Five ways the Soul harms itself - Lessons by Marcus Aurelius

Welcome back to The Everyday Stoic, I'm William Mulligan and today I'll be sharing with you some wisdom from Emperor Marcus Aurelius as he wrote down in his personal diary five ways in which the soul harms itself. Today's video is sponsored by TheEverydayStoic.com where you can now get the Memento Mori t-shirt which is just a reminder of your own mortality The help creates a sense of gratitude when you remember that one day your time will be up. I hope you enjoy today's video. So I'll begin this video by reading the five ways in which the soul harms itself and then I'll explain what each part means so you have a better understanding. I've studied this paragraph from the meditations by reading multiple translations of the book so I feel like I've got a good understanding and I can share that understanding with you. The soul of a man harms itself first and foremost when it becomes, as far as it can, a separate growth, a sort of tumour on the universe because to resent anything that happens is to separate oneself in revolt from nature which holds in collective embrace the particular natures of all things. Secondly, when it turns away from another human being or is even carried so far in opposition as to intend him harm such is the case in the souls of those gripped by anger. A soul harms itself thirdly when it gives into pleasure or pain. Fourthly, whenever it dissimulates doing or saying anything feigned or false. And fifthly, whenever it fails to direct any of its own actions or impulses to a goal but acts at random without conscious attention whereas even the most trivial action should be undertaken in reference to the end. And the end for rational creatures is to follow the reason and the rule of that most venerable archetype of governing state, the universe. I really like this writing from Marcus Aurelius. He wrote this down for himself as he ruled over Rome and the daily struggles he went through. He wrote down these five ways in which the soul harms itself as a guide to help him from harming his own soul and in turn harming others. So I'll explain which each section means so you get a better understanding. Firstly, when it becomes a separate growth or a sort of because to resent anything that happens is to separate oneself in revolt from nature. So the Stoics believed in this cosmic nature, the logos of the universe, that we are all involved in this universe and we all follow the same nature. So we all are in this thing together. So to harm yourself is to harm someone else and to harm someone else is to harm yourself. So the first way in which the soul harms itself is when it becomes, as far as it can, a separate growth, a sort of tumour on the universe, because to resent anything that happens is to separate oneself in revolt from nature, which holds in collective embrace the particular natures of all things. So what Aurelius is saying here is that when you separate yourself from nature and the nature is the logos or the way in which the universe works, which can be compared to God, it's the governing rule of the whole universe, which doesn't just involve yourself, it involves everyone around you. So to harm someone else is to harm nature, in turn harm yourself. And to harm yourself, to do bad things to yourself, is to harm others because we're all in this universe together, which I like to compare to a community. So to harm the community is to harm everyone inside the community. And I like the imagery he uses that if you separate yourself from nature, you become a bad person and you harm others, you become a sort of tumour on the universe. It's a growth that needs to kind of be cut off and to cut off that growth is to fix your bad ways and to become a good person. The second way in which the soul harms itself is when it turns away from another human being or is even carried so far in opposition as to intending harm. Such is the case in the souls that are gripped by anger. It's very similar to the first way, but it has a little more focus on anger. So it's just saying that you harm yourself by being angry because you not only do harm to others, which may be intentional or unintentional, but you also do harm to yourself by being angry. So the second way in which the soul harms itself is through anger. So the third way in which the soul harms itself is when it gives into pleasure or pain, which I actually like the translation from the Gregory Hayes book. It says here when it is overpowered by pleasure or pain, which I think is a better way to describe what Marcus Aurelius is trying to portray here. And to be overpowered by pleasure or pain is to either give into impulses, which may lead to addictions and bad ways, bad habits. And to give into pain is to moan about the pains that we are given in life, which is the opposite of amor fati. So amor fati is to love one's fate. To give into pain and moan about your pain is to not love your fate because this is the fate you have given, so you have to try to love it. And that's not to say that you can't feel these things. Pain is only natural, but to add to this pain by moaning every day and complaining about this pain whilst doing nothing only increases the pain and it does no good to help. So the fourth way in which the soul harms itself is whenever it dissimulates doing or saying anything feigned or false, which I also like the other translation from the Gregory Hayes version of the book, is when it puts on a mask and does or says anything artificial or false. And Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics believed in truth. There is no harm in the truth and the truth is God. So this way in which the soul harms itself is basically just lying, lying to yourself, lying to others in ways where you're not portraying your own truth. And the fifth way in which the soul harms itself is whenever it fails to direct any of its own actions or impulses to a goal, it acts at random without conscious attention, whereas even the most trivial action should be undertaken in reference to the end. And the end for rational creatures is to follow the reason and the rule of the most venerable archetype of a governing state, the universe. Simply put, this is just saying that every action you take must have a focus, it must have an intention, it must have a goal that you are directing your actions towards so you're not wandering through life aimlessly. And the point of keeping the end of the universe in mind is the whole point of memento mori is to remember that each day could be your last and that you will die one day. So when you take these actions just remember that this could be the last thing you leave, this could be your legacy. So there needs to be a powerful intention with every action that you take and there needs to be a direction with every action you take. I hope you learned something from these five ways in which the soul harms itself and if you keep reading this and you keep listening maybe to my explanation of five ways in which the soul harms itself, you'll stop harming yourself and that's precisely what Aurelius did. He wrote this down, he would read it daily and he learned not to harm your own soul because to harm your own soul is to harm other people's soul and it's to harm the nature of the universe. So thank you for watching. If you'd like to support what I'm doing then please consider becoming a YouTube member. Please consider subscribing or heading over to my website theeverydaysteak.com where you can get the memento mori t-shirt which is just a reminder of your own mortality. Please consider heading over to Instagram where you can join in on the Stoic discussion. I post daily quotes, affirmations, sometimes Stoic memes and Stoic wisdom and I do regular Q&A's which a lot of people seem to like and I get asked some very amazing and creative questions. So thank you for watching and have a great day.