Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is mentioned positively so often that I decided to download and read it. What a waste of time!
If I tell you “don’t worry about stuff, just do your duty, that’s what the gods want”, well, I already told you 90% of the information in the book. Imagine writing the same sentence over and over again across dozens of pages, and it will not be too different from the real stuff.
Also, ad hominem—because there is not enough real content to comment on—the author of the book actually failed at one of his most important duties, with horrible outcome to most people around him. At given era, it was a custom for the current ruler to find and adopt his successor, because wise people realized that biological sons are sometimes unfit to govern. This is how Marcus himself got the throne. Well, he failed to do the same, and left the throne to his biological son.
The son was probably a bit crazy, because while the economy around him was failing, he was busy doing stuff like renaming all months in the year to correspond to his twelve names. (Uhm, why did he even have twelve names?) People tried to assassinate him, but he survived. Then he added a woman involved in the plot to his harem. What happened then will surprise you… not! One day she pissed him off with some triviality, so he decided to get her executed anyway, wrote that in his tomorrow’s to-do list, and left it on the table. She found the list, of course. So she poisoned him. Afterwards, a “game of thrones” situation followed.
So thank you, Marcus, for being so cool and not worrying about stuff. And telling other people how important is to do their duty, while ignoring your own. Best case, you will write an international bestseller that will survive millenia. Worst case, you make the civilization collapse. The real case, you achieve both at the same time.
Meditations by Marcus Aurelius is mentioned positively so often that I decided to download and read it. What a waste of time!
If I tell you “don’t worry about stuff, just do your duty, that’s what the gods want”, well, I already told you 90% of the information in the book. Imagine writing the same sentence over and over again across dozens of pages, and it will not be too different from the real stuff.
Also, ad hominem—because there is not enough real content to comment on—the author of the book actually failed at one of his most important duties, with horrible outcome to most people around him. At given era, it was a custom for the current ruler to find and adopt his successor, because wise people realized that biological sons are sometimes unfit to govern. This is how Marcus himself got the throne. Well, he failed to do the same, and left the throne to his biological son.
The son was probably a bit crazy, because while the economy around him was failing, he was busy doing stuff like renaming all months in the year to correspond to his twelve names. (Uhm, why did he even have twelve names?) People tried to assassinate him, but he survived. Then he added a woman involved in the plot to his harem. What happened then will surprise you… not! One day she pissed him off with some triviality, so he decided to get her executed anyway, wrote that in his tomorrow’s to-do list, and left it on the table. She found the list, of course. So she poisoned him. Afterwards, a “game of thrones” situation followed.
So thank you, Marcus, for being so cool and not worrying about stuff. And telling other people how important is to do their duty, while ignoring your own. Best case, you will write an international bestseller that will survive millenia. Worst case, you make the civilization collapse. The real case, you achieve both at the same time.
Yep. It’s one that I started but put down.