…the Castros, Kennedys, Caesars, Khrushchevs, Nat King Coles or even the Kardashians, there are millions who remain nameless, unknown and unseen. Since the dawn of our species, they’ve been born, played their parts, spoken their lines, and exited the stage. The supporting cast of millions…the “you’s and me’s” (unless someone famous is reading my little blog).
What does this say? It says that no one out there beyond your circle of influence, your friends and family and colleagues, gives a rat’s ass about you as an individual. So it is within that circle, those we know and love and care about, and those who know and love and care about us, that we need to create meaning and value.
Those who cannot do this are perhaps the desperate ones…because eternity is calling us all.
Oblivion is calling us all.
Touché!
Marcus Aurelius 121-180 CE Roman Emperor
Think continually how many physicians are dead after often contracting their eyebrows over the sick; and how many astrologers after predicting with great pretensions the deaths of others; and how many philosophers after endless discourses on death or immortality; how many heroes after killing thousands; and how many tyrants who have used their power over men’s lives with terrible insolence as if they were immortal; and how many cities are entirely dead, so to speak, Helice and Pompeii and Herculaneum, and others innumerable. Add to the reckoning all whom thou hast known, one after another. One man after burying another has been laid out dead, and another buries him: and all this in a short time. To conclude, always observe how ephemeral and worthless human things are, and what was yesterday a little mucus to-morrow will be a mummy or ashes. Pass then through this little space of time conformably to nature, and end thy journey in content, just as an olive falls off when it is ripe, blessing nature who produced it, and thanking the tree on which it grew.
Marcus Aurelius 121-180 CE Roman Emperor
Consider, for example, the times of Vespasian. Thou wilt see all these things, people marrying, bringing up children, sick, dying, warring, feasting, trafficking, cultivating the ground, flattering, obstinately arrogant, suspecting, plotting, wishing for some to die, grumbling about the present, loving, heaping up treasure, desiring counsulship, kingly power. Well then, that life of these people no longer exists at all. Again, remove to the times of Trajan. Again, all is the same. Their life too is gone. In like manner view also the other epochs of time and of whole nations, and see how many after great efforts soon fell and were resolved into the elements. But chiefly thou shouldst think of those whom thou hast thyself known distracting themselves about idle things, neglecting to do what was in accordance with their proper constitution, and to hold firmly to this and to be content with it. And herein it is necessary to remember that the attention given to everything has its proper value and proportion. For thus thou wilt not be dissatisfied, if thou appliest thyself to smaller matters no further than is fit.
The words which were formerly familiar are now antiquated: so also the names of those who were famed of old, are now in a manner antiquated, Camillus, Caeso, Volesus, Leonnatus, and a little after also Scipio and Cato, then Augustus, then also Hadrian and Antoninus. For all things soon pass away and become a mere tale, and complete oblivion soon buries them. And I say this of those who have shone in a wondrous way. For the rest, as soon as they have breathed out their breath, they are gone, and no man speaks of them. And, to conclude the matter, what is even an eternal remembrance? A mere nothing. What then is that about which we ought to employ our serious pains? This one thing, thoughts just, and acts social, and words which never lie, and a disposition which gladly accepts all that happens, as necessary, as usual, as flowing from a principle and source of the same kind.
Marcus Aurelius Roman Emperor Stoic Philosopher
Often think of the rapidity with which things pass by and disappear, both the things which are and the things which are produced. For substance is like a river in a continual flow, and the activities of things are in constant change, and the causes work in infinite varieties; and there is hardly anything which stands still. And consider this which is near to thee, this boundless abyss of the past and of the future in which all things disappear. How then is he not a fool who is puffed up with such things or plagued about them and makes himself miserable? for they vex him only for a time, and a short time.
Think of the universal substance, of which thou hast a very small portion; and of universal time, of which a short and indivisible interval has been assigned to thee; and of that which is fixed by destiny, and how small a part of it thou art.
The last paragraph of this is the core, and stunning. Such eloquent truth in so few words… I’ve saved them and placed them elsewhere to consider later.
I agree completely. Profound and concise. The human Ego is always primed to expand into infinity, but If one could assimilate this final thought and get it down into the bone marrow, just imagine how life would then appear, how it would then present itself.
Browsing YouTube the other evening, I ran across this clip of Sammy Davis, Jr: https://youtu.be/hguNG5rXf5g
A display of incredible talent, diverse and refined and somehow wonderfully satisfying to watch, as though we share in it. And as it progresses, he displays the talents and charisma of each of his contemporaries, each of which was a light in his own way. Incredible mastery and presence…and yet, they are all gone.
Early into the clip, that quote from Marcus Aurelius came into my head and still hasn’t gone away. It brings to mind the more well known Latin phrase, “carpe diem.” When it is your moment, you better shine for all you are worth. That’s what I see SDJ doing here, though like all of us, I don’t suppose he realized how fleeting it was.