Happy Birthday to the realist nigga ever, Marcus Aurelius

Happy Birthday to the realist nigga ever, Marcus Aurelius.

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classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.mb.txt
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bless

MACROMANNI GETOUT

REEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE

*marcvs avrelivs
to be truly kvlt

MARCVS AVRELIVS

He persecuted Christians

Fuck off with this "hurr Marcus Aurelius was such a great guy"

It was his duty, bitch.

Yeah, nah, it wasn't bro.

Christianity was just the communism of the day and look how many Christians have killed over the years

>wife was a scheming bitch who was probably responsible for the rebellion and death of Marcus' best general
>didn't kill his son
Decent general and ruler I guess but failed in his home life and his biggest issue. Empire would've been better under Pompeianus or Avidius Cassius just like it would've been better later under Clodius Albinus.

>lower cases
>Latin
MARCVS AVRELIVS

ftfy

Happy Birthday Marcus!

Marcus Aurelius single-handedly cured my depression and autism

Top lad

>read his diary
>bawww being kind is so hard
>bawww i wish i was sleeping on a meadow
>bawww this golden armor is too heavy
>bawww my feet hurt
>but i will bear this burden, because i must!
>i truly am a martyr for being king of the world
>my life sucks and only my mental stamina lets me survive being the most powerful man alive

What a crybaby.

>read a dude's private diary
>get suprised when the author considers themself always in the right and a hero
He never asked you to read it.

College student that never held a position of power and responsibility with the cut throat politics and pressures that come with it detected.

overrated bore

As it happened I interviewed people today, to replace a girl I fired, and she will probably have to quit university because of that.
I am no roman emperor, but I know responsibility. His diary reads like a crybaby.

You sound like a jobsworth cunt with a silver dildo up your shitter mate.

>"cured my depression and autism"
>still posting frogs

I've got some bad news for you, user.

Did you read it? I got the impression this was someone who lived in opulent splendor and could have behaved like Caligula yet took the time to give a shit about the world which he ruled and all the people in it.

Judging by this I see now you're probably projecting.

>Did you read it?
Obviously yes, else I wouldn't go out of my way to comment on it.
>I got the impression this was someone who lived in opulent splendor and could have behaved like Caligula yet took the time to give a shit about the world which he ruled and all the people in it.
And him writing what is essentially an elaborate whine despite living in splendor is what got me to dislike him. The text is mostly him going "well i don't really want to, bug i guess i will, if I must.... damn what a bore....".
>the rest
Insults aren't arguments.

>"Imperator Caesar Marcus Aurelius Antoninus Augustus is a pussy!"
>"I should know, I fired a girl from her job once"

So, you are a manager at McDonald's at an eastern European country?

Yeah I have difficultly reconciling his philosophy with his persecution of Christians.

Stoicism is like the complete opposite of non-autistic.

classical stoicism is in direct conflict with Christianity. later christians tried to reconcile god with stoicism.

Sure but you can still extract a lot of practical wisdom and techniques that will enhance your life nonetheless. This is pretty much what Albert Ellis did with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. CBT is now the state of the art therapy for depression and many other mental "illnesses".

Based.

Reading Mediations rn

meditations classics.mit.edu/Antoninus/meditations.mb.txt

meditations

That was the norm back then, familia. And last time I read Birley's biography of Marcus, there wasn't direct proof he persecuted Christians. I could be wrong tho. At the end of the day, I don't see a valid reason why a lot of you are so salty over him.
>And him writing what is essentially an elaborate whine despite living in splendor
He probably had a tumor/cancer for most of his life and was constantly sick. Not to mention that he didn't want to be emperor, but did so because it had to be done.

the audio book read by duncan steen is the best way to internalize it. its on youtube. i listen to it why drawing

He just maintained the status quo.

lol

while*

Post your copy

No need for a physical copy, senpai. The free versions online work just fine.

Finally a thread idolising someone I like and not someone that someone else likes and I do not like as much.

alright I'll keep it real

I love the guy,

I love the meditations and stoicism, it's like Buddhism without the poverty and isolation

but
1)He made fucking Commodus emperor
2)The war he is credited for winning was decided by fucking lucky lightning strike

>later christians tried to reconcile god with stoicism.

you mean later christians declared stoicism heresy and reverse persecuted them?

