How to Think Like a Roman Emperor: The Stoic Philosophy of Marcus Aurelius - by Donald Robertson
Date read: 2021-11-26How strongly I recommend it: 9/10
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Fantastic book on the history of Marcus Aurelius, former Emperor of Rome, and the key principles of Stocism. Recommended for anyone wanting to learn more about the philosophy from one of its greatest practitioners.
Contents:
- HISTORY OF STOICISM
- HOW TO SPEAK WISELY
- HOW TO FOLLOW YOUR VALUES
- HOW TO CONQUER DESIRE
- STEPS FOR CHANGING DESIRES
- HOW TO TOLERATE PAIN
- THE STOIC RESERVE CLAUSE
- HOW TO CONQUER ANGER
My Notes
His Stoic tutors advised him to practice a mental exercise when he noticed his own image. It’s a way of building emotional resilience by training yourself to come to terms with your own mortality. Focusing his eyes weakly on his reflection, he tries to imagine one of the long-dead Roman emperors who preceded him gazing back. First he pictures Antoninus, his adoptive father, and then his adoptive grandfather, the emperor Hadrian. He even imagines his reflection slowly assuming the features depicted in paintings and sculptures of Augustus, who founded the empire two centuries earlier. As he does so, Marcus silently asks himself, “Where are they now?” and whispers the answer: “Nowhere...or at least nowhere of which we can speak.”
Everyone from Alexander the Great right down to his lowly mule driver ends up lying under the same ground. King and pauper alike, the same fate ultimately awaits everyone.
Nobody is the same person he was yesterday. Realizing this makes it easier to let go: we can no more hold on to life than grasp the waters of a rushing stream.
Stoicism therefore evolved out of Cynicism, and the two traditions remained very closely associated right down to the time of Marcus Aurelius.
The ancient philosophy of Cynicism focused on cultivating virtue and strength of character through rigorous training that consisted of enduring various forms of “voluntary hardship.”
He repeatedly warned himself not to become distracted by reading too many books—thus wasting time on trifling issues in logic and metaphysics—but instead to remain focused on the practical goal of living wisely.
The name change from Zenonians to Stoics is significant because unlike other philosophical sects, the founders of Stoicism didn’t claim to be perfectly wise. Zeno’s attitude to his students perhaps resembled the one later described by Seneca, who did not claim to be an expert like a physician but saw his role more like that of a patient describing the progress of his treatment to fellow patients in the hospital beds beside him.
For Stoics, that goal is defined as “living in agreement with Nature,” which we’re told was synonymous with living wisely and virtuously. Stoics argued that humans are first and foremost thinking creatures, capable of exercising reason. Although we share many instincts with other animals, our ability to think rationally is what makes us human. Reason governs our decisions, in a sense—the Stoics call it our “ruling faculty.” It allows us to evaluate our thoughts, feelings, and urges and to decide if they’re good or bad, healthy or unhealthy.
The true goal of life for Stoics isn’t to acquire as many external advantages as possible but to use whatever befalls us wisely, whether it be sickness or health, wealth or poverty, friends or enemies. The Stoic Sage, or wise man, needs nothing but uses everything well; the fool believes himself to “need” countless things, but he uses them all badly.
He first taught himself to endure physical discomfort and overcome unhealthy habits. He learned to tolerate other people’s criticisms and to avoid being easily swayed by fine words or flattery. Mastering our passions in this way is the first stage of training in Stoicism.
The Stoic likewise tells himself that although the situation may appear frightening, the truly important thing in life is how he chooses to respond. So he reminds himself to view the storm with Stoic indifference and to respond with wisdom and courage while accepting his initial nervous reaction as harmless and inevitable. What he does not do, though, is make things worse for himself by continuing to worry.
Elsewhere he says that pleasant and unpleasant sensations in the body inevitably impinge on the mind because they’re part of the same organism. We shouldn’t try to resist them, but rather we should accept their occurrence as natural, as long as we don’t allow our mind to add the judgment that the things we’re experiencing are good or bad.
According to Diogenes Laertius, Stoic rhetoric identified five “virtues” of speech:
We usually think of rhetoric as something used to manipulate other people. We tend to forget we’re doing it to ourselves as well, not only when we speak but also when we use language to think.
“This job is complete bullshit!” People tend to think that exclamations like these are a natural consequence of strong emotions like anger. But what if they’re also causing or perpetuating our emotions?
Catastrophizing often seems to involve thinking, “What if?” What if the worst-case scenario happens? That would be unbearable. Decatastrophizing, on the other hand, has been described as going from “What if?” to “So what?”: So what if such-and-such happens? It’s not the end of the world; I can deal with it.
One way of doing that is to ask yourself, “What, realistically, will most likely happen next? And then what? And then what?” And so on.
