HEAD(hed), (n.) 1. the top part of the human body or the front part of an animal where the eyes, nose, east and mouth are. "Your brain is in your head." DIBS(dibz), (n.) 2. a thick, sweet syrup made in countries of the East, especially the Middle East, from grape juice or dates. [Arabic "debs"]--World Book Dictionary, 1976.
Starting chapter 10 exhausted. Need to take a break. The closer to the end I get, the steeper the climb, as it were. Just gets harder near the end. I’m having eye surgery consultation later this week. I’m thinking the eye strain is too much for this little pea brain. Everything jumbles together. But so excited this is happening!
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Highway Don't Care
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“You shouldn’t give circumstances the power to rouse anger, for they don’t care at all.” —Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 7.38
Ryan Holiday writes in "The Daily Stoic":
"Why bother getting mad at causes and forces far bigger than us? Why do we take these things personally? After all, external events are not sentient beings--they cannot respond to our shouts and cries . . .
. . . circumstances are incapable of considering or caring for your feelings, your anxiety or your excitement. They don't care about your reaction. They are not people. So stop acting like getting worked up is having an impact on a given situation. Situations don't care at all." (p. 63)
Meditating on this truth and on these questions, one remembers a song that came out a few years ago that contains this principle at it's very core. We need to be mindful of both circumstances and our reaction to them for (as the song expresses) a simple distraction might lead to a certain end. Don't be driven by desperation because the circumstance does not care. Don't let anger sit or dispair sit in your driver's seat.
Situations do not control us. Neither do people.
The source of any response is ourselves whether sad, mad or glad.
Agitated or exhilarated--it's all on us.
One probably wonders what I’m working on. As an Independent Scholar, as I am not attached to a University, I am writing a commentary on the first book of a personal journal written by a 2nd Century Roman Emperor. In that book he lists 16 names and describes what each person contributed to his life. That’s the short version. I’ve covered the first 8 so far and hit a wall. Now I’ve gone back and am editing Chapters 1-3 to keep my mojo going. Not sure when I’ll be done but hopefully by years’ end. I already have another project lined up.
I'm nearly finished reading Joan Didion's collection of essays, Slouching Towards Bethlehem. The book was discovered through another book I was reading, Jon Krakauer's Eiger Dreams . If Jon felt this book was good enough to pack along on a mountain climbing expedition, then I'm interested. Took me three tries, but I finally found my copy on Amazon. One of the best book buys I've made. Joan selected the title of this book from William Butler Yeats' classic poem, Second Coming . The book title is shared with one of her larger essays, a record of encounters with people in the 1960's drug culture. Didion's book is divided into three distinct parts: "Life Styles In The Golden Land," a collection of articles capturing the California experience of the 1960's; "Personals," a few of essays of the first-hand nature; and "Seven Places Of The Mind", some thoughts about those parts of California that are now long gone. One essay...