/pol/ always recommends it as a mandatory redpilled read, so I bought it. Are they correct? Is it a mandatory read, /pol/ or not?

summary of Medidations by M. Avrelivs:
[spoiler]if your happy and you know it clap your hands
[/spoiler]

it's racist garbage, you should only read ideologically correct books

in his defense, commodus didnt show his true cunt colors until after marcus died.

fucking kek

>I fired an employee, clearly I am tougher than a man who fought and won against the barbarian hordes invading his country!
Go ahead and judge his personal writings if you want, but remember that this Marcus never even wanted to be emperor. Yet he still took up the throne out of loyalty to his family and his people, rather than become a philosopher like he wanted. He managed an entire country for years and fought one of the bloodiest wars Rome had seen up to that point. Do not call him irresponsible, for he is anything but.

Why don't unhappy people just think about the things that make them happy?

>Why don't people realize that the things that make them unhappy don't necessarily have to affect their mental state?

Fixed

It was a jokey shitpost in reply to a jokey shitpost m8

it isn't necessarily a /pol/ thing besides just self-improvment

>if you aren't the emperor of Rome you can't critique a guy's personal diary whine being treated like gospel

Not an argument.

Go ahead and publish your own superior diary then m8

I don't think most people can offer valid criticisms of it, including myself, because it's nigh-impossible to empathize with an emperor of Rome, or even a devout/true Stoic. Neither you or I can possibly imagine what holding such a position would be like.

Esrly Christians were scientology tier. The Catholic Church only got great after Rome collapsed.

What is the best audiobook version of his work?

What a coincidence, I just read book eight of Meditations today without knowing about this lads name day. Ironic actually

>Do not disturb yourself by thinking of the whole of your life. Do not let your thoughts at once embrace all the various troubles that you may expect to befall you: bot on every occasion ask yourself What is there in this that is intolerable and past bearing? For you will be ashamed to confess.
>In the next place remember that neither the future nor the past pains you, bot only the present.

Good stuff. It's funny how this seems like common sense but I don't apply it at all without someone telling me to.

>be me earlier today
>be browsing /b/ and someone posts pic related to an absolutely abhorrent post
>reverse google image search b/c curious who this is
>caracalla
>read his wikipedia page
>wikipedia page mentions five good emperors
>link takes me to Marcus Aurelius
>suddenly reading Marcus Aurelius's entire Wikipedia page
>later in the day go to the library and check out Meditations translated by Hays
>go home
>start browsing Veeky Forums
>see this thread
Is this a sign? Holy shit. I had absolutely no idea that today was his birthday. What a fucking coincidence.

Just read Meditations in book form, its good.

How to into Marcus Aurelius?

Just read Meditation? What version?

Here's an interesting scholarly article on your "real nigga". He was apparently an opium addict.

jstor.org/stable/2707876?seq=1#fndtn-page_scan_tab_contents

yeah well Bill Evans is my real nigga too

The one read by Duncan Steen. It was free on YouTube up until recently. Meditations is best listened to imo.

I'm glad you found out about Marcus, user. His bday was on the 26th. I wish google would do a doodle of him not the 1000th woman engineer that made tampon out of a stick.

yes but didn't he have cancer/tumor? the dude was constantly in pain. and lets not judge great men by their vices. we can go all day calling out all the greats that were drunk/addicts. shit i remember reading Churchill ALWAYS being sauced. homeboy started the day drinking

/pol/ isn't entirely the insane stereotypical part of /pol/, and before it became such a meme "redpill" was a relatively centrist term for shedding societal delusion that leads to an unfulfilling life in reference to a scene in The Matrix.

But yeah it doesn't have much to do with modern /pol/, especially in terms of /pol/'s infamous shitposting. Since the logical outcome of it is moderation, it is obviously not something most unironic /pol/posters have actually read and taken to heart. But do many people ever read/listen to/watch the recommended media of whatever board they shitpost on?

I had no idea it was his birthday but started re-reading the meditations three days ago. It's a fun coincidence.

>they honoured the inventor of the theremin but not Aurelius
I mean the theremin is cool and the little web app they did was neat but still, not a huge contribution to society.

i say we all email google a few months before marcus' next birthday and kindly ask to have him featured. not that most people will care. it'd be nice to see him there tho. its funny tho, marcus wouldn't care if he was remembered or not. i will disagree with him slightly here.

if someone wouldn't have cared enough to have his private journals remembered, maybe stoicism wouldn't have survived as long as it did.

