The Daily Stoic - The Last Words Of Marcus Aurelius | Practice Letting Go

Episode Date: November 21, 2022

It’s one of the most haunting paintings you’ll ever see. More than 11 feet wide and 8 feet tall, painted in rich but dark oils, Eugene Delacroix (a student of the Stoics) captures Marcus Aurelius at the end of his life. A plague has devastated Rome. His troubled son stands in the wings, unlikely to rule well. Marcus has had a hard life, filled with adversity, not meeting, as one historian noted, “with the good fortune he deserved.”Yet he strived to do right and to be good. He escaped “imperialization” in his words, avoided being “Caesarified” and dyed purple by the power of his position. He kept the faith, kept the empire going, doing his best. And now, weak and frail, the end was here. He knew, as he would say to his bodyguard, that the sun was setting.To learn more about the life of Marcus Aurelius, pick up this in-depth biography of the man in Lives of the Stoics, which is included in the new leather bound edition of the Gregory Hays translation of Meditations.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.📱 Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoke podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoke podcast. Each day we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stokes illustrated with stories from history, current events and literature to help you be better at what you do. And at the beginning of the week, we try to do a deeper dive, setting a kind of stoic intention for the week, something to meditate on, something to think on, something to leave you with, to journal about, whatever it is you happen to be doing. So let's get into it.

Hi, I'm David Brown, the host of Wunderree's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. The last words of Marcus Aurelius It's one of the most haunting paintings you'll ever see. More than 11 feet wide and 8 feet tall painted in rich but dark oils, Eugene Delacroix, a student of the Stoics, captures Marcus Aurelius at the end of his life.

A plague has devastated Rome, his troubled son stands in the wings unlikely to rule well. Marcus has had a hard life filled with adversity, not meeting as one historian noted, with the good fortune he deserved. Yet he strive to do right and to be good. He escaped imperialization in his words, avoided being cesarified and died purple by the power of his position. He kept the faith, kept his empire going, doing his best. And now weak and frail, the end was here. He knew, as he would say to his bodyguard, that the sun was setting. With his last breaths, he has said to have grabbed the attention of his friends who are shown weeping and gathered round in the painting. Why do you weep for me, Marcus? Ask them? They should be thinking of the plague and all the lives that it claimed. They should be focused on getting their own

affairs in order. And while these words and the words that Marcus said to his bodyguard were his actual final words, the last lines and meditations are worth musing on today as they are as beautiful and haunting as that great painting. As Gregory Hayes renders them, you have lived as a citizen in a great city. Five years or a hundred. What's the difference? The law makes no distinction, Marcus writes. And to be sent away from it not by a tyrant or a dishonest judge, but by nature who first invited you in, why is that so terrible? Like the imprasario ringing down the curtain on an actor, but I've only gotten through three acts.

Yes, this will be a drama in three acts. The length fixed by the power that directed your creation and now directs your dissolution. Neither was yours to determine, so make your exit with grace, the same grace that was shown to you. As I detail in Marcus' chapter in Lives of the Stokes, which is actually in the back of the new leather-bound edition of meditations that we have in the Daily Stokes store, the life of Marcus really is one that teaches us how to live well. And because he lived well, Marcus' story is also one that teaches us how to live well. And because he lived well, Marcus' story is also one that teaches us how to go out well with grace, with strength, with empathy, with the comfort from knowing that he lived a good life as a good man. Maybe you've read Meditations front to back a dozen times, but if you

haven't studied his life, his last words, his example, you must. last words is example. You must. Practice letting go. And this is from this week's entry in the Daily still of journal, 366 days of writing and reflection on the art of living by yours truly and my co-writer and translator, Steven Hanselman. I actually do this journal every single day. There's a question in the morning, a question in the afternoon, and then there's these sort of weekly meditations.

As Epictetus says, every day and night, we keep thoughts like this at hand, write them, read them aloud, and talk to yourself and others about them. You can check out the Daily Stoke Journal, anywhere books are sold, and also get a signed personalized copy from me in the Daily Stoke store at store.dailystoke.com. We suffer when we lose things we love, and we suffer most when we lose people we love. But it is a natural, unavoidable part of life. And the Stoke say that this suffering is increased by our belief that we possess the objects of our love. They are, as we like to say,

a part of us. This belief doesn't increase our love or care for them, but rather is a form of cleaning that ignores the simple fact that we don't control what will happen, not to our own bodies, let alone to the ones we love. Epic Titus taught a powerful exercise that every time you wish dear child or family member or friend goodnight, you remember that these things are like a precious, breakable glass. Remember how dramatically things can change while you sleep. Marcus too struggled to practice this with his own family as he tucked them in at night. And the point wasn't to be morbid, but to create a sense of appreciation and a kind of humility.

