Sunrise over the Cheyenne River
The news of the world is so bad that Jill and I have pretty much stopped listening to NPR in the mornings. Sometime in the last several years we got into the habit of turning on the radio every morning around 4 am and waking up slowly to descriptions of whatever happened to the world in the previous twenty-four hours. Waking up like that was often the highlight of the day. We came to life considering interesting thoughts and hearing vivid word portraits of astounding events. We drifted in and out of consciousness while the coffee perked in the kitchen and the bird songs outside the window built to a six-thirty crescendo. You could feel the rest of world warming in the new light.
The news was not always happy, but it was seldom as depressing and scary as it has become. Through my early morning haze, all the talk of failing banks, foreclosures, and lines of unemployed workers seemed to creep inside my head to join the hard times stories I’ve heard since childhood. How many grandparents have been eternally stigmatized as the generation that got caught in the stock market crash, or lost the family farm, business, home, or fortune? At five o’clock in the morning, in the bombardment of dismal statistics, there is suddenly a howling beast on the front porch, with no intention of going to sleep. Imagining such things drives a guy to turn off the radio.
So for the last couple weeks I’ve been making the coffee in a silent house. I’m used to getting up early and these March days I sit in our favorite chair and watch the sun rise over the National Grasslands. The lack of a radio droning away in the house has driven me back to a certain book that I have forever been unable to read. For a decade now, I’ve been trying to get through “Meditations”, by Marcus Aurelius. It is a book that appears on a lot of Must Read lists. I first noted it ten years ago as one of the books that Great Plains icon, Teddy Roosevelt took to Africa and later when he explored the River of Doubt in the Amazon basin. The text is only a little over a hundred pages and I should have been able to knock it out in a few days. Much of the book was written during Roman military campaigns in the north and I naively thought it was something of a history of the Roman/barbarian wars. I’ve always wanted to figure out why all the intellectuals consider reading it essential to getting a grip on the human condition. I wanted to soak up whatever enlightenment the book had to offer with as little effort as possible. But it is a colossal slog and I’ve never been able to read more than few pages before giving up. In past attempts I might spend an hour reading a page and fail to understand more than a phrase or two.
I always figured that since Marcus Aurelius reigned long and well as the Emperor of Rome and that he spent nearly twenty years putting down terrible revolts of savage Gauls with painted faces and dressed in animal skins, that he and I didn’t have enough in common to make his writing intelligible to me. But a week ago, on my fifth or sixth try at understanding even a single page, I came across a sentence in the introduction.
“…Marcus’ writing, while often despondent, is almost never despairing: man has a purpose in the Universe, and he is equipped to fulfill that purpose, if he only has the will to do so.” Now that is a sentiment I haven’t heard on NPR lately.
Something clicked that morning as I sat in our special chair overlooking the Cheyenne River as the shadows contracted into sunrise. At least some of the writings of Marcus Aurelius began to make sense to me. “Is it change that man fears? Why, what can have come to be without change, and what is dearer or more familiar to Universal Nature.” I looked up from my reading and saw the buffalo beginning to trail down to water at the river.
As I read, I was very surprised to find nothing about the wars for which Marcus Aurelius bore chief responsibility. Unless I missed it, he never mentioned those wild men on his boarders who were bent on destroying civilization. He does not seem to be at all concerned about what must have been the beast on the porch of all his subjects and particularly for him. What he talks about instead is how to be a good and honest man. He is philosophic in all things and his thoughts constantly transcend what must certainly have been going on in his day to day life. As I read, I was astounded how the man managed to “keep his eye on the ball” of his life. Critical as victory in war must have been, he dwelt always on what was more important.
Perhaps some of Marcus Aurelius’s thoughts are not that much different from a money-manager friend of mine. We were hunting pheasants this December and since the stock market had just tanked I tried to commiserate with him. “Must be a scary, crumby deal,” I said.
“Yeah,” he said, “not much fun these days. But we don’t whine. Even in a crisis, it is clean, indoor work. We’re glad to have it.”
If I allow myself, I know I’m glad to have my work too. I’m sorry for those that don’t. I know there is a lot of pain out there and if I let my imagination have its way I find all sorts of pain in my near future. But Marcus tells me to “Let not the future trouble you: for you will come to it, if come you must, bearing with you the same reason which you are using now to meet the present.”
Regarding that sleepless beast on the porch, Marcus, as usual, keeps his focus. “Happiness is a good genius or a good familiar spirit. ‘What then are you doing here, phantom of imagination? Depart, in God’s name, the way you came: I have no need of you. But you have come according to your ancient habit. I am not angry with you, only depart.” I am particularly taken by the fact that in this quotation Marcus Aurelius takes the time to assure the phantom of his imagination that is trying to frighten him that he, great general and Caesar of Rome, is not angry with the phantom.