>Churchill
>Great

>shit i remember reading Churchill ALWAYS being sauced. homeboy started the day drinking
He drank a lot and started the day with a drink but there's a lot of exaggeration around that. His morning drink was a tiny smidge of whisky in a glass of water as a mouthwash, because that's what he got used to starting the day with when he was a soldier. The amount he drank also wasn't extraordinary, especially for a man of his size. He likely was not often "sauced," maybe "buzzed" most of the time.

you can critique anything, your critique however is simply projecting

all you've stated so far is that the meditations contains whining - it doesn't, it contains practical reminders for preserving equanimity and composure during conflict by following nature as an example.

What kind of meditations would you prefer "I'm a real tough guy, nothing bothers me, the end" or nothing at all? I for one am glad to have the very practical advice of a man who ruled over the greatest polity of all time during it's peak and one of it's most challenging periods (Antoine plague, civil war, barbarian wars, Parthian wars) and managed to keep it all together for 20 years.

and then there's you claiming that Marcus Aurelius is whining, saying that you're no stranger to difficult decisions because you fired a girl from her job once...

yeah that's what i meant. i posted at 2am but i was referring to the 26th.

holy shit... that's the will of the universe/the great power/God at work right there

welcome brother to the neo stoic philosophy group.
We have but 1 rule: don't be a dick

God damn it user that picture killed me. But yes welcome to stoicism. Fucking yes. There are a lot people that don't know about Marcus or stoicism.

While we're here, how do y'all control your libido? I know Marcus has a line in the meditations that the carnal act is just an expulsion of mucus but how the fuck can you just think that when there's so much thiccness walking around. I had a bout of hives a few months ago and I endured it with little to no complaint. Get anything above a 6 near me and I gotta at least try and get her number. Would soliciting a prostitute be unstoic? Lol

Orgasm does not require ejaculation, if you want to cultivate your masculine energy practice controlling your orgasms, the multi orgasmic man has some good practical exercises, gets a bit hippy dippy at parts but you can cherrypick up to your spiritual quota

>because it's nigh-impossible to empathize
>or even a devout/true Stoic.
why?

does he have a line on how to stop masturbating 5 times a day?

Here's what I think the stoic approach and line of thinking would be:

1)it's human nature to procreate - ergo lust is in your nature
2)since lust is apart of you, you crave it like thirst and hunger
3)there are 2 ways to satiate this desire: wife, prostitutes, masturbation
4)the first is adheres most to the law of nature ergo it is the best
5)the second doesn't adhere to the law of nature, and societal frowned upon in today's world
6)the third quenches your thirst and is socially accepted but gets you nothing but a satiation of that thirst
7)your experience of carnal lust is limited
8)with it you are driven to quench it, without it there is no drive. like a hungry man hunts or a thirsty man goes out to look for water
9)the best course of action then is to channel that desire into improving yourself to be able to quench it to adhere to the law
10) For to quench that thirst in any other way leaves you with less

edits/thoughts?

>9)the best course of action then is to channel that desire into improving yourself to be able to quench it to adhere to the law

Doesn't that make you a slave to your desires in that you only improve ourself to keep them satiated? As young men that's fine but what about when we get older and our libidos naturally decline? I've read about older men injecting testosterone to keep their libido up. Basically keeping the carrot up on the stick when you've had our fill of carrots. I think improving yourself for the sake of improving yourself is a better solution.

How does mastrubation not adhere to the laws of nature? Arguably using our own hands to achieve a desired state is the epitomy of human nature.

technically improving for the sake of improving so you can satiate your desires more. Like wanting to get more money so you can eat more food, or moving to a place with good access to drinking water. These aren't being a slave to our desires, it's more of modeling our life so that we can fulfill our desires better. Which I don't think is against stoicism, so long as we do it to the degree of satiation and no more. Of course lust is a different beast since we don't need it to live, but it is a natural mission to procreate and pass on our genes

>Arguably using our own hands to achieve a desired state is the epitomy of human nature

nature gave us those desires for a purpose: to have kids and to wife someone. To satisfy them through our hands is like saying drinking alcohol is better when your thirsty since it's made with human hands as oppose to water

>there are 2 ways to satiate this desire: wife, prostitutes, masturbation
There are two kinds of people in this world- Those who can count, those who cannot count and those who do not care to.

The reason drinking alcohol isn't better when you're thirsty is that it's a diuretic, nothing more.

I might not be in the best position to give advice on actually suppressing the libido as I've never really had a particularly strong one, but I don't think it matters as much as you're all making it out to. If you're hungry, eat; If you're thirsty, drink; If you're uncomfortable, remove the source of discomfort; If you're horny, masturbate in private, or find a reasonable and dignified source of sex (ie a spouse).