You cannot take anyone, especially someone you love for granted. And then the quotes are from Epic Titus and Seneca. Epic Titus says, whenever you experience the pangs of losing something, don't treat it like a part of yourself, but as a breakable glass. So that when it falls, you will remember that and won't be troubled. So too, whenever you kiss your child, sibling or friend, don't layer on top of the experience, all the things you might wish, but hold them back and stop them, just as those who ride behind triumphant generals remind them that they are mortal.

The same way, remind yourself that your precious one isn't one of your possessions. It's something given for now, not forever. That's EpicTitus's Discourse is 324. But the wise person can lose nothing. Such a person has everything stored up for themselves, leaving nothing to fortune. Their own goods are held firm, bound and virtue, which requires nothing from chance, and therefore can't be either increased or diminished, Seneca, on the firmness of the wise. We did a daily stoke email recently that I wanted to read you or chunk of it. Let me pull it up here.

It's actually a poem. You wouldn't think of Margaret Atwood, the author of Hanman's Tale and many other things as a poet, which has this beautiful poem called The Moment. And I think it captures what the stokes are talking about here, and I'll read it because it's only three verses. The moment when after many years of hard work and a long voyage, you stand in the center of your room, house, half acre, square mile, island, country, knowing at last how you got there, and you say, I own this. In the same moment, the trees unloose, their soft arms from around you. The birds take back

their language, the cliffs, fissure and collapse. The air moves back from you like a wave, and you can't breathe. Know they whisper, you own nothing. You were a visitor time after time climbing the hill, planting the flag, proclaiming, we never belonged to you. You never found us. It was always the other way around. I just think that's such a beautiful poem. And look, when there's a part of what Sennaka here that stops me, he says, so that when the glass falls, you will remember that and won't be troubled. Now, I don't think that's quite right. We know that Santa Claus to child and grieved quite deeply.

We know that his mother grieved him quite deeply when he was exiled and he, in turn, grieved his mother. We know that he and his wife struggled at their parting when they were forced to commit suicide. The idea that this still can just think these things and then not be attached to people, I think that's a false ideal and I don't think that's where you actually want to get,

even if you could get there. To me, what Epic Titus is exercise, what Marcus is doing, and it's when I practice almost every day during the pandemic, especially in those dark early days when it seemed very, very serious, not that it wasn't serious, but it seemed so much more uncertain the seriousness of it. The idea of holding your children close and saying that you don't know what's going to happen through the night is there to make you breathe that moment in, to not rush through it, to not try to get it over with. Right?

So you can go check your email or watch Netflix or, you know, have a snack. Right? It's to go, no, this is important. I'm not going to rush through this. I'm not going to get past it. I am going to breathe it in because it matters, because it's here now. To me that this is a breakable glass, doesn't mean put it up on the highest shelf, wrapping and bubble wrap and hope nothing bad ever happens to it. It's to appreciate it while you have it,

and to realize that you don't have it forever because none of us do. That's what I take from that exercise. And you know, that was brought home to me even more during a year, almost a year exactly from, you know, March of 2020 when this freak storm hits Texas and, you know, everyone tucked their kid in at night, they lost power. And a few families woke up and found that their children or older family members had died and their sleep had frozen to death and their sleep. I had gotten so cold, so unexpectedly. You just think about how tragic that is and how that could happen to anyone.

And you realize how much worse it would feel if you'd had an argument before bed, if you'd been short before bed, if you'd said, no, I said only two books. And now you want me to read a third one, right? You would regret that. It would be tragic in any circumstances. Again, the idea that you would get to a place where you would not care that it happened. I don't think that's right. Marcus Aurelius loses multiple children.

That's insane, unthinkable. And even in meditations, you get the sense that he's still grieving, still working through it. So you don't get there, but you do hopefully get to a place where you can minimize the regrets. So you're not sitting there kicking yourself saying, I wish I'd been more patient. I wish I'd been there more period. I wish I hadn't rushed through things. While I had them, I really loved them.

I really connected with them. I wasn't detached from them, I was attached to them. And that's why this tragedy is the least bad version of how it could go. So that's not the happiest way to leave you today, but I do think it's a powerful exercise and we're thinking about. I'll talk to you soon. Thanks so much for listening. If you could rate this podcast and leave a review on iTunes, that would mean so much to us and it would really help the show. We appreciate it and I'll see you next episode. Hey, Prime Members! You can listen to the Daily Stoic early and ad-free on Amazon Music, download the Amazon Music

app today, or you can listen early and add free with Wondery Plus in Apple podcasts. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai. And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wondery's new podcast, Dis and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feud say about us?

The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Brittany and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Brittany's fans form the free Brittany movement dedicated to fring her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them. It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them

by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad free on Amazon Music or the Wondering App.

fight for Brittany. Follow Dissentel wherever you get your podcasts. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app.