Contemptuous Expressions Pt 2

And here, I feel like this better says what I’ve been trying to get at for a long time:

“Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig. Perceptions like that—latching on onto thing and piercing through them, so we see what they really are. That’s what we need to do all the timeall through our lives when things lay claim to our trustto lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them.” Marcus Aurelius, Meditations VI.13″

I tried here, here, here, here, here, here, here and so many times when I needed to convince myself that it wasn’t all that it appeared. That was some reason, no matter how deep the draw was, to not be like that, to not give in. What I like about finding this again is that its kind of the opposite of that feeling that Emerson talked about when he said that in the genius of others we’ll see our own rejected thoughts with an alienated majesty. This wasn’t discovering that someone else had said what I have struggled to say or never was able to say. This was finding the source that put me down the path the begin with. This is the origin of that nascent thought. And it’s replenishing to return to it.

Written by Ryan Holiday
Ryan Holiday is the bestselling author of Trust Me, I’m Lying, The Obstacle Is The Way, Ego Is The Enemy, and other books about marketing, culture, and the human condition. His work has been translated into thirty languages and has appeared everywhere from the Columbia Journalism Review to Fast Company. His company, Brass Check, has advised companies such as Google, TASER, and Complex, as well as Grammy Award winning musicians and some of the biggest authors in the world. He lives in Austin, Texas.