How to Think Like a Roman Emperor
If you have anger issues, this one is a great tool (h/t mindyourbusiness.
Today’s lesson comes from: Musonious Rufus’s Lectures
We don”t know much about Rufus’s life, he was born between 20-30 AD. By the rein of Nero he was a leading Stoic teacher. He was banished twice under different Emperors. His most famous student was Epictetus and like him, Rufus did not write any of his own lessons. The lessons and fragments that remain were written by his students. We do not now when he died, but in 101 AD Pliny mentions him as deceased.
Disclaimer: I’m not your Supervisor. These are my opinions after reading through these books a few times.
That one should disdain hardships.
1 In order to support more easily and more cheerfully those hardships which we may expect to suffer in behalf of virtue and goodness, it is useful to recall what hardships people will endure for unworthy ends. Thus for example consider what intemperate lovers undergo for the sake of evil desires,[1] and how much exertion others expend for the sake of making profit,[2] and how much suffering those who are pursuing fame endure, and bear in mind that all of these people submit to all kinds of toil and hardship voluntarily. Is it not then monstrous that they for no honorable reward endure such things,[3] while we for the sake of the ideal good—that is not only the avoidance of evil such as wrecks our lives, but also the acquisition of virtue, which we may call the provider of all goods—are not ready to bear every hardship?
If people think the reward is worth it then dealing with hardships is easy. Looking at what is sacrificed for evil ends should make sacrificing for good easier as well. Working out is still a struggle for me, but the long term results will be worth it. Seeing past the immediate difficulty of going to bed on time and waking up early is still a struggle.
2 And yet would not anyone admit how much better it is, in place of exerting oneself to win someone else’s wife, to exert oneself to discipline one’s desires; in place of enduring hardships for the sake of money, to train oneself to want little; instead of giving oneself trouble about getting notoriety, to give oneself trouble how not to thirst for notoriety; instead of trying to find a way to injure an envied person, to inquire how not to envy anyone; and instead of slaving, as sycophants do, to win false friends, to undergo suffering in order to possess true friends?
Focusing on improving myself instead of indulging harmful whims when the only incentive I have is internal is a battle with myself. So far, I am still going to the gym, but I am a little disappointed that it hasn’t become automatic yet like it was when I was an active duty Marine and had more external reasons to work out. I know discipline is more important than motivation, so I am focusing on that part now.
3Now, since, in general, toil and hardship are a necessity for all men, both for those who seek the better ends and for those who seek the worse, it is preposterous that those who are pursuing the better are not much more eager in their efforts than those for whom there is small hope of reward for all their pains. Yet when we see acrobats[4] face without concern their difficult tasks and risk their very lives in performing them, turning somersaults over up-turned swords or walking ropes set at a great height or flying through the air like birds,[5] where one misstep means death, all of which they do for a miserably small recompense, shall we not be ready to endure hardship for the sake of complete happiness? For surely there is no other end in becoming good than to become happy and to live happily for the remainder of our lives.
Working hard for small rewards is something I was accustomed to in the Marines. In Iraq, sometime in 2004, we were acting as convoy security. A conversation I had with one of the drivers still sticks with me. We met the convoy on the base at Fallujah and had breakfast with them before we hit the road. I asked one of the drivers why he was doing this, he was an older man(younger than I am now) from Illinois. He said it was for the extra money and it was more than double what I was making as an E-5 in a combat zone. I said that much money isn’t worth getting shot at. As I said it, I realized that I was getting shot at for almost nothing, relatively speaking. My life now is so much easier now, it is ridiculous. I try to channel those memories, plus the memories from the last couple years when I was physically unable to work out as incentive to go to the gym and take better care of myself.
4 One might reasonably reflect upon characteristics even of certain animals which are very well calculated to shame us into endurance of hardships.[6] At all events, cocks and quails, although they have no understanding of virtue as man has and know neither the good nor the just and strive for none of these things, nevertheless fight against each other and even when maimed stand up and endure until death so as not to submit the one to the other.
I will endeavor to persevere. I hope to never be in a life and death battle with a person, but I am in one with time. I know I will lose eventually, but there is no reason to decide not to live the best life I can as long as I can.
5 How much more fitting, then, it is that we stand firm and endure, when we know that we are suffering for some good purpose, either to help our friends or to benefit our city, or to defend our wives and children, or, best and most imperative, to become good and just and self-controlled, a state which no man achieves without hardships. And so it remains for me to say that the man who is unwilling to exert himself almost always convicts himself as unworthy of good, since “we gain every good by toil.”[7] These words and others like them he then spoke, exhorting and urging his listeners to look upon hardship with disdain.
