I’m going to be knocked around. Stuff will happen, people will say things and my feelings will be hurt. This is inevitable.
Equally true is the fact that I’m going to make shit up in my head, and I’m going to take it seriously and wallow in it. This is guaranteed. You can take it to the bank.
So, what to do?
When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances, revert at once to yourself, and don’t lose the rhythm more than you can help. You’ll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep on going back to it.
Meditations 6:11.
Let’s just take for granted, from now on, that all quotes from Marcus Aurelius come from the Gregory Hays translation of Meditations. I don’t read the other translations I have.
What I’m doing right now, by reading in the morning and writing these little thoughts, is building the counterweight, building the keel. When knocked off top dead center by some external event, my habits bring me back.
It happened while reading and drinking coffee this morning. I was talking to myself about something. In rehearsal, I was. As usual, it was some imaginary future event where in my imagination I was impressing an unknown audience of strangers who I would never see again because they exist only in my head with my stunning wisdom. I caught myself. Returned to Meditations.
That’s the spiritual keel bringing me upright after a self-inflicted gust of mental wind.
I did not take the episode seriously. It’s like the famous bemused Reagan quote, “There you go again!” There my brain goes again, talking to itself to puff up the ego. Remember. And back to top dead center.
As Marcus Aurelius says, “unavoidably”.
Even if I could become immune to outside events and how they affect my thinking (hint: not in this lifetime), I can never become immune to the brain generating its own thoughts.
I can’t stop or control my dreams at night, and I am going to experience random rehearsals and talking to self during my waking hours. The best I can do is develop a center of gravity that brings the pendulum back to rest.