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).