Just Clearing My Head

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Friday, February 04, 2005

Yes.

16. The human soul degrades itself:
  • Above all, when it does its best to become an abcess, a kind of detached growth on the world. To be disgruntled at anything that happens is a kind of secassion from Nature, which comprises the nature of all things.
  • When it turns its back on another person or sets out to do it harm, as the souls of the angry do.
  • When it is overpowered by pleasure or pain.
  • When it puts on a mask and does or says something artificial or false.
  • When it allows its action and impulse to be without a purspose, to be random and disconnected: even the smallest things out to be directed toward a goal. But the goal of rational beings is to follow the rule and law of the most ancient of communities and states.
17. Human life.
Duration: momentary. Nature: changeable. Perception: dim. Condition of Body: decaying. Soul: spinning around. Fortune: unpredictable. Lasting fame: uncertain. Sum up: The body and its parts are a river, the soul a dream and mist, life is warfare and a journey far from home, lasting reputation is oblivion.

(Meditations of Marcus Aurelius, Book Two: On the River Gran, Among the Quadi.)

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