Meditations
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Average rating4.2
Written in Greek by an intellectual Roman emperor without any intention of publication, the Meditations of Marcus Aurelius offer a wide range of fascinating spiritual reflections and exercises developed as the leader struggled to understand himself and make sense of the universe. Spanning from doubt and despair to conviction and exaltation, they cover such diverse topics as the question of virtue, human rationality, the nature of the gods and the values of leadership. But while the Meditations were composed to provide personal consolation, in developing his beliefs Marcus also created one of the greatest of all works of philosophy: a series of wise and practical aphorisms that have been consulted and admired by statesmen, thinkers and ordinary readers for almost two thousand years.
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More than the acceptance of death or living life with a purpose, I believe one trait of Marcus Aurelius that often goes unnoticed is its death-grip on intelligence as our most valuable asset, which gives us purpose and power of change. I believe it is without intelligence that its philosophy can easily fall into nihilism. He is also a very firm believer of a collective consciousness and intelligence, possibly deriving from his belief that we are all made biologically “equal” but have the possibility of fine-tuning ourselves into what we want to be.
During his whole 19 (?) years of being the Roman Imperator, he waged a constant war. Did not create it, but it befell onto him. I wonder if his meditative awareness arose from a grown humility during this warring period or was part of his personality all along.
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