A Community of Excellence - Marcus and Me on Heroic Truth

The one concept from Marcus Aurelius' Meditations that is paramount for me is the idea to "Make haste to do that which is according to thy nature with Heroic Truth." Heroic Truth?

What makes truth heroic? Sometimes the truth can hurt. Sometimes it is hard, and cold, and abasing. But it is always real and it is always pure. Facing it can require heroic courage.

So, one must brutally assess yourself with the cold, hard, pure facts of the nature of your own activities.

But this then leads to something very powerful. Any assessment, especially brutal ones, must have some standard by which to judge against. What is the philosophy underlying my assessment? How do I judge the quality of my activities?

Do we use happiness? Am I happy with my results, efforts, priorities? But this supposes that only activities that are philosophically sound can promote happiness. We need something more. Something that manifests itself beyond the emotional dimension where happiness resides. Something that exists intellectually and spiritually as well as emotionally.

But what?

To look beyond happiness we need to separate those guilty pleasures, such as gambling, wanton drunkenness, that carry a level of guilt to the happiness: guilt - the spiritual reprobation.

The happiness must also be free of contradiction: contradiction - the intellectual reprobation. If the mind challenges the wisdom of the activity.

Or the fear of retribution for the activity: fear - the emotional reprobation.

So a process suggests itself. An ongoing assessment of each activity as it presents itself to anticipate what level of guilt, contradiction and/or fear will linger on the other side of the activity.

For in doing so, we give ourselves the opportunity to consider the heroic truth involved and then decide on our action.

Marcus - Nothing happens to any man which he is not formed by nature to bear. It is a shame that ignorance and conceit should be stronger than wisdom.
Note: Marcus' meditations are written on a 'next up' basis. I write my piece first then add his next meditation.