 I thought that chapter 9 of book 2 was really interesting when it talks about you need to keep in mind the nature of the whole and how you are a part in it, and then you have to act in accordance with the whole and your nature as a part. That really reminded me of Epictetus, always commenting on how you have to keep track of where your place is in the logical whole, and I see Marcus really is doing that a lot with the passages that Sarah was pointing out too. There are other part whole arguments. As your research has shown, it's not always very easy to figure out what my part is in the cosmos. So if I sit down and think, what is my role in this cosmos? Of course I haven't been through all the lessons about physics and logic that one needs to do. Of course Epictetus doesn't think I need to do those necessarily, to figure out my role and my part. To some extent all of this stuff about making sure you are doing your part, to me is more mysterious. For all of you embarking on your life and figuring out what you are going to do with your life and where you are going from here, and so forth, and some of you are even graduating and so forth, and so this is really, I won't be one of those guys that asks you what's next, don't worry, but this is on your mind. It's not very helpful to say sit down and reflect about your position in the cosmos, I think. Now Marcus Aurelius is Emperor of the Roman Empire, so he has a fairly clearly defined role, and it's important for him to recognize what are the responsibilities of this role, and not be a Nero or a Caligula, and failing to do your role, because lives and empires and so forth hang on it. I think here Epicureanism is more intuitive, it's easier to follow. It's not that I've got some part in this grand cosmic structure, it's that I've got these rather obvious things, they're called pains, and one needs to get rid of them in order to be happy, whereas one needs to figure out one's cosmic role. I actually find it to be an anxiety-producing idea, not an anxiety-relieving idea. Maybe I should be Emperor of something like Rome. I love Marcus Aurelius, maybe I should be an Emperor, and I'm really obviously failing at my role being a lowly philosophy professor. Or maybe my role really is philosophy professor, and so I need to concentrate everything on doing that, but how do I know? I have these doubts about it. And as students, definitely I have doubts about it. Yeah, in terms of reflecting on my cosmic role, control is the opposite of the fact that I'm not having any anxiety, because I'm so small in this gigantic universe and my role is so insignificant. And then also in mind that they're like in capitalism, I think there would be the, oh yeah everyone has this role from maybe some kind of preset destination that you're born into, but you can kind of decide how do you go about that role and manifest that role, but that role is kind of already set in some way. And I feel like in a more contemporary sense, you could look at it as like everyone kind of has these set gifts or set natural talents that we have, and reflecting on that in relation to the culture, how can you best fit that nature into this system? Both of those points are very good. The second one, don't worry about figuring out whether you should be a philosophy professor or emperor, because what you're going to be is determined from the beginning of time and even earlier than that, because it's from a set of cosmic cycles that's eternally repeating itself. So in a sense my role is exactly what I'm doing and where I'm sitting right now, and by the way I'll see you in the next cosmic cycle right here, everybody sitting in exactly these positions, and that's not only going to happen again, but that's going to happen an infinite number of times. Now whether you're happy about that or that's a terrifying idea, most people are, I'm going to be sitting in a room with, you think you're never going to sit in a room with Monty Johnson again once this term ends. I got news for you. Ever heard of infinity? So in a sense your role is exactly where you're at. So concentrate like Laura was saying on what you're doing right now and how you're reacting to those things. So I think that's a really good point, is that they're fatalism, and you put it in a good technical philosophical way, they're compatibilism. Compatibilism means they believe that human freedom is compatible with fate and determinism. And so don't worry about it, don't do too much about that if the universe and Zeus wants you to be a Roman emperor, you will be. And that's exactly what will happen. And then your other point, the first point that you made, is also very good I think. And that's that reflect on how small and minute and puny you are. And there's all these great times in other fragments here and Marcus Aurelius, who is the most powerful man in the world at the point and time that he's writing, is saying basically I'm nothing, this is a speck in the overall scope of this cosmos. And one way to relieve depression and anxiety that is very effective actually, is to do things like reflect on the immensity of the cosmos and the smallness of this. So if you find yourself sort of bummed out look at some of these NASA pictures that show you vast nebulas and things like this and concentrate on the cosmic scale of things and it makes your own problems shrink to a vanishing point to some extent when you put them into relation to the infinities of time in both directions that are surrounding you and the vastness of the spatial cosmos and so forth. I think both of those are really solid and stoic points, stoic ways of dealing with this. Now did somebody else have a hand? Yeah, please. I know stoics are deterministic. So I had a question