Not reaching orgasm periodically as a man heightens aggression, even on a subtle level that is difficult to control because it is difficult to spot without an observant second person (...like a wife, for instance) pointing it out. I don't think Aurelius or most stoic philosophers actually advocated making yourself suffer or endure suffering when there is an easy and harmless way to make yourself happy. The line about sex being "an expulsion of mucus" is not (so far as I can tell) saying how to negate the desire for it or trying to vilify the action, but rather saying to view it in a practical light while enjoying it so that you do not become prideful for possessing these things. He is not saying "do not enjoy good food, good wine, good clothing and good sex," let alone "don't choke the chicken," he is saying "do not begin to see these things as possessions of yourself that have innate worth." This is very practical advice, as, if you lose any of the above, you will be able to more easily remain content without them.

Of course if you think you'll gain something by just denying your urges and desires completely you shouldn't even need to ask how to control it. Just don't try to hit up attractive women when you see them, don't masturbate, don't fuck a prostitute and deny yourself those pleasures. All it takes to deny any desire is willpower. Have you ever fasted? I used to sometimes when I was younger to test my resolve. That's the closest I can think of that I can easily sympathise with.

>I bought it
>bought

not supporting the autho....oh wait

>not stealing a copy from the bookstore and then chucking the cash into the ocean and praying it finds its way to the author in tartarus

There's no way Google would celebrate a white person who didn't further a progressive cause. That'd be way too controversial. It's a nice idea, though.

I'm at the gym laughing my ass off and people are staring at me like I'm an idiot, thanks

Thank you both.

And the philosophy he followed was largely adopted by Christians.

go away merlin

you guys know a torrent for penguin's and oxford classics? no way I'm supporting editing jews
too bad everyone of them forgot it

>too bad everyone of them forgot it
Not exactly. It's naturally been warped over time as something that was incorporated into a larger and more convoluted system of belief but the fact that Christians are not all great people has more to do with human failings and the average person not even being all that devout (even if they're obnoxiously religious), and any sort of moral philosophy, especially ascetic ones, being very difficult for the average person to adhere to.

>too bad everyone of them forgot it

they didn't forget user. It just never happened.

Stoicfags always go on about how stoicism was such a big influence of the time and was a great inspiration/impact to Christianity, when the only loose connection Christianity has with stoicism is with early christians interacting and sharing ideas with them.... which it also did with quite literally every other philosophy at the time. Fucking Cannibalism had a bigger influence to Christianity than Stoicism.

Truth of the matter is - Stoicism was shit. It never caught on outside of a few would-bes and great people. It was seen as half assing cynicsm, or half assing hedonism, and Romans don't half ass stuff... The Greeks saw it for what it is and it never grew there.

this user gets it

You need to study more Christianity and Stoicsm, sir.

>early christians interacting and sharing ideas with them.... which it also did with quite literally every other philosophy at the time
correct

>Fucking Cannibalism had a bigger influence to Christianity than Stoicism
incorrect

if you're taking the eucharist to not only be a cannibalistic influence but to be a stronger influence on christianity than stoicism had you are either simply an idiot or an edgy teen atheist who will probably be really embarrassed in a few years about the shit you spew now.

>Truth of the matter is - Stoicism was shit.
>my opinion is fact
by definition it isn't

>It was seen as half assing cynicsm
it was high-effort cynicism. If cynicism hadn't come first it would be half-assed stoicism.

>Romans don't half ass stuff
meaningless rhetorical statement

>The Greeks saw it for what it is and it never grew there.
also incorrect

>if you're taking the eucharist to not only be a cannibalistic influence but to be a stronger influence on christianity than stoicism had you are either simply an idiot or an edgy teen atheist who will probably be really embarrassed in a few years about the shit you spew now.

Catholic actually, I don't deny the influence of the cannibalistic idea of consuming flesh to get it's power and if you're saying that's not from the cannibalistic ideas and practices of the time then how can you say the parts of divine will and nature are from stoicism. I'm assuming we're both adults, let's talk that way as oppose to memeing. No need to talk so hatefully

>my opinion is fact by definition it isn't
you cannot deny that it died and is practically a dead philosophy before 300 AD. Or much of a bad rap and false information was spread about them through historical records. No body liked them.

>If cynicism hadn't come first it would be half-assed stoicism
Except it did come first, ergo it's half assing cynicism

>The Greeks saw it for what it is and it never grew there.
so why exactly does 0 texts exist about greek stoicism?

