Sharing Burdens. Marcus Aurelius, Notes 6.45

~ Marcus reflects on healthy human society, which requires all its members to assume burdens together. If we cannot share liability, then we are not part of a functioning human whole. A telling observation in all times, but especially ours (when we frequently hallucinate wholes that don't really exist, because nobody shares liability within them). ~

Ὅσα ἑκάστῳ συμβαίνει, ταῦτα τῷ ὅλῳ συμφέρει· ἤρκει τοῦτο. ἀλλ’ ἔτι ἐκεῖνο ὡς ἐπίπαν ὄψει παραφυλάξας, ὅσα ἀνθρώπῳ, καὶ ἑτέροις ἀνθρώποις. κοινότερον δὲ νῦν τὸ συμφέρον ἐπὶ τῶν μέσων λαμβανέσθω.

What happens to each individual part matters also to the whole. You have known this for a while. But still, the more you look closely, the more you will see how what occurs to one person also ends up happening to others. What is essential for folk in the middle of your society must be taken up now as a burden shared more by outliers, too.