Thinker · Stoics
Marcus Aurelius
121 – 180 · Stoics · The Greeks · 1 works
The most powerful man in the world spent his last nights on a frozen war frontier writing notes to himself in a language that wasn't his own, by lamplight, in a tent, trying to talk himself into being good the next morning. He never meant anyone to read them. They are the most-read thing he ever did. The whole read is about that gap: the emperor of Rome is not founding a philosophy, he is *using* one on himself, and the use is the content.
What changed
Before
Stoicism as a system to study: a grand Greek theory of the cosmos, taught from a colonnade
After
Stoicism as a discipline to practice: alone, at 2 a.m., when the theory has to actually hold
Inside the walk-through
The reluctant emperor
The notebook
The dichotomy of control
The view from above, and the practice of death
Living according to nature
The cost, and the afterlife
The works
