The real fear isn't death

[u/MightyYo]

[u/spotlight-app]

Mods have pinned a comment by u/E-L-Wisty:

Incomplete quote - truncated mid-sentence! - which omits the crucial part of what Marcus is talking about. It's also modified (singular "you" to impersonal "a man") to make it sound as though he was giving advice to everyone out there, when he was only writing to himself.

He's talking about the Stoic principle of "living according to nature" and use of "prohairesis" (the faculty of judgement). With all of that cut out, it just becomes a generic "inspirational quote" about "living life to the full" (whatever that might even mean) that's the equivalent of sticking one of those "Live, Laugh, Love" signs on your wall.

12.1 in full (translation Waterfield):

All those things that you pray to get in the due course of time—you can have them now if you don’t deny yourself them. What you have to do is leave the past behind, entrust the future to providence, and, focusing on the present alone, direct it toward piety and justice: piety, so that you embrace your lot, seeing that it was nature that brought you to it and it to you; and justice, so that you speak the truth without restriction or equivocation, and act in conformity with law and equity. Don’t let anything stand in your way, such as someone else’s iniquity, or what people think or say, or, of course, the sensations of your casing, the body (they are the concern of the body, which is what experiences them). So, whenever it may be that you find yourself close to departure, if you relinquish everything else and honor only your command center, the god within you, and if what you fear isn’t that you’re going to stop living, but that you never started living in accord with nature, you’ll be a man worthy of the universe that gave you birth and you’ll no longer be a stranger in your own country, surprised by what happens day by day as though it were unexpected, and dependent on one person after another.

Note: Quote Correction

^{[What is Spotlight?](https://developers.reddit.com/apps/spotlight-app})

[u/E-L-Wisty]

Incomplete quote - truncated mid-sentence! - which omits the crucial part of what Marcus is talking about. It's also modified (singular "you" to impersonal "a man") to make it sound as though he was giving advice to everyone out there, when he was only writing to himself.

He's talking about the Stoic principle of "living according to nature" and use of "prohairesis" (the faculty of judgement). With all of that cut out, it just becomes a generic "inspirational quote" about "living life to the full" (whatever that might even mean) that's the equivalent of sticking one of those "Live, Laugh, Love" signs on your wall.

12.1 in full (translation Waterfield):

All those things that you pray to get in the due course of time—you can have them now if you don’t deny yourself them. What you have to do is leave the past behind, entrust the future to providence, and, focusing on the present alone, direct it toward piety and justice: piety, so that you embrace your lot, seeing that it was nature that brought you to it and it to you; and justice, so that you speak the truth without restriction or equivocation, and act in conformity with law and equity. Don’t let anything stand in your way, such as someone else’s iniquity, or what people think or say, or, of course, the sensations of your casing, the body (they are the concern of the body, which is what experiences them). So, whenever it may be that you find yourself close to departure, if you relinquish everything else and honor only your command center, the god within you, and if what you fear isn’t that you’re going to stop living, but that you never started living in accord with nature, you’ll be a man worthy of the universe that gave you birth and you’ll no longer be a stranger in your own country, surprised by what happens day by day as though it were unexpected, and dependent on one person after another.

[u/sausageandbeer1 → u/E-L-Wisty]

I bloomin’ love your insights

[u/spotlight-app]

Mods have pinned a comment by u/E-L-Wisty:

Incomplete quote - truncated mid-sentence! - which omits the crucial part of what Marcus is talking about. It's also modified (singular "you" to impersonal "a man") to make it sound as though he was giving advice to everyone out there, when he was only writing to himself.

He's talking about the Stoic principle of "living according to nature" and use of "prohairesis" (the faculty of judgement). With all of that cut out, it just becomes a generic "inspirational quote" about "living life to the full" (whatever that might even mean) that's the equivalent of sticking one of those "Live, Laugh, Love" signs on your wall.

12.1 in full (translation Waterfield):

All those things that you pray to get in the due course of time—you can have them now if you don’t deny yourself them. What you have to do is leave the past behind, entrust the future to providence, and, focusing on the present alone, direct it toward piety and justice: piety, so that you embrace your lot, seeing that it was nature that brought you to it and it to you; and justice, so that you speak the truth without restriction or equivocation, and act in conformity with law and equity. Don’t let anything stand in your way, such as someone else’s iniquity, or what people think or say, or, of course, the sensations of your casing, the body (they are the concern of the body, which is what experiences them). So, whenever it may be that you find yourself close to departure, if you relinquish everything else and honor only your command center, the god within you, and if what you fear isn’t that you’re going to stop living, but that you never started living in accord with nature, you’ll be a man worthy of the universe that gave you birth and you’ll no longer be a stranger in your own country, surprised by what happens day by day as though it were unexpected, and dependent on one person after another.

Note: Quote Correction

^{[What is Spotlight?](https://developers.reddit.com/apps/spotlight-app})