Good Marcus Aurelius Meditations And Its Relation To Social Psychology Essay Example

Marcus Aurelius Meditations and its relation to Social Psychology

Marcus Animus Verus born A.D. 121 in Rome and assumes the name Marcus Aurelius Antonius. He succeeded the emperor throne in 161 and ruled for the next nineteen years until his death. Once he takes the mantle of leadership, he governs with justice and moderation during a time of constant warfare on the frontiers of the empire. He spends his last years of his reign in uncongenial task of commanding armies that proves irresistible against barbarian hordes. Orator Front educated Aurelius during his formative years while he decides to depart from rhetoric to study Stoic philosophy.
Some of the philosophical works he wrote include “The Meditations” written in Greek that exhibit a favorable practical side. His precepts carry singular consistency both in public and private life. He is one of the Rome Emperors that rule with the welfare of their subjects at heart. During his reign, Aurelius Rome experienced severe pestilence where the armies were greatly affected. The population panicked and demanded the sacrifice of Christians. The incidence was a symbolic to support the pagan moralists to limit the advance of Christianity. The “Mediations” is an image of mind and character of the noblest of emperors that use a simple and sincere tone. The pagan aspiration serves an effort to solve the issue of conduct and essential agreement to prove that a person in a lavish lifestyle can remain humble.
In his philosophy, Aurelius learns different things from different people he interacts with in his life. He learns good morals and the act of governing from his grandfather Verus. His father had a modest and manly character while his mother was piety and beneficence to abstain from evil thinking. He learns from the governor to avoid being a partisan in the circus games or the gladiator’s fight.
Additionally, he learned endurance of labor while working with his hands and avoid meddling with other people’s affairs. From Diognetus, Aurelius learned to avoid trifling things and avoid giving credit to incarnations of jugglers that say they have powers to drive out demons. To avoid breeding fights, ensure freedom of speech and have intimacy with philosophy. From Rusticus, he learned that shaping a good character required constant improvement and discipline. From him, Aurelius learned to avoid the temptation of sophistic emulation, writing on speculative issues, delivering hortatory orations, avoid showing off and abstain from rhetoric and poetry. He learned the art of writing simple letters to them that show offense to him when he emulated the letter Rusticus wrote to those that offended him. That letter paved way for pacification and reconciliation. From Apollonius, Aurelius learned liberty of will and undeviating steadiness of purpose to ensure he was resolute and yielding other than peevish while giving instructions. That would enable him to expound his philosophical principles as the smallest of his merits where he would receive esteemed favors from friends.
In his father, Aurelius observed and learned a mildness of temper and unchangeable resolution to perform things as determined after discussion and deliberation. His father loved labor, perseverance, undeviating firmness, knowledge gained from experience and an art of listening to all people. His father considered equality with other citizens so that he could release himself from the obligation to sup with him when he traveled overseas. He had a habit of careful inquiry of matters of deliberation, showing satisfaction on all occasions, cheerful, extravagant in affection, provide without showing display, careful expenditure, and respect for the gods. No one could specify whether he was a sophist, slave or a pedant while everyone thought he had the capability of managing his own and other people’s affairs.
Other than that, he had respect to the true philosophers while he did not show reproach to the counterfeit philosophers. He employed a simple way in his conversation without making any offensive affection. He took care of his body without exaggerating his personal appearance. He had enough strength to bear with the demise of a friend such as he portrayed when Maximus was ill.
Aurelius owes it to the gods for good and approachable families, teachers, friends, and associates. He is happy that his father eliminated his pride before he took the mantle from him. For that reason, he was able to live in the palace without having a need for guards, statutes, torches, and fashion dresses. While in power, he occasioned a private life without having the need for auspicious occasions that befit a person of his status. The gods gave him true associates such as Apollonius, Rusticus, and Maximus where he received a clear instruction to live in accordance with nature. He avoided the temptations of amatory passions while he married a simple woman that was obedient and affectionate. He was able to succeed in the investigation of the heaven and deities through the help of the gods.
Aurelius reckons that from morning he should encounter the vices of the society so that he can impart something positive. Aurelius did not have any effect on the vile, deceitful, arrogant, and ungrateful since he believed all are created so that they can corporate with each other just like the human organs do. Nature prohibits one to act against each other, vexed or turn away. The gods provide full providence where fortune interweaves with involution of all things. The universe undergoes the preservation through the change of elements where the change of things compounds the elements.
Every Roman should think steadily with perfect and simple dignity with a feeling of affection, freedom, and justice. One should act in life as though it was the last while laying aside any careless aversion such as selfishness and hypocrisy. One should understand their place in the grand scheme of things and that should help them to live a quiet and peaceful life. Every person can honor him or herself while the soul reverences the felicity of others. In the course of life, one should give them time to learn something new and good.
