One day, about 18 centuries ago, a man with the weight of the world on his shoulders wrote some notes to himself in a journal. What would a truly good life look like? How did he feel about death? Over several years, he would fill a dozen notebooks with thoughts on these and similar questions. The author of these journals never intended to publish a book. He gave it no title, no internal structure, and took no care to remove his many redundancies. But none of that mattered. He wrote for himself, and his only goal was self-improvement.
We now know these writings as Meditations, penned by Marcus Aurelius Antoninus, Stoic philosopher and Roman emperor of the second century CE. It is estimated that many millions of people have read his “private” philosophical journals by now and that several million people worldwide follow Stoic philosophy today.
What is it about Stoicism that Marcus found so important then, and that millions find relevant today? In the 12 fascinating lectures of Books That Matter: Meditations, professor Massimo Pigliucci explores the questions Marcus believed were crucial to address in a life of value, the answers he proposed, and the many ways in which you can use Stoic philosophy. While Meditations was originally written for an audience of just one, what Marcus wanted to examine certainly still applies to us today. What exactly should we be mindful of in this life? To act reasonably and with others in mind is the Stoic approach to a life worth living.
