Meditations is particularly interesting because it’s clearly just Marcus Aurelius’s diary that was doubtfully ever meant to see the light of day.
He spends a fair amount of it repeating mantras to himself over and over again, or even arguing with himself in stream-of-consciousness.
It’s Marcus Aurelius giving himself a written pep talk. He struggles to uphold those stoicism ideals his whole life, failing constantly ant it, and Meditations is an artifact of it.
There's also an awful lot of really boring and silly Stoic physics and metaphysics in there, which topics for some reason people who love the book rarely bring up, LOL.
He spends a fair amount of it repeating mantras to himself over and over again, or even arguing with himself in stream-of-consciousness.
It’s Marcus Aurelius giving himself a written pep talk. He struggles to uphold those stoicism ideals his whole life, failing constantly ant it, and Meditations is an artifact of it.