How does your ruling reason manage itself? For in that is the key to everything. Whatever else remains, be it in the power of your choice or not, is but a corpse and smoke.”
(Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 12.23)
There’s a bit of ourselves that we usually hold in reserve, used so we can keep an eye on our internal processes, and employed to guide us to choices rooted in virtue. It’s that bit of ourselves constantly counseling (hopefully) into healthy decisions for ourselves and others.
Roman satirist, Juvenal, is known for his question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Literally, “Who will guard the guards, themselves?” (Satire VI, lines 347–348) In other words, perhaps, an oversight unit… like internal affairs is to police departments. For the sake of this month’s awareness practice, consider: what are we using as oversight unto ourselves?
I’ve been thinking about: who or what is keeping that little bit of ourselves in check? Maybe the answer is hope. A belief that we can wrestle with our egos, and from a higher position, emerge victorious. Wrestlers will all tell us that the key to victory is not in hoping, but in practicing.
But even in our practice, what’s the guiding force behind its “ruling reason”? What’s the root, of the root, of the root of our practice?
Always a deeper cause, there is. Causes that cause the causes. On and on.
(See y’all tomorrow)
Roman satirist, Juvenal, is known for his question: Quis custodiet ipsos custodes? Literally, “Who will guard the guards, themselves?” (Satire VI, lines 347–348) In other words, perhaps, an oversight unit… like internal affairs is to police departments. For the sake of this month’s awareness practice, consider: what are we using as oversight unto ourselves?
I’ve been thinking about: who or what is keeping that little bit of ourselves in check? Maybe the answer is hope. A belief that we can wrestle with our egos, and from a higher position, emerge victorious. Wrestlers will all tell us that the key to victory is not in hoping, but in practicing.
But even in our practice, what’s the guiding force behind its “ruling reason”? What’s the root, of the root, of the root of our practice?
Always a deeper cause, there is. Causes that cause the causes. On and on.
(See y’all tomorrow)
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