"That cucumber is bitter, so toss it out! There are thorns on the path, then keep away! Enough said. Why ponder the existence of nuisance? Such thinking would make you a laughing-stock to the true student of Nature, just as a carpenter or cobbler would laugh if you pointed out the sawdust and chips on the floors of their shops. Yet while those shopkeepers have dustbins for disposal, Nature has no need of them."-MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 8.50
("저 오이는 씁니다. 그러니 버리십시오! 길에 가시가 있다면, 멀리하십시오! 충분히 말했습니다. 왜 귀찮음의 존재를 고민하십니까? 그런 생각은 자연의 진정한 학생에게 웃음거리가 될 것입니다. 마치 목수나 구두장이가 자신들의 작업장 바닥에 있는 톱밥과 나무조각을 지적하는 것을 듣고 웃는 것처럼요. 그러나 그 상점 주인들은 쓰레기통을 가지고 있지만, 자연은 그것을 필요로 하지 않습니다." - 마르쿠스 아우렐리우스, "명상록", 8.50)
We want things to go perfectly, so we tell ourselves that we'll get started once the conditions are right, or once we have our bearings. When, really, it'd be better to focus on making do with how things actually are.
Marcus reminded himself: "Don't await the perfection of Plato's Republic." He wasn't expecting the world to be exactly the way he wanted it to be, but Marcus knew instinctively, as the Catholic philosopher Josef Pieper would later write, that "he alone can do good who knows what things...