I need to remember that line: “we know that we are suffering for some good purpose.” While I do not see going to the gym as particularly difficult, going to sleep early enough to wake up with the energy to go is where I struggle. I seem to be the embodiment of Jerry Seinfeld’s joke:
“I never get enough sleep. I stay up late at night ’cause I’m “night guy”. Night guy wants to stay up late.
What about getting up after five hours of sleep? Oh, that’s morning guy’s problem. That’s not my problem. I’m night guy. I stay up as late as I want.
So you get up in the morning, the alarm, you’re exhausted, groggy. Oh, you hate that night guy. See, night guy always screws morning guy. There’s nothing morning guy can do.”
Anyway, flying to Minnesota tomorrow with the wife. For those in the area tomorrow night, I plan to be at the Big Ax Brewery around 6:30 if anyone wants to drop in. Just look for a guy with long hair sitting with a Japanese woman that is out of his league.
it is useful to recall what hardships people will endure for unworthy ends
This line is hitting hard today. There are two approaches to this… If things are rough, remember that it’s toward something good. OR… if things are rough, am I exposing myself to hardships because I’m pursuing something unworthy?
Never thought of it that way, but it makes sense.
I hope to only make things hard for good reasons, but I am easy to fool sometimes.
I’m going through kind of a mid-life crises regarding my career. It was useful for raising my kids. I still need money and insurance, but is it worth my daily stress and anxiety? I don’t know yet.
STEVE SMITH MAKE THING HARD FOR GOOD REASON.
STEVE SMITH MAKE HIKER ENDURE UNWORTHY END.
I want to do something else. Not sure what yet. I will be in a good place five years from now, unless of course the commies take everything I own.
I used to always tell my wife when she asked why I re-enlisted:
“Somebody has to feed you people.”
Looking back, while I did enjoy being a Marine, it was rough for them.
Sometimes I wish I had tried something different.
You have to look at the whole picture and think of the future to try to determine what constitutes “worth it.”
My timeline is shorter. But Tundra has been helpful in reminding me that I have a lot more to offer than writing code. And now my older sister is training to be a life coach, so I’m going to be her guinea pig.
I feel the same way RJ.
I wrote this Thursday night, so when I said tomorrow, I meant tonight for those in the area.
I still think about that silly Seinfeld joke when I’m doing something stupid instead of going to bed at night. Not nearly as much as when that first came out. I remember lots of Friday mornings at my desk with severe hangovers.
I am a night guy who has to be working at 6:00 AM. I remain stoic about it.
Ded thred thoughts
1) Epstein- Trump brought it upon himself by promising to fully release all the files and thru his camp followers, that there would be more than just dozens of victims and no johns prosecuted. Yet shortly afterwards, he slow rolled the document releases, made a big show out of relatively empty binders, and got personally butt hurt that people expected him to follow thru on his promises after he decided not to. Also, the portrayal of his relationship with Epstein turned out to be false. And the 180° turn of people like Bongina.
2) Iran- again Candidate Trump ran against this very thing and ridiculed Kamala for being led around by warmongers. Same optimism as Iraq or Afghanistan and yet it’s not happening as planned… what a shock
3) Hegseth is a drunk and a piece of shit morally, but he has relatively good instincts about the institutional rot in the DOD, and he threatens the time serving “it’s my turn” perfumed princes, who are scared that their time serving assignment hopping dick sucking won’t get them to the top of the greasy pole after all.
Hegseth is addressing the woke rot at DoD. He isn’t (and probably can’t) addressing the procurement problems.
Right now in the Middle East we are fighting a 21st Century war with our 20th Century military and it’s showing.
The woke rot in the military is foundational at this point. It’s been that way for generations and it’s likely to never be rooted out.
Hegeath is in part backing up the rot by doing the same thing that generations of military officers and Sr enlisted have done before him, focus on looks instead of actual performance.
Spit shine and shave means the military is in tip top shape regardless of the rot.
It it runs salute it.
If it dosent paint it.
Sloppy soldiers = sloppy soldiers.
You don’t have to spit shine, but if you can’t blacken your boots on your own without someone riding your ass…
You blacken your boots because your nose is brown.
My perspective comes from one who had a long gap between apron strings and Uncle Sam providing me three hots and a cot.
