Marcus Aurelius says, in the fifth book, part VIII, of Meditations, that the universe is locked into a series of causes and effects, such that the negative things that happen to one are, as it were, preordained and prescribed by the fates, and a harmonious part of the whole. To accept them readily is a way to preserve & promote that harmony.
How could one ever know whether we're bound into a system of causation or whether independent randomness exists in the world? But one thing is clear: Both present circumstances beyond our control, and a couple of ways of achieving happiness and to avoid the dual traps of high expectations and low expectations are to accept things as they come and to wish that things be exactly as they are.
No comments:
Post a Comment