The Stoics liked to ask themselves, “What virtues has Nature given me that might help me deal with the situation better?” You might also consider how other people cope so that you can try to model their attitudes and behavior. What would a role model like Socrates, Diogenes, or Zeno do? We can also ask “What would Marcus do?” if faced with the same situation.
You can start training yourself in this Stoic practice of objective representation right now by writing down a description of an upsetting or problematic event in plain language. Phrase things as accurately as possible and view them from a more philosophical perspective, with studied indifference. Once you’ve mastered this art, take it a step further by following the example of Paconius Agrippinus and look for positive opportunities. Write how you could exercise strength of character and cope wisely with the situation. Ask yourself how someone you admire might cope with the same situation or what that person might advise you to do. Treat the event like a sparring partner in the gym, giving you an opportunity to strengthen your emotional resilience and coping skills. You might want to read your script aloud and review it several times or compose several versions until you’re satisfied it’s helped you change how you feel about events.
The famous quotation from Epictetus: “It’s not things that upset us but our judgments about things.”
Writing down your thoughts concisely when they occur and viewing them on paper:
As Marcus said elsewhere, philosophy was his mother, the court merely his stepmother.
Epictetus likewise told his students repeatedly that they should not speak about philosophy lightly, like the Sophists, but rather show its fruits in their very character and actions. In typically blunt fashion he told them that sheep don’t vomit up grass to show the shepherds how much they’ve eaten but rather digest their food inwardly and produce good wool and milk outwardly.
If the real goal for Stoics is wisdom, then sometimes just blurting out the truth isn’t enough. We have to put more effort into communicating with others effectively.
Galen therefore says that if we desire to learn wisdom, we must be ready to listen to anyone we encounter and show gratitude “not to those who flatter us but to those who rebuke us.”
What sort of person would you hope to be after having trained in Stoicism for ten or twenty years?
When teaching people to employ Stoic practices, I’ve found it helpful to have a simple framework for daily Stoic practices. It involves a “learning cycle” with a beginning, middle, and end, which then repeats each day. In the morning you prepare for the day ahead; throughout the day you try to live consistently in accord with your values; and in the evening you review your progress and prepare to repeat the cycle again the next day. I’ll refer to the Stoic exercises used at the beginning and end of each day as the morning and evening meditations. Having a daily routine like this makes it much easier to be consistent in your practice.
Regarding the morning meditation, Galen says that as soon as you rise from bed and begin considering each of the tasks ahead, you should ask yourself two questions:
You can ask yourself these three very simple questions:
Stoic joy is profound. It comes from achieving your fundamental goal in life and experiencing genuine fulfillment, which make ordinary pleasures seem trivial by comparison.
The Stoics tended to view joy not as the goal of life, which is wisdom, but as a by-product of it, so they believed that trying to pursue it directly might lead us down the wrong path if it’s sought at the expense of wisdom.
Joy in the Stoic sense is fundamentally active rather than passive; it comes from perceiving the virtuous quality of our own deeds, the things we do, whereas bodily pleasures arise from experiences that happen to us, even if they’re a consequence of actions like eating, drinking, or having sex.
Amor fati, or love of one’s fate.
It’s important to you to be a good parent, schedule activities that allow you to behave in a manner consistent with this value. Embracing these types of opportunities will help you become more like the sort of person you want to be in life, even if it’s only for a few minutes each day at first.
Pausing and gaining cognitive distance, by defusing your thoughts from reality, tends to weaken the strength of your feelings and the hold they have over your behavior.
Marcus would sometimes look at roasted meats and other delicacies and murmur to himself, “This is a dead bird, a dead fish, a dead pig.” An exquisite wine is just fermented grape juice, and so on. Viewed from a different perspective, in other words, the things people crave are often nothing to get excited about.
Morning Meditation - Think of the rising sun, the stars, and your small space within the whole cosmos. Mentally rehearse the key events of the day, imagining how Socrates, Zeno, Marcus Aurelius, or your own role model would cope with habits or desires. Picture how you plan to cope with any challenges and what inner resources or virtues you can employ.
During the Day - Practice Stoic mindfulness by looking for early warning signs of the habits or desires you want to overcome. Try to catch them early and nip them in the bud. Pause and practice accepting any feelings of unease with Stoic indifference. Gain cognitive distance from your thoughts and refrain from acting on your feelings. Engage in healthy substitute behaviors instead, which contribute to a genuine sense of fulfillment. You could also keep a written log or tally of certain habits, as described in this chapter.
