Meditations Book Club: Book 1
A few weeks ago, @BlokchainB announced that he was beginning The Meditations and invited us to read along. I had a copy sitting around, so I decided to join in once I finished off The Wheel of Time.
What I’m going to do with this series is mostly respond to Blok’s thoughts from that original post and add my own thoughts. If you want to join in, please do.
This first book is Marcus thanking the people in his life who made a positive impact on him. It gives a great sense of what his values are and some interesting insights to the values of the culture around him.
Blok’s thoughts on book 1:
From what I can gather Marcus really loved and respected his family. He thanked the gods for giving him such a wonderful family. His father taught him integrity and his mother mercy. I think he credits his uncle to him be humble. He rejected the lavish life other rulers have lived.
So much of what he was thankful for related to avoiding excess. It’s a very early version of the Scandinavian disposition of not predicating happiness on getting everything you want (or think you want).
There was an interesting flipside, too, that struck me as Aristotelian. He was also thankful for those who taught him how to enjoy material comforts, like good wine or food, without developing a need for them.
Overall Marcus is very thoughtful I often think I am violating his privacy by listening to his deepest thoughts but then again he wrote them down.
It is an odd feeling, because as far as we know, these were purely intended for his private use. Still, that makes it a more fascinating peak inside the mind of someone from that era. I was repeatedly struck by just how modern so many of the sentiments, even some phrasings, were.
I don’t think that’s just from the translator, either. Ancient Rome was a long time ago, but it’s one of the foundational building blocks of our culture, so lots of stuff in our culture was also present in theirs.
He had some small quips about sex and waiting his time to indulge. The passage said something about a mistress with his a male figure in his life so I was wondering if he was molested but I doubt it.
I didn’t get that vibe. My sense of it is that it would have been normal for a young noble of his time to basically bang everything in sight and he was grateful to have had role models steer him around that temptation.
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