It would depend on the translation, and what you understood him to be doing. One of the ones I read recently was incredibly bastardized to seem more stoical, completely removing in cases his own asides.
These are diaries he wanted burned -- they were just exercises in writing for himself to clam himself down. He is writing to himself.
Go back and read a few sections and ask: "what happened to Marcus on this evening for him to go to his study and rebuke himself with this lesson?"
There's clearly a lot of bitterness there, and depression.
Are you ever going to achieve goodness? Ever going to be simple, whole, and naked—as plain to see as the body that contains you? Know what an affectionate and loving disposition would feel like? Ever be fulfilled, ever stop desiring—lusting and longing for people and things to enjoy? Or for more time to enjoy them? Or for some other place or country—“a more temperate clime”? Or for people easier to get along with? And instead be satisfied with what you have, and accept the present—all of it. And convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods, ....
I mean this is a deeply mournful person with an excess of self-admonishment.
Why is he, somewhere alone in his room, writing these thoughts to himself? Why does he go on and on to admonish his failure to "Know what an affectionate and loving disposition would feel like" ?
Whatever the cause that evening, he's in great pain with it. He sees his life as a failure. Its harder to tell the inciding incident in this particular passage -- but for some, its clearly been some betrayl or insult or similar which makes him rail against people.
----
Consider, just a little ways down:
> # 10.13 When you wake up, ask yourself:
Does it make any difference to you if other people blame you for doing what’s right?
It makes no difference.
Have you forgotten what the people who are so vociferous in praise or blame of others are like as they sleep and eat?
Forgotten their behavior, their fears, their desires, their thefts and depredations—not physical ones, but those committed by what should be highest in them? What creates, when it chooses, loyalty, humility, truth, order, well-being.
------
Reading this I say to myself, "OK. Marcus, dear me. What cross are you matrying yourself on this time? What gossip has upset you this evening. Why now, each morning, do you have to remember that you're above the gossiping crowds "
All this suppression of the particular by talking about the abstract is all very telling. No one rants like this in their diaries without a provocation, he's too self-righteously high-minded to do anything other than rail against all humanity. A normal person would air their particular grievances -- and be much better for it.
I'm rewatching House MD. at the moment, it's very housian in its own way. Its not that he has been lied to, its that Lying is the Metaphyiscal Necessity of Life, and o woe is me, what suffering! Etc. All just a cheap misdirection for being hurt by someone.
I disagree with your characterization of these passages. These seem like questions a person reflects on, not self admonishment. For instance:
> > Are you ever going to achieve goodness? Ever going to be simple, whole, and naked—as plain to see as the body that contains you? Know what an affectionate and loving disposition would feel like? Ever be fulfilled, ever stop desiring—lusting and longing for people and things to enjoy? Or for more time to enjoy them? Or for some other place or country—“a more temperate clime”? Or for people easier to get along with? And instead be satisfied with what you have, and accept the present—all of it. And convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods, ....
> I mean this is a deeply mournful person with an excess of self-admonishment.
To me this is just a person that's reflecting on how the state he desires is somewhat unobtainable. You could read it as admonishment if you really want to, but to me it's more noting that he has a goal he'll never obtain. It's a lot like buddhists reflecting on nirvana.
I think you're being unfair because these are translations, and a different culture. What he's writing doesn't particularly seem casual, but it doesn't reflect a person in deep despair as you seem to think. And even if he was like that inwardly, his outward actions were generally well regarded, so it's not like what he was doing was terrible. I just don't see how any of this reflects badly on stoicism or Marcus.
No offense, but given how you originally confused him for Mark Antony, I get the impression you're just trying to find any evidence that would characterize him in the way you want him to be characterized. I just don't think your summary of his personality really matches who the man actually was. He wasn't a tyrant, or someone deeply depressed. He was depressed occasionally, because he was human. And he probably had more downer entries than a normal person, because as an emperor he frequently had to make life and death decisions. I think he reflects a pretty healthy psyche.
The view that Aurelius was depressed is very widespread. I've read the whole meditations, in several translations, and parts in the original. I've translated part of the original in anger at what deceitful translations are being put out today, which delete half of what he says to make him sound more stoical.
Go read more of it. I just chose two parts at random to narrate my thinking in reading these passages again to provide some background here. I'm obviously not making my case on these quotes.
> It's a lot like buddhists reflecting on nirvana.
This is how its bastardized, but that's not there in the text. This is the emperor of rome, at the end of his life, in a state of depression writing a journal to himself. He's an old tyrant, a self-confessed self-righteous "schoolmaster" who goes around admonishing people, including himself.
He's not writing religious literature; this is not scripture -- he isnt starting or continuning a religion or a philosophy. He wanted the whole thing burned. This is a ahistorical cultish reinterpretation to fit an agenda.