about what he means on the fifth paragraph which is you'll give yourself this if you carry out each act. Is it where you're last, free from all randomness? This is book two, section five. What is the name of randomness in my context? Okay. At every hour give your full concentration as a Roman and a man and I believe that I might have to check the Greek there but it probably says human on purpose as opposed to on air but it would be relevant to Dylan's research if it had a gender term there. Can't tell from the translation. To carrying out the task in hand with a scrupulous and unaffected dignity and affectionate concern for others and freedom and justice and give yourself a space from all other concerns. You will give yourself this space if you carry out each act as if it were the last of your life. Free from all randomness and passionate deviation from the rule of reason and from pretence and self-love and dissatisfaction with what's been awarded to you. Okay. So in part randomness is glossed by the phrases that follow from that from the what we call the exegetical and there. So randomness i.e. passionate deviation from the rule of reason and from pretence and self-love and dissatisfaction with what's been awarded to you. So dissatisfaction on I was born poor. I am a mere UCSD student. I didn't get into Harvard. I'm not the valedictorian who's going to be giving the graduation speech. All of that is this emotional stuff that's random and inhibits you from playing the best part you can in the immediate circumstances. Of course there's not randomness in the physical sense of like an Epicurean swerve of atoms or something. That isn't possible because everything is faded. So it doesn't mean some non-deterministic thing. It means basically incidental things concentrating on and thinking about incidental things like those of you sitting here checking Facebook messages and so forth on your computers. Instead of trying to figure out what this wisdom this ancient wisdom has to tell you about your life you are deviating into random things based on passionate desire for a dopamine hit when you see that somebody liked you posting a photo of your cattle or whatever. That is not giving your full concentration as a human being, as a student, as a mind and so forth on the task that is set before you. So that's I think how to interpret randomness there. Not attention to what's essential but attention to something that's incidental and accidental. And that's within your control. You could concentrate on what's essential and the possibility of this wisdom and learning something from it right now or you could be playing Tetris or whatever. I'm not totally up to you. So this piece of advice is meant to focus us on that. Okay, other comments? Anything else people just liked or disliked? Okay, Noah? I really liked in book 2, chapter 16, first line when it says even mind and violence to itself most of all whenever it becomes as far as it can in our approach and a tumor, kind of tumor of the universe. But that was really nice. Yeah, that's kind of weird imagery, but what does this mean? I want to become a tumor on the universe, right? No, that's when the mind does violence to itself. I see having resentment and so forth turns you into this hideous tumor on the universe instead of being a functional healthy part of the universe. So we're all part of the universe and we know that the universe is alive because if part of something is alive then the whole of the thing is alive, right? And we know part of it's alive because we're part of it and we're alive so we know the whole thing must be alive. And the question is are we healthy parts that are making it function and flow in a continuous way or are we something more like a tumorist? Outgrowth on the universe. So I mean, I'm interpreting that with their organic conception of the whole cosmos because it's bizarre to say that you're a tumor on the universe. It's like really insulting thing to say, right? But if you think that the universe is an organism then there is some kind of logic to that idea. But what is it that you liked about this? Does that turn of phrase or...? I thought the phrase was really interesting and just again referencing your own place in terms of the whole and not trying to justify yourself just on your own basis but just by how you live and reference to everything as an unity. Okay. Now, Michael, you also raised your hand. Which one do you like? Section 3 in Book 3. Where it talks about all these deaths and so it's about T's cure and Susan and Phillip don't die themselves. I don't know, I just thought that was kind of big. So all these great people, much greater than you, have died. Pretty terribly, too, suddenly. A democratist was killed by lice. That was invented by somebody in the Hellenistic age to make fun of him. And then he says, and socrates by lice of another kind meaning the accusers in Democratic Athens who had him put to death. So that's just a kind of clever insult. So why are you reminding me that all these great people have died? Well, one thing, it is good to remember that because it actually alleviates fear of death to some extent. So why am I so worried about the fact that I'm going to die? People a lot greater than me have died. And also it's universal. But then he says, what does it amount to? You came on board, you set sail, you've now reached land, step ashore. I think came on board, stepping on board the ship is like being born. Sailing is living through life and then you're reaching the end of it. It's like reaching land. And then what do you do when you reach land? You don't stay on the boat and say, oh no, you step ashore. And then there's a couple of options. If you come to another life, so if you