I’ve been working my way through Marcus Aurelius’ “Meditations”, as translated and annotated by Robin Waterfield for the past several months. This activity has been an effort for me to find a stronger center during this second half of my life. I have received the daily emails from The Daily Stoic for a few years. When we lived in Chicago I studied the “Enchiridion” by Epictetus. Reading and thinking around these teachings have helped me find, grow, and solidify my moral foundation. Never stop trying to better yourself.
I never studied philosophy when I was in college; my two social sciences were sociology and psychology. Sociology was mildly interesting but I didn’t get into psychology as much as I thought I would. In some ways I wish we would have explored these topics in high school as I feel like these studies would have motivated me to be a better person earlier on. Since I was in my late 30s when I went to college the second time around, I already had a good idea of who I was and what I believed in. These studies just helped me find a deeper understanding of the subjects.
I should have studied philosophy. One of the things I’m always asking is “why”. I want to know why things happen, not just that they happened. This drives my husband a little crazy, because he’ll be telling me something about politics or that an acquaintance has done this or that and I’ll usually ask “why”?
I always want to know the why.
Non satis scire, which is Latin for “to know is not enough”.
Another bonus of reading is that it’s distracting me from the news and the social media conjecture around the news. Whether it’s Bluesky or Mastodon or Threads, there’s a lot of gnashing going on around the U.S. government, and rightfully so.
I don’t have the mental capacity to deal with any of that right now. I can’t help but think about how grounded my father was and it seemed like very little fazed him. I very much admired that about my dad and it’s a goal I still have on my personal growth list.
One small step at a time.
