Even though he ruled Rome nearly 2,000 years ago, Marcus Aurelius made news recently in – of all places – the National Football League, when Patriots player Deatrich Wise Jr. quoted the ancient emperor-philosopher during a press conference.
The aptly-named Wise invoked sagacity from the Roman leader’s diary-like “Meditations,” musings to himself on morals and self-improvement that many even today find useful as guides to life.
Talking about challenges the Patriots face, Wise noted it was Marcus Aurelius who said, “Whatever is in the way becomes the way.“
The emperor’s enigmatic statement is generally believed to mean that overcoming adversity opens pathways to personal betterment.
The gridiron is an unlikely place to run across those historical meditations, but now that Wise has raised the subject, and with Election Day approaching, it’s easy to see wider contemporary applications for them.
This is especially so (speaking of emperors) because power-hungry Donald J. Trump has already told us that if he wins the oval office, he plans to be a dictator on Day One.
While history is just a rumor to the former president, he might glean from “Meditations” some qualities that gave Marcus Aurelius a respectable reputation, as emperors go.
Here are a few examples for Trump to bear in mind:
– “If it is not right, do not do it; if it is not true, do not say it.
– “Whenever you are about to find fault with someone, ask yourself the following question: What fault of mine most nearly resembles the one I am about to criticize?”
– “It isn’t manly to be enraged. Rather, gentleness and civility are more human, and therefore manlier. The nearer a man comes to a calm mind, the closer he is to strength.”
– “Reject your sense of injury and the injury itself disappears.“
– “The best revenge is to be unlike him who performed the injury.“
— “The truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance.”
– “Keep in mind that ‘sanity’ means understanding things – each individual thing – for what they are. And not losing the thread.“
– “How much more grievous are the consequences of anger than the causes of it.”
— “Keep a list before your mind of those who burned with anger and resentment about something … Then ask yourself, how did that work out? Smoke and dust, the stuff of simple myth trying to be legend.“
– “We were born to work together, like feet, hands, and eyes… To obstruct each other is unnatural. To feel anger at someone, to turn your back on him: These are unnatural.”
As for Trump’s constant barrage of insults and judgments, if the two ever met face-to-face, it’s easy to imagine what Marcus Aurelius would repeat to him from “Meditations:”
— “Waste no more time arguing about what a good man should be. Be one.”
Gerry Goldstein (gerryg76@verizon.net), a frequent contributor, is a retired Providence Journal, editor and columnist.
