misleading title because it seems that Aurelius’ writings were never meant to be read by anyone but himself and he certainly didn’t give his notes-to-self this heading. Powerful emperor though he was - and a pretty nice guy, from what little I’ve read - he felt the need to remind himself how to be a good person. After all, being emperor did have its downsides.
Ryan Holiday takes many cues from Aurelius and another Stoic named Epictetus. (Yeah, that one’s a mouthful for present-day Americans.) When I was checking to see if our local library had Meditations (which it did), I stumbled upon a book by Holiday (and a co-writer) called The Daily Stoic. That book quotes Aurelius, Epictetus, Seneca, and a few others and has comments by Holiday that attempt to bring Stoicism to the modern reader. At least one of my Facebook friends has discovered Holiday’s website called DailyStoic.
When you think of a stoic, you probably think of someone with no emotions. Before reading the above, I would have too. Being a real Stoic, though, is more about being the best person you can be, humanly speaking.
And there’s nothing wrong with being good. In fact, that’s pretty much the definition of “good” - not being wrong or evil.
On the surface, there are many similarities between Christianity and Stoicism. Apparently there are many similarities between the writings of Paul and Seneca too. But obviously you can’t just look at the surface.
The main difference (again, from the little I’ve read and apart from no mention of Jesus) is that a Stoic doesn’t believe that a person is evil (sinful) from conception (and birth). A Stoic believes that a person is good from birth.
Humanly speaking, I can believe a person is good from birth too. If it were only possible to be evil from birth, people - all of us - would act a lot worse than we do.
Of course, there’s a lot more to being a Stoic when you get into the details. They talk a lot about death, for example, and how everyone ends up the same. That’s not something new, but it does seem to be a point of emphasis. Right along with that is the idea of living sparsely. I can get into that too. I’ve always said that I wouldn’t know what to do with my second million.
I’m not trying to convince anyone here to be a Stoic or to be a Christian. If I had to choose between the two, I’d pick being a Christian because of what I believe happens to a person after death. You either go to heaven or to hell. You can say you don’t believe I’m right about that, but what if I’m right and you’re wrong?
So I’m still a Christian. I could almost say I’d take the good parts of being a Stoic and mix them with being a Christian, but I don’t really have to. All the good, correct parts that matter are already part of Christianity.
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