Sunday, October 29, 2017

Commentary on Meditations: B6:51-52

How to understand your own good: the lover of glory takes it to be the reactions of others; the lover of pleasure takes it to be his own passive experience; the intelligent man sees it as his own action.

It is possible to have no understanding of this and not to be troubled in mind: things of themselves have no inherent power to form our judgements.

What is truly ‘up to us’ are our actions and opinions.  Glory and pleasure are externals and these are not up to us since we cannot guarantee we will secure them.  If you seek glory (fame) and pleasure and it does not come to you, you will be disappointed - you will not be content.  But, if you focus your contentment on what is truly up to you - which is your opinion and actions and your demonstration of virtue, then you can control whether you will be content or not.

Glory, fame, pleasure, power, money, wealth - all these things have no power or control over you.  They only have power when you desire them.  If you break your desire of these things, they lose any power you imagined they had over you.

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