are reincarnated as something else, nothing is empty of gods even there. So that will still be a good fate to have. You'll still have this portion of the divine, even in that case. If you come to unconsciousness, so if death is like some people think some sort of deep sleep or not even aware of it, there's no perception that's just kind of oblivion, then you won't be subject to pains and pleasures. Of course pains and pleasures are just as bad on this sort of thing. You might think, well it's a relief to think I won't have pains, but it's a bummer to think I won't have pleasures, but remember pleasures are bad emotional states too. You'll no longer be the servant of a vessel as inferior in value as that which serves its superior. One is mind in the guardian spirit, the other earth and blood. And he, not in these books, but in other sections goes in for this kind of language a lot, that we're just flesh and phlegm and some bones if you take away mind. Mind is the only, you've got to concentrate on mind and identify everything with mind because the rest of this stuff is just this horrible sort of grotesque bodily functions that inevitably break down over time. Now I really like the first one of the book too, and I was reading this on the bus yesterday before I got off the bus and went into a meeting with someone who I would exactly describe as being meddling ungrateful, violent, treacherous, envious and unsociable. And so this actually worked as a, effectively worked as a consolation for me. And the entire meeting I was thinking we have to find a way to cooperate because I should not become angry and what I want to do is just consult this person and put them in their place. I want to figure out a way that this will be like mutually beneficial and manage to turn around the meeting and the outcome and actually improve and I felt better about it afterwards. But it was just random that I happened to be meeting this preparing for today and then went into a meeting with an upper administrator that this fit. And so this is one of these things, these pre-meditations what is supposed to reflect on in the morning. Don't just, you know, grab your, put on your shoes and grab your backpack and run out into that scary world. Think before you go into it. Okay, look, I'm going to come across people that are really going to piss me off and that I don't respect at all and that are going to make me mad and they are envious and treacherous people and so forth. But I've got to find a way to work with that. I mean, first of all, I've got to find a way to not make it affect me and I'm not undermining myself by feeling emotion but also by not being able to carry out my plans because I can't cooperate with this person because of these attitudes I have about them. And so if one thinks that then it might be that you don't come across someone like this. You might somehow be lucky enough not to come across an envious person during the day. Good luck in Southern California, you know. But you might, and then that would just be a happy thing. Be like, you prepared yourself for this outcome and then it wasn't actually a problem but the thing is that it always is a problem and there always are people like this. There's people that don't give up their seat on the bus to a crippled elderly person that they should have done and it's going to make you angry and you've got to find a way. You've got to realize not only are we all in the same boat but we're all like parts of the same universe here. And the existence of that vice and so forth is a problem for me too and I have my own vices that are setting other people off my own kind of envy and jealousy and so forth that when other people encounter me is exactly what they're thinking. But this is one of these remember that none of this has been published. This has also been burned if these underlings to carry out the instructions they were given. But this man is a personal journal. He's just writing these reflections to help himself get through really troublesome times on a big campaign in foreign lands and so forth. And I just think what a wise thing to think and that it can actually help you get through the day to meditate on this ahead of time. I related that part to this cognitive behavioral therapy technique called like imagery based exposure where you pretty much like it's used for PTSD you imagine yourself in a situation and let yourself feel all the feelings that you would feel when it actually does come and you are way less affected by it. This is a sort of example of one. I kind of want to loosely connect what you said to section 4 of 3, the first line did not waste the remaining part of your life thinking about other people unless you were doing so with reference to the common benefit. I mean thinking about what such and such a person is doing and why what he is saying and what you are doing to your own center. Essentially I feel like I do to myself a lot too where I spend a lot of time thinking about what others believe and think mainly about me rather than focusing on myself and centering myself and trying to see what effect I have on the world rather than trying to make myself out to be what I feel others want me to be. And I kind of resonated what she said with other people they do things in their life and I kind of like anchors me but rather just like making sure that doesn't have an effect on me and knowing what's like true to me and what gets me. Well said and it turns out that other people you can count on other people being so self-absorbed that they aren't actually people close to you are too worried about their own lives and in a healthy way if they really concentrate on it but one can certainly waste a lot of time being concerned with how