Weren’t up to me I would restrict the age of enlistment from 18 to 25.
Make officers have a productive career before they were allowed to serve.
Morning Glory Milking Farm redux?
That would be when the cow milks you.
Go on…
Fun with numbers
Economists say the unequal growth between the top and bottom creates an economy that works better for some than others, leaving lower-income households further from closing the gap even in the year of overall growth, let alone making investments like buying a home.
That imbalance becomes starker when looking at the distribution of aggregated money income in 2025. The top 20% reported more than half of the total income in 2025, while the bottom 20% took home just 3%, according to Census data. The top 5% of households alone accounted for nearly a quarter of the nation’s total income in 2025.
And this is why we need a global socialist dictatorship.
What is a natural curve?
The bottom 20% need to get a job and have their benefits taxed. The failures and subsidy of the lowest quintile screws everyone. I’m tired of hearing about the “neediest” as though that justifies gross redistribution.
And personally, I agree with Bessent that the economy isn’t in-general K-shaped (he describes it as a C-shape which likely is more in-line with reality). It’s OK that someone has more than you – no one is starving that cares about themselves. Perfect topic for “that one should disdain hardships.”
I’m so sick of paying for the sloth of the bottom quintile and the largess of the local teachers union members and their husbands that have contracts building and maintaining the guilded buildings they park their air conditioned asses in eight months out of the year.
I just saw a commercial about how “your $19 a month can help starving Americans” and could not roll my eyes hard enough. Where are all these starving Americans?
They all have a BMI over 30 RHY.
Stoke that envy.
“further from closing the gap”
I wonder what the “gap” is in a communist utopia?
A muddy trench.
“Something that has been true for decades is that there’s a massive college wage premium because college graduates do substantially better than others, and on the other hand, if you didn’t graduate from high school, your likely outcomes are very bad,” said Steven Durlauf, a professor and director of the Stone Center for Research on Wealth Inequality and Mobility at the University of Chicago. “Educational inequality begets income inequality.”
Keep beating that tin drum, little wind-up monkey.
Something tells me Stevens hands are soft and have been his entire life.
Well, let’s check: BA Harvard 1980; PhD Yale, 1986; tenure track/tenured professor since 1987. Peruses list of articles, op-eds, etc. Yeah most likely.
Although under the “minor dissent” or perhaps “broken clock” thesis: “Creating a No-Fly Zone or Sending U.S Troops to Ukraine Would be Disastrous, with L. Blume, Chicago Tribune, March 17, 2022.
They need a “Center for Research” to churn out the same platitudes I have been hearing my entire life? That is some kind of gig.
https://www.engadget.com/2262061/nasa-moon-orbiter-finds-largest-impact-crater-in-the-solar-system/
The moon got plowed.
The moon has to have a big role in keeping our skies clear and a lot of damage from hitting us.
ron73440 – thanks for these posts! I introduced them to my husband and he is know reading Marcus Aurelius.
Glad to see you around more, RAH!
Well, I retired 7 weeks ago – so much more free and peaceful time 🙂
Congratulations on retirement!
Huzzah!
Cool!
Or should that be…
Need!
Hope he gets something out of it.
*Nerd!*
Not need.
別嬪, べっぴん (beppin)
ボブは『別嬪』と 友人に 言った。
Bob said to his friend: “What a looker”.
Afternoon, Glibs.
Made it to Cedar Rapids. Got in before the hotel room was ready. I ran off to get lunch and came back when they told me it was done.
I found Halloumi at the HyVee I stopped at. Since it had recently come up in discussion and I hadn’t had it before I bought some.
It does squeak when chewed, but it commits a cardinal culinary sin – it is flavorless. While flavorless might give you options as an ingredient whan all you’re doing is provising texture/bulk, I do prefer my cheese to bring more to the meal.
You didn’t grill it first?
I wanted to see what it was like before modification.
Cheese is supposed to be usable as-is as well as in other dishes as an ingredient.
Besides, the HyVee parking lot was short on grills.
Ha! I tried some of that. Supposedly you can grill it. No, you really cannot grill it.
I do. No problem.
I’ve done it in a skillet before, but prefer grilling.
I’ve never tried Halloumi but I want to. You should try Mizithra cheese…just make sure you cook it with browned butter and shredded over spaghetti, it is bland without the butter. The butter turns it into a super rich dish.
Dip the cheese in a good mustard or a not so hot sauce.