One should avoid trifles and inactivity while weighing thoughts, words, and one’s actions. Other than observing, other people’s unhappy state one should observe their movements since it could be unhappy. Like a true philosopher, Aurelius believed that offenses committed through desire are blamable than offenses committed through anger. A person excited by anger tends to shun reasoning with a certain pain and unconscious contraction. A person that offends through desire has been overpowered by pleasure to appear in an intemperate attitude in their offenses. A worthy philosophy noted is that an offense committed with pleasure carries more blame than one committed through pain. A person wronged through pain compels to anger while a passionate person to do wrong uses own impulse to do wrong.
Any person can depart from life at any moment and for that reason, one should regulate every act and thought in the correct manner. Gods provide for humans and for that reason; one cannot avoid their contribution in the universe. In retrospect, the gods enable a human to avoid temptations where they make life better other than worse. The nature of the universe tends to overlook the gods where good and evil indiscriminately happen to all. Aurelius observes how quickly things disappear in the universe since are subject to disappear or die in a matter of time. The mediator observes that opinions and voices give reputation where a person has abstractive power of reflection that will help to resolve imaginations in nature.
Any person that comes near the Deity is still disposed. There is no person wretched in comparison to a person that piles things underneath the earth in a bid to seek conjecture with no reverence for sincerity. The things of gods deserve one to maintain purity in passion and thoughtlessness since a person has the power to tell apart the right from the wrong. While a person may live for many years, one should learn they will lose their life and not of another person. The longest and shortest lives are similar in that they all perish. A person, cannot lose the past of the future since a person cannot lose what they do not have. One should bear in mind that eternity is like a form that comes round in circles where there is no difference whether a person will view the same things for a short or long time. A person that lives long and another that lives for a short time have similarity in that all will perish. For that reason, all that a person has in possession is the present, and that is the single thing that he or she can lose.
A soul does violence to itself when it becomes an abscess. Vexation of the spirit tends to separate one from nature. A soul does violence when it intends to injure other souls since it is angry. A soul can also do violence when overpowered by pleasure or pain; when it participates in anything insincere. Lastly, a soul will result in violence when it behaves aimlessly with no consideration of reason. In a human lifetime is a point, substance is in a flux, perception dull, and the whole body subject to putrefaction.
The mediatory cites that everything that belongs to the body is a stream and what belongs to the soul is illusionary. Life is feud and a stranger’s sojourn and after fame is oblivion. For that reason, the only thing that can conduct a person is philosophy that keep the daemon within a person free from violence include superior to pleasures, free from hypocrisy; accepting the doings of nature, doing everything with a purpose; waiting for death in a joyful state of mind, and being in a state where every living thing is subject to compounding. No person should have the apprehension concerning the change and dissolution of all the elements since according to nature nothing is evil.
Our lives daily wastes away while a small part is left while any person that tends to live longer it will be uncertain to retain the power of contemplation to acquire the knowledge of divine. When a person starts to fall into dotage, everything seems to collapse and extinguished. For that reason, one should make haste since we are daily near death and conception of things seems to cease. Aurelius observes that after Hippocrates curing many diseases, he fell sick and died. Likewise, Chaidaei foretold the deaths of many people while fate caught up with them also. Great leaders that conquered cities such as Alexander and Caesar have since departed from this life. Courageous and immortal like Heraclitus after many spectacular deeds in the universe have since died. The meaning of all this is that after the voyage one must come out of the shore and get out. One should not waste the remainder of their life in thoughts and imagination of other people since one should concentrate on thoughts that have common utility. One should avoid concentrating on useless thoughts that tend to have overcurious feeling and malignant. Every rational person should take care of one’s relatives in accordance with nature to ensure satisfaction.
Satisfaction is the only thing that enables one to act in accordance with right reason, and the condition is assigned to a person without choice. Socrates observed that anything that detaches itself from persuasions of sense and submits itself to the gods cares for humanity.
A person with a chastened and purified mind will have no space for corrupt matter. Life is incomplete when fate overtakes a person to resemble an actor that leaves the stage prior to the end of the play. Reverence the faculty that produces an opinion. Such a faculty depends on the instance of inconsistent opinion with nature. The faculty promises freedom from hasty judgment and friendship from people and obedience to gods. Every person has a short life, a small nook on earth, and a long posthumous fame. There is nothing productive of the mind elevation to examine methodically and truly, an object presented in life. Whatever rules within when according to the nature has the effect of happenings will easily adapt itself to the possible presentation. Nature does not require a definite material while it moves towards purpose under certain specific conditions.