Evening Meditation - At the end of the day, review how well you fared in terms of acting in accordance with your values—that is, virtues. In relation to desires, consider what you did well, what you did badly, and what you could do differently tomorrow. If it helps, imagine answering these questions before a wise Stoic mentor or even a panel of Sages, and consider what advice they might give you. Use what you learn to help prepare for the next day’s morning meditation.
Quote from Epicurus as follows: “On pain: if it is unbearable, it carries us off, if it persists, it can be endured.” The point is that chronic pain beyond our ability to endure would have killed us, so the fact we’re still standing proves that we’re capable of enduring much worse.
It’s not our pains or illnesses that upset us but our judgments about them.
“It’s not events that upset us but our judgments about events.” If we apply that to the concept of pain, it means that the pain isn’t what upsets us but rather our judgments about it.
If my goal is to look handsome, then if I break my nose, I’m bound to view it as harmful rather than helpful. But if my most cherished goal is survival and I break my nose while narrowly escaping certain death, I’d probably view it with relative indifference. The Stoics want us to go through a radical upheaval in our underlying values so that our supreme goal is to live with wisdom and its accompanying virtues
Viewing things as changeable, like a flowing river, can help weaken our emotional attachment to them.
Undertaking any action while calmly accepting that the outcome isn’t entirely under your control.
We say “reserve clause,” incidentally, because our expectations are reserved for what is within our sphere of control. We’re pursuing an external result “with the reservation” that the outcome is not entirely up to us. “Do what you must, let happen what may,” as the saying goes.
We naturally focus our attention on what’s most important to us. Stoics treat their own judgments and actions as the only thing truly good or bad. That inevitably shifts focus to the present and lessens emotional investment in the past and future. The worried mind is always getting too far ahead of itself; it is always in suspense over the future. The Stoic Sage, by contrast, is grounded in the here and now.
Seneca calls this praemeditatio malorum, or the “premeditation of adversity.”
Begin the morning by saying to yourself, I shall meet with the busy-body, the ungrateful, arrogant, deceitful, envious, unsocial.
Many people find that it helps to imagine the anxiety-provoking situation as if it were a short movie clip, or sequence of events, with a beginning, middle, and end, lasting roughly a minute or so. They can then replay the same scene repeatedly, in their mind’s eye, for five to fifteen minutes or even longer.
For example, someone who is anxious about losing their job might visualize being called into their boss’s office, told that they’re being sacked or made redundant, and later clearing their desk and leaving, etc. They’d picture this as a short movie, perhaps repeatedly on a loop. As noted, the actual amount of time required varies, but anxiety should have reduced to at least half its initial level before ending the exercise. The most common reason for failure is that people terminate these sorts of exposure exercises before their emotions have had enough time to habituate.
Marcus tells himself that he doesn’t literally need to get away from it all because true inner peace comes from the nature of our thoughts rather than pleasant natural surroundings. He tells himself that resilience comes from his ability to regain his composure wherever he finds himself. This is the “inner citadel” to which he can retreat, even on the frigid battlefields of the northern campaign.
In fact, everything that troubles us here is just as it would be on a hilltop, by the seashore, or anywhere else—what matters is how we choose to view it.
Rational beings are inherently social, designed to live in communities and to help one another in a spirit of goodwill. As such, we have a duty to live wisely and harmoniously with our fellow humans in order to fulfill our natural potential and to flourish.
Picturing the person you’re angry with in a more rounded and complete manner—don’t just focus on the aspects of their character or behavior you find most annoying.
He considers how they can be arrogant, overbearing, and angry, but he also contemplates times when they’ve been enslaved by other desires. The idea is that we should broaden our awareness, not only thinking of the person’s actions that offend us but of the other person as a whole, remembering that nobody is perfect. As we widen our perspective, we’re likely to dilute our anger toward them.
No man does evil knowingly, which also entails that no man does it willingly.
Either they are doing what is right or doing what is wrong. If they are doing what is right, then you should accept it and cease to be annoyed with them. Let go of your anger and learn from them. However, if they are doing what is wrong, then you should assume it’s because they don’t know any better.
He actually recommends that whenever we’re offended by the faults of another, we should treat it as a signal to pause and immediately turn our attention to our own character, reflecting on the similar ways in which we go wrong.
When you point your finger in anger at someone else, remember that three fingers on the same hand point back in your own direction.
You should always remain open to the possibility that the other person’s intentions are not in the wrong. Consider that other plausible interpretations of their actions exist. Keeping an open mind will help you dilute your feelings of anger.
It’s not what happens first that matters but what you do next.
Other people can harm your property or even your body, but they can’t harm your character unless you allow them to do so.
If someone hates you, Marcus says, that’s their problem. Your only concern is to avoid doing anything to deserve being hated.
The wise man who views the world rationally is never surprised by anything in life.
Indeed, to learn how to die is to unlearn how to be a slave.