When I finally got through “Meditations”, I was left with the feeling that a great man had told me to not sweat the gyrations of the human world but to be true to what and who I am. “…’whatever any one may do or say, I am bound to be an emerald and to keep the color that is mine.’ I can only think that the color of my life – balance and restoration – deserve my complete attention, even in these frightening times.
I’ve been trying to figure out why, after failing to read this little book so many times, I got through it without much pain in the early spring of 2009. I’ve always known that it takes a lot to turn off the background noise of our culture and to focus on those things that we know damned well are more important than any of the contemporary chatter. I’ve come to believe that it might well help to have barbarians at the gate. And perhaps equally important is Marcus Aurelius’s belief that “The art of living resembles wrestling more than dancing, in as much as it stands prepared and unshaken to meet what comes and what it did not foresee.
Comments 16
Your musings this month are particularly timely, and beautifully written (as I find most of your writings.) This piece brings tears to my eyes, out of respect for great men, and fear for the present and future of my new granddaughter and Americans in general. Thank you for helping to give me hope.
Yes ! I just finished reading the Lullaby for the Beast and what a great writing ! And it does indeed give hope to me , not so much for me, as I have lived the greater part of my life , but for my kids, my grandkids, and my great grandkids too ! There IS a purpose to all of this …. I love the quotation of life is more like wrestling than dancing …… it’s so true !
A little girl came into our house one day, stopped still, and said, “It’s so quiet around here. Turn something on.” She was just a child and came from a noisy, raucous household. She was looking for something familiar. Still, I thought of her when I read your article and thought, “It’s so noisy these days in our world. Turn something off.” You seem to have done that, and it led you to your thoughtful reading and musing.
Over the weekend I reread your essay, “Life On the Myopian Frontier” (Scared Trusts, 1993), and was thinking that the same nearsighted greed that led to the desecration of the Black Hills (and so many other places) is what has gotten us into the economic mess we are in now–the race for the quick buck without regard for consequence. As a society, we don’t seem to learn from our mistakes.
Your musings this month gave me some needed hope. Thank you for that, Dan. Even as we dip into our savings to pay the bills, I will ask the phantom of imagination, the beast that haunts my sleep, to depart to the dark corners where it belongs. And I will focus on my true purpose.
As for you and Marcus Aurelius, I firmly believe that books, like teachers, call us when we are ready. As usual, the timing was perfect.
wow, This is great. I just had to post your link on my site. You’ve gained a loyal reader here! Thanks for the inspiring words.
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Dan,
Thank you once again for bringing me back to the natural order of life in a time of such chaos.
I look forward to the time when once again I can look out over that South Dakota landscape & feel reborn. Until then, keep writing.
Bravo. Enjoyed the essay and your comments on NPR and the news in general. I’ve recently lost my job of 24yrs with a newspaper ( I knew it was coming)and I feel nothing but relief. Let the beasts come. The only constant is tomorrow.
WOW! The evolution of the human pschye/spirit is still in motion in Dan O’Brien. You have hit a hole in my reading background, so Aurelius is next. I have been busy studying affirmations from the various religions. This seems to fit right in.
Long live the light of the heart. Janet
Janet and others: If Marcus Aurelius interests you try, DOUB, a history by Jennifer Hecht. But be warned, like MEDITATIONS you sort of have to have a lunch basket packed because it is not light reading and you’ll need some solitude.
Interesting that you mention DOUBT. I began that book recently, on an airplane flight. Normally a fast reader, in 3 hrs, I only got to pg 60. It’s also the first time in my life I’ve ever been motion-sick. I think it was just the strain of so many [big] words on a page! Fascinating subject, and a well written book, but you need a quiet corner for sure.
I spent most of my childhood in the Palni Hills (South India) surrounded by silence. It is a rare thing these days to find silence in my life. Everything hums or spouts noise. Reading your piece made me nostalgic for times past. As always thank you for sharing and inspiring. I now feel empowered to practice “noble silence.”
Thanks Dan, you’re not the only one turning off certain media these days. Negative media only sells if we buy it. My wife’s favorite picture is her looking out our conversion van at a lonely Badland’s bull buffalo, reminding her there are bigger things in this world than our own selfish problems. Aurelius is great. I know another of his quotes tells me that I should quit “living my life like I have 1000 years.” Why not make it a wrestling match, focused and action packed! Ours doesn’t have to be a nameless generation stuck in affluence and privilege. “Purpose” gives us a responsibility. Instead of despairing I firmly believe we can live to see America’s finest hour.
Brilliant, thank you Dan.
“I can only think that the color of my life – balance and restoration – deserve my complete attention, even in these frightening times.”
Amen! As it is for us all.
Thank you for this powerful and relevant post!
After reading Lullaby, I am curious: do you own a cell phone,blackberry,i-pod,or any other extra noise? In my mind, these devices contribute to the “goddam bus supposed to be here”. Nowadays a screen tells us what to do…