There is reading and then there is researching. When you find a book that you really like, you owe it to yourself to do the research.

Tucker explained much better than I can. He said “ideas have consequences” and we have to look at the person that birthed and embodied the book. Just looking at the ideas themselves isn’t enough, you have to look at what those ideas have done. It’s not always the case, but still–it’s short sighted to act as though the author exists in a vacuum where they can separate their ideas and their personal lives.

The easiest way to combat this is to find the work’s place in history and then explore both backwards and forwards. This is something I have done for a while. After I read Seneca, I kept wrestling with the idea that he may have been an enormous hypocrite. So I started with Wikipedia. There wasn’t much there. Then I went on JSTOR and found a paper called “Seneca on Trial: The Case of the Opulent Stoic” that gave a lot of perspective. (Basically, our notion of his hypocrisy can be traced backed to a single begrudged person) Then I talked about it with Robert Greene and he told me what he knew–his personal history of the work. From there, I got to The Annals by Tacitus which spends a ton of time dissecting Nero and the influence of Seneca. Now, I feel like I can make some conclusions.

If you want to try it with Marcus Aurelius, you should read some of these:

The Opium Addiction of Marcus Aurelius

The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire Volume I, Chapters III to IV (which cover Marcus and Commodus)

Marcus Aurelius by Mathew Arnold

On Liberty – John Stuart Mill (mentioned briefly but significantly in the middle of the essay)

The Inner Citadel by Pierre Hadot

The introduction and the last two chapters are crucial to understanding Marcus. The concept of an “inner citadel” was a brilliant metaphor for Marcus’ philosophy. Hadot says that Marcus worked to create a core that fate, hysterics, vice and outside influences could never penetrate. And that he wrote to himself to strengthen the walls. . He warns against the psychological historianism–the idea that we can judge Marcus as a person solely through his work is false. There is no way it embodies all of him, just like this site is only a small part of me. So we have to go deeper, at his rule, his letters, what he strove for. (This is essentially what I am saying here) Hadot is also critical, he examines the passages where Marcus literally begs for death, why he surrounded himself with such awful people, and so on.

The History of the Origins of Christianity Vol. 5 & 6. (I haven’t read these yet but I plan to. Renan is quoted throughout The Inner Citadel and I liked what he had to say)

I am going to start doing this with all my books. It coincides with a project Tucker and I are working on to make sense of his library (with my paltry contribution). If anyone has read deeper on anything I’ve put into my book list, it’d be great if you could email them to me. I am trying to find some way to organize the casual chain of books…

If you’ve read Pressfield’s Virtues of War, you might be familiar with the concept of a daimon. Although the Stoics often called it by a different name, they believed in it too. It’s the idea that we have an inner spirit–a destiny inside us–that pulls and powers us. When you look at accomplished people you see a drive that made the success inevitable. I feel that urge. It is insatiable. That’s why I read so much, always feel like I’m stagnating, it’s the vague notion that I must be heading in the right direction at all times. For the people that’ve asked: that is why I work so hard.

But here’s the thing, I think. A lot of people have that. Maybe even most people. No one “aims” to end up part of a massive shell game, deluding themselves and others. At some point, they broke. When you get to Hollywood you see that most people don’t do anything. I don’t mean that they don’t work hard but that their job literally has no purpose. Again, not in the metaphorical sense–it does not need to exist. They don’t even know HOW to do anything. No wonder they’re unmotivated and lazy. Somewhere, something went wrong.

For me, it’s all about protecting that daimon. I’m absolutely paranoid about it. Were I to lose it, it’d be over. At 20, no less. Your daimon is sort of like your inner-child. Your purity. Your passion. Your clearheadness. The ability to look at problems and solve them instead of accepting them. The drive for a calling over a career. But it is in a constant state of temptation. And when it goes away it doesn’t come back. You make bargains like “80 hours a week for the next 50 years” and “yeah, I’ll sell a product I know is worthless.” Then you’re fucked.

By the time most people have made it through school, they’re gone. 8 years in intellectual prison breaks quite a few spirits. Each year after that, the world weeds us out. Cognitive Dissonance takes care of the ignorance. In preparing for this radically shifting marketplace, I think the single most important thing you can do is to protect that daimon. To prevent and resist breaking.

Here is the quote I try to use:

“Never regard something as doing you good if it makes you betray a trust, lose your sense of shame, or makes you show suspicion, ill will, or hypocrisy, or a desire for things done behind closed doors.” – Marcus Aurelius

I feel guilty. A lot. Like, in place of emotion. I get a pit in my stomach sort of like the butterflies before you get up in front of a crowd or on the first day of something new. It’s a sinking feeling, a deep and churning anxiety. I have no idea why.

I’m reading Tacitus on Robert’s recommendation. All I can feel for Tiberius is pity. His father forced him to divorce a woman he loved to consolidate power. He married Julia who cheated on him so often and so flagrantly that he exiled her to Rhodes in poverty just to stop it. Augustus banned him from ever seeing his first wife because he’d break down and weep whenever he saw her. And he was so miserable that he left Rome to rule itself. Heath Ledger fucking killed himself.

Some people are ok with distractions. You can tell yourself that you get high because it’s fun–by all means, maybe it is–but you still can’t escape that reckoning. If you’re like me, you want to address it now. Before it gets bad, before you wake up one day and have no idea what you’re doing. You’ll never be able to outrun the things you try so hard to outrun. They will always be right there, growing as you ignore them. No one wants to be that guy, but somehow, so many people are.

Whatever success you’re after, keep in mind that someone has already had it, hated it and deluded themselves into thinking that just a little more would solve their problems. Me, I’ve got to figure this guilt thing out. Tiberius should have realized that a lot of other people would have gladly traded with him, had he the courage not to waste his life. You–who knows. Ultimate, this is going to be way more important than how many books you read, how magnificent an emperor you become, how close you come to achieving the things you set out to do or how great a person you end up with. Because without that, the rest is worthless.