Breaking the spell of history. Marcus Aurelius 6.13

Life requires us to make decisions, and we naturally remember these decisions as stories. Over time, stories acquire a certain gravitas that causes people to take them too seriously, to become so caught up in their story-character that they fail to act properly in real life. Marcus Aurelius advises himself to avoid this by disenchanting the stories around important things that can seduce us with unbounded desire (cf. good food & drink, which tempt us to eat more than we can well digest; good clothes, which tempt us to want more & nicer garments than we need; good sex, which tempts us to want more than is healthy). If something seems too much like a fairytale, Marcus tells himself to see it as simply as possible, without creating or accepting narratives about its past or putative futures. Necessary as stories are to us, as creatures of memory, we don't want to be tricked by them into acting badly, against our better interest and the good of others around us.

Οἷον δὴ τὸ φαντασίαν λαμβάνειν ἐπὶ τῶν ὄψων καὶ τῶν τοιούτων ἐδωδίμων, ὅτι νεκρὸς οὗτος ἰχθύος, οὗτος δὲ νεκρὸς ὄρνιθος ἢ χοίρου· καὶ πάλιν, ὅτι ὁ Φάλερνος χυλάριόν ἐστι σταφυλίου καὶ ἡ περιπόρφυρος τριχία προβατίου αἱματίῳ κόγχης δεδευμένα· καὶ ἐπὶ τῶν κατὰ τὴν συνουσίαν ἐντερίου παράτριψις καὶ μετά τινος σπασμοῦ μυξαρίου ἔκκρισις· οἷαι δὴ αὗταί εἰσιν αἱ φαντασίαι καθικνούμεναι αὐτῶν τῶν πραγμάτων καὶ διεξιοῦσαι δι’ αὐτῶν, ὥστε ὁρᾶν οἷά τινά ποτ’ ἐστιν. οὕτως δεῖ παρ’ ὅλον τὸν βίον ποιεῖν καὶ ὅπου λίαν ἀξιόπιστα τὰ πράγματα φαντάζεται, ἀπογυμνοῦν αὐτὰ καὶ τὴν εὐτέλειαν αὐτῶν καθορᾶν καὶ τὴν ἱστορίαν ἐφ’ ᾗ σεμνύνεται περιαιρεῖν. δεινὸς γὰρ ὁ τῦφος παραλογιστὴς καὶ ὅτε δοκεῖς μάλιστα περὶ τὰ σπουδαῖα καταγίνεσθαι, τότε μάλιστα καταγοητεύῃ. ὅρα γοῦν ὁ Κράτης τί περὶ αὐτοῦ τοῦ Ξενοκράτους λέγει.

Confronted with cooked meals and every sort of delicacy, you can always show yourself a vision of what these really are: one is the corpse of a fish; another, the carcass of a bird or sucking pig. Same story with fine Falernian wine: it is just the juice from a little bunch of grapes. The rich purple border of your high-class toga: a bit of sheep's hair, stained with the blood of a snail. Lovers coupling: a rubbing of genitals, followed by spasmodic release of mucus. Stark visions of reality like this can help us engage our life's tasks with control, conducting us safely beyond the allure of unbounded appetite by showing us directly what things are, in actuality. You must practice this form of visualization all throughout your life, but especially in situations where your actionable priorities appear most evident. Strip away everything extraneous from these circumstances, so that you see them in their simplicity, without the story that makes them objects of worship. For pomp and circumstance are terrible deceivers, a glimmering illusion that lies to you, especially when you think you are engaged in something really serious: then, more than at any other time, you are totally bewitched. Witness what Crates says about the great Xenocrates (†).

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(†) Xenocrates of Chalcedon (396-313 BCE) was a student of Plato, famous for his indifference to pleasure and pain. Legend recounts that he was impervious (i) to seduction, treating flirtatious prostitutes kindly without enjoying them; (ii) to bribery, refusing rich rewards from Philip and Alexander; and (iii) to surgery, accepting medicinal cuts and burns without complaint (Diogenes Laertius 4.6-9). The Crates mentioned here is either Crates of Athens, who eventually succeeded Xenocrates as scholarch of Plato's Academy, or the Cynic philosopher Crates of Thebes, Xenocrates' contemporary. The cloud of illusion (τῦφος) is a Cynic trope that Marcus likes (see 2.12; 2.15; 2.17).