Listen to the man himself (2 mins of scrolling through):
NB. Recall you means the man himself. He is talking to himself. This is not a published work of philosophy, there is no audience. He's admonishing himself.
------
# 8.1 Another encouragement to humility: you can’t claim to have lived your life as a philosopher—not even your whole adulthood. You can see for yourself how far you are from philosophy. And so can many others. You’re tainted. It’s not so easy now—to have a reputation as a philosopher. And your position is an obstacle as well.
-----
# 8.9 Don’t be overheard complaining about life at court. Not even to yourself.
----
# 8.21 Turn it inside out: What is it like? What is it like old? Or sick? Or selling itself on the streets?
They all die soon—praiser and praised, rememberer and remembered. Remembered in these parts or in a corner of them. Even there they don’t all agree with each other (or even with themselves).
And the whole earth a mere point in space.
----
# 8.53 You want praise from people who kick themselves every fifteen minutes, the approval of people who despise themselves. (Is it a sign of self-respect to regret nearly everything you do?)
----
# 9.33 All that you see will soon have vanished, and those who see it vanish will vanish themselves, and the ones who reached old age have no advantage over the untimely dead.
----
# 9.3
Or perhaps you need some tidy aphorism to tuck away in the back of your mind. Well, consider two things that should reconcile you to death: the nature of the things you’ll leave behind you, and the kind of people you’ll no longer be mixed up with. There’s no need to feel resentment toward them—in fact, you should look out for their well-being, and be gentle with them—but keep in mind that everything you believe is meaningless to those you leave behind. Because that’s all that could restrain us (if anything could)—the only thing that could make us want to stay here: the chance to live with those who share our vision. But now? Look how tiring it is—this cacophony we live in. Enough to make you say to death, “Come quickly. Before I start to forget myself, like them.”
---
----
# 10.3 Everything that happens is either endurable or not.
If it’s endurable, then endure it. Stop complaining.
If it’s unendurable … then stop complaining. Your destruction will mean its end as well.
---
I know the man well enough. The idea that he's there a monk writing scripture is an absurdity. Just read what he says to himself. These are his private thoughts, he writes out to himself.
In 9.3 there he basically says, "i'll be glad to be dead and rid of these degenerates" ginned up with his usual self-righteousness -- an emperor of rome indeed.
They are phrased by his teachings as a child, by professional stoic philosophers. These were the manners and habits of thinking he was taught. And he here rehearses them alongside a vast amount of bitterness, and disappointment.
These are diaries he wanted burned -- they were just exercises in writing for himself to clam himself down. He is writing to himself.
Go back and read a few sections and ask: "what happened to Marcus on this evening for him to go to his study and rebuke himself with this lesson?"
There's clearly a lot of bitterness there, and depression.
Opening a translation at random, to a random book: https://vreeman.com/meditations/#book10
> # 10.1 To my soul:
Are you ever going to achieve goodness? Ever going to be simple, whole, and naked—as plain to see as the body that contains you? Know what an affectionate and loving disposition would feel like? Ever be fulfilled, ever stop desiring—lusting and longing for people and things to enjoy? Or for more time to enjoy them? Or for some other place or country—“a more temperate clime”? Or for people easier to get along with? And instead be satisfied with what you have, and accept the present—all of it. And convince yourself that everything is the gift of the gods, ....
I mean this is a deeply mournful person with an excess of self-admonishment.
Why is he, somewhere alone in his room, writing these thoughts to himself? Why does he go on and on to admonish his failure to "Know what an affectionate and loving disposition would feel like" ?
Whatever the cause that evening, he's in great pain with it. He sees his life as a failure. Its harder to tell the inciding incident in this particular passage -- but for some, its clearly been some betrayl or insult or similar which makes him rail against people.
----
Consider, just a little ways down:
> # 10.13 When you wake up, ask yourself:
Does it make any difference to you if other people blame you for doing what’s right?
It makes no difference.
Have you forgotten what the people who are so vociferous in praise or blame of others are like as they sleep and eat?
Forgotten their behavior, their fears, their desires, their thefts and depredations—not physical ones, but those committed by what should be highest in them? What creates, when it chooses, loyalty, humility, truth, order, well-being.
------
Reading this I say to myself, "OK. Marcus, dear me. What cross are you matrying yourself on this time? What gossip has upset you this evening. Why now, each morning, do you have to remember that you're above the gossiping crowds "
All this suppression of the particular by talking about the abstract is all very telling. No one rants like this in their diaries without a provocation, he's too self-righteously high-minded to do anything other than rail against all humanity. A normal person would air their particular grievances -- and be much better for it.
I'm rewatching House MD. at the moment, it's very housian in its own way. Its not that he has been lied to, its that Lying is the Metaphyiscal Necessity of Life, and o woe is me, what suffering! Etc. All just a cheap misdirection for being hurt by someone.