One of my favorite books is Meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Aurelius is considered one of the three pillars of Stoic philosophy and his book, Meditations, is a war journal in which he wrote down his thoughts and ideas. I’m sure I will make posts directly from this wonderful book and get deep into Aurelius’ ideas at some point but the reason for this post is due to one of the messages I took from the overall concept of the text.
I need constant reminders. In Meditations, you see Aurelius essentially repeating a handful of topics over and over again. The reason for this is that the war journal was never meant for publication so, the texts were messages to himself, constantly reminding himself to be fair, to be a good person, to keep his emotions under control, to look at things from other peoples perspective, to understand that time is finite and soon he will be dead and this theme goes on. The theme of reminding himself how he should behave and what he should do.
I used to think there was a problem with my thought process when I didn’t understand something right away. I believed I was insufficient in some way and I probably am but through Meditation I saw that there was at least one other like myself, who too required reminders, who also forgets every now and then what matters and what to do and who uses his writing to keep his mind focused on the good.
I am sure I will repeat certain topics on here. That I will come close to writing the same blog more than once. But it is more so because my mind needs repetition and constant flow of similar thought to grow, change and adapt. I need to remember, be told more than once or twice, to read over and over and so, my writing also mimics this procedure. My writing also acts as a way to understand the same topic over a span of time. I also feel that most people work this way. That if you constantly jump from one thing to another, one topic to the next, you don’t fully grasp and understand that topic or idea.
In order to change you need time. With time you adapt. Also, one needs time to remember.
Learned Living 