Work before the light fades

We should keep in mind not only that our life wastes away a little more each day, with less of it remaining, but also this: even if a man lives longer, it is quite uncertain whether his understanding will still be adequate to grasp things, and retain the power of contemplation that strives after knowledge of the divine and the human. For once he begins to fall into senility, breathing, digestion, imagination, appetite, and whatever else of that kind will not fail him—but the power to make proper use of himself, to fill out the full measure of duty, to sort out his impressions clearly, and to judge whether it is time for him to depart this life, and everything else of that sort that strictly requires a well-trained reason—all this is already going out. So we must hurry, not only because we move closer to death every day, but because our grasp of things and our understanding of them may give out first.

We should also notice that even things which merely follow along after what nature produces have a certain charm and appeal. Take bread: when it's baked, the surface sometimes cracks open, and those cracks, though they go against what the baker intended, still have their own beauty and somehow sharpen the appetite. Or figs—when fully ripe they split open. And in olives nearing overripeness, that very closeness to decay gives the fruit a particular beauty. Ears of grain bowing down, the lion's furrowed brow, the foam dripping from a wild boar's mouth, and many other things—none of them lovely if you examine them on their own—still, because they accompany what nature forms, add to its beauty and please the mind. So a person with real feeling and deeper insight into how the universe works will find that hardly anything which follows as a byproduct fails to seem, in its own way, arranged to give pleasure. Such a person will look at the actual gaping jaws of wild animals with no less pleasure than at the imitations painters and sculptors produce; he'll be able to see in an old woman or an old man a kind of ripeness and dignity; and he'll be able to look on the appeal of the young with a chaste eye. Many things of this kind will show themselves—not pleasing to everyone, but only to someone who has become truly at home with nature and its works.

Hippocrates, after curing many diseases, fell sick himself and died. The Chaldaeans foretold the deaths of many others, then fate caught up with them too. Alexander, Pompey, and Gaius Caesar, after leveling whole cities time and again, and cutting down tens of thousands of cavalry and infantry in battle, themselves at last departed from life. Heraclitus, after all his speculation about the world's conflagration, filled up with fluid inside and died smeared all over in mud. Lice killed Democritus; other lice killed Socrates. What does all this mean? You boarded, you made the crossing, you've landed—get out. If it's into another life, the gods aren't absent even there. If into a state without sensation, then you'll stop being subject to pains and pleasures, no longer a slave to a vessel as much inferior to you as its servant is beneath it—for one is mind and divinity, the other earth and decay.

Don't waste what's left of your life thinking about other people unless those thoughts serve some common good. You lose the chance to do something else whenever you wonder what someone is doing and why, what he is saying, thinking, or scheming, or anything else that pulls you away from watching your own ruling faculty. Cut anything aimless or useless from the sequence of your thoughts, especially anything nosy or malicious. Train yourself to think only thoughts you could name openly if someone suddenly asked, 'What are you thinking about right now?' You should be able to answer at once: 'This' or 'That.' Your answer should show that everything in you is straightforward and kind, fit for a social being with no interest in sensual indulgence, rivalry, envy, suspicion, or anything else you'd blush to admit. A person like this, no longer delaying his place among the best, is like a priest and servant of the gods. He makes use of the god planted within him, which keeps him unstained by pleasure, untouched by pain, unreached by insult, and unaware of being wronged. He is a fighter in the noblest contest, one whom no passion can overpower, dyed through with justice and welcoming with his whole soul everything that happens and falls to his lot. He rarely imagines what someone else is saying, doing, or thinking, and then only from great necessity and for the common good. He treats what is his own as the field for action. He keeps in mind his share of the whole, makes his own actions good, and trusts that his allotted portion is good too. What is allotted to each person travels with him and carries him along. He remembers that every rational being is his kin and that caring for all people accords with human nature. But he attends to the opinion not of everyone, only of those who plainly live according to nature. As for those who don't, he remembers what sort of people they are at home and away, night and day, and the company they keep in their corrupt way of living. He gives no weight to praise from people who aren't even satisfied with themselves.

Don't work unwillingly, nor without regard for the common good, nor without careful thought, nor with a divided mind. Don't dress up your thoughts with studied ornament. Don't be a man of many words, or one who takes on too many tasks. Further, let the god within you stand guard over a being who is manly, mature, engaged in public affairs, a Roman, a ruler—someone who has taken his post like a man waiting for the signal that calls him out of life, ready to go, needing neither an oath nor any man's testimony to youch for him. Be cheerful too, and don't look for help from outside, or for the peace that others can give you. A man must stand upright on his own—not be propped up.