>Truth of the matter is - Stoicism was shit.
>I'm assuming we're both adults, let's talk that way as oppose to memeing. No need to talk so hatefully
So you're pulling a complete 180 after being called out, go figure. "Whoa, whoa, only I get to act like a child and spew memes and vitriol, it's offlimits as soon as you do it, h-haha we're all adults here..."

You clearly chose "cannibalism" as the most taboo and least Christian thing you could think of a parallel to in Christian practices, and even then missed your mark. The eucharist comes from Judaic practices of blessing food and wine at celebrations before passing them around, combined with Jesus symbolically giving away his flesh and blood at the Last Supper as he knew he was to die. It is not a question of eating flesh and drinking blood to gain power, but of accepting the martyrdom of the son of God.

Even then, this is a minor ritual based on a single event near the end of Jesus's life, and is by no means a major Christian influence of the sort that Stoicism had on both Christian theology and Christian moral codes.

So you were wrong in attributing the eucharist to the assimilation of cannibalism, and you were wrong in attributing it value greater than the influence of Stoicism on Christianity.

>you cannot deny that it died and is practically. . .
That isn't what I quoted- I quoted you saying "the truth is stoicism is shit." This is an opinion that you hold along with the assertion that your opinion is "truth." The truth is that your entire argument is held up by asserting your opinion as fact and making blanket statements that I'm sure you'd back up with a no true Scotsman, while saying that Stoicism is a philosophy that died out seventeen centuries ago in a thread full of people identifying themselves as stoics in the modern day, on a slow board inhabited primarily by nihilists who are adverse to opposing ideologies.

>Except it did come first, ergo it's half assing cynicism
It's exactly statements like these that make me doubt we really ARE "both adults." It's a more developed and practical offshoot of cynicism. If you call anything that develops from something else, no matter how it improves on what came before, "half-assing," then I'm curious to know what you think of any modern philosophy, or technology for that matter. Are personal computers extremely half-assed hatchets to you? Is utilitarianism extremely half-assed shamanic spiritualism? In your eyes, do we now live in an incredibly diluted, weak and uninteresting world, where you pine for the intensely fulfilling days of tribal humanity where a man's only comforts were sticking a cock in his daughters and laying on an animal hide instead of the dirt, and one's daily activities were mostly limited to hunting with a stick and eating unseasoned, charred or raw food?

>so why exactly does 0 texts exist about greek stoicism?
Lost, like countless other philosophical texts. They still exist in part in the form of quotations in other works, or recreations by later Roman authors. Specifying "Greek" also contradicts what you said earlier:
>It was seen as half assing cynicsm, or half assing hedonism, and Romans don't half ass stuff...

Marcus Aurelius was an idiot, full stop. So are you.

If you find any meaning in his letters: stop, you are projecting the castration of your own hellish postmodern existence onto a Second Century human who had literally every reason to view himself as a demigod.

holy shit triggered much m8?

I made general statements, which can be discussed and retorted. you reply to them with 'incorrect' 'you're an idiot', ''you autistic edgy atheist'.... so really we can't even talk about those since there's nothing to talk about as you said so elegantly put it:
>my opinion is fact
by definition, it isn't

>So you were wrong in attributing the eucharist to the assimilation of cannibalism
Passover has nothing to do with consuming flesh. That was added by Christians, and no it's not anywhere in scripture that the host and wine is the LITERAL body and blood of Christ, but it became so through the that early Christianity phase of adding shit to the belief to make it more popular.

If you know your History of the Church, you know this is a rampant practice until the Nicean Creed where they decided to set the belief in stone and declared huge parts of it as heresy. Stoicism was declared heresy by the church ergo the works that integrated stoicism into Christianity were purged.


>That isn't what I quoted- I quoted you saying "the truth is stoicism is shit." This is an opinion that you hold along with the assertion that your opinion is "truth."

I said Stoicism WAS shit, not is. Historically it never got big, and historically it died out very fast. Both of which are facts.


> It's a more developed and practical offshoot of cynicism

If it developed from cynicism then sure, yea I'll say it improved on it. But Zeno going around various schools, putting together what he liked, and preaching it outside to steal students from other schools isn't exactly going through proper developing of Cynicism. I would think a proper development of Cynicism is if he attended Cynicism religiously, and proposed changes to the headmasters and were open to discussing it with them...

as it stands he went around and tried to steal students on his brand of stoicism, which can be summed up as cynicism without poverty