Not a Philosopher, Not a God: Marcus Aurelius and Humanity

As I finished Meditations, one thing struck me the most. It was how Marcus Aurelius was just a man trying to survive his own mind, even as a Roman emperor with an exorbitant amount of power and pressure placed upon him at such a young age. He wasn’t writing to dazzle with his literary prowess, nor to display a level of intellect - he was writing to endure.

When I started Meditations, I expected a level of grandeur, or perhaps a show of power, but I found something far more compelling. I saw a quiet voice trying to keep itself together amid loss, duty, and disappointment. He was just trying to talk himself back into clarity.  Marcus didn’t write Meditations to release it to the public as a philosophical work. Rather, it’s journaling as a form of personal therapy. 

There’s something deeply humbling about how unfinished Marcus feels. Even in Book XII, at the end of it all, he’s still grappling with ego, distraction, and fear. He has to tell himself to stay focused on the present, to focus on logos (reason), and to forgive others. He doesn’t sound like an all-knowing sage, just someone still learning and trying to improve. And maybe that’s why his words still hold power, even today. They’re not final words, not idiosyncratic entries with dilemmas that could only apply to someone living in his time and place; they are simply practice for the mind.

Bust of an old Marcus Aurelius

In Book II, Entry 11, he reminds himself: "You could leave life right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think." This isn’t a dramatic statement, just one of reality. A call to action without panic, a cue to live your life to the fullest. This is the heart of the Stoic principle of memento mori - translated literally as remember to die, but widely interpreted as "remember, you will die." When you truly understand that any moment on this planet could be your last, you stop waiting for the right opportunity, you stop procrastinating for every waking moment of your life. You stop chasing control over that which you cannot control, and only focus on changing that which you can: your thoughts and actions. A philosopher trying to be a king might use this ideology to manipulate power. They might say that people ought to obey them, stemming from an elitist ideology where they believe that they understand death and truth better than ordinary people. But a king trying to be a philosopher uses it to stay grounded. For Marcus, Stoicism wasn’t about perfection; it was about returning to the path of humility, reason, and self-control whenever he strayed from it. The way a pilot adjusts course, or the way we reread to reabsorb material. We can’t guarantee perfection all the time, but what we can do is realize our mistakes and avoid repeating them. 

Reading Marcus Aurelius centuries later, I don’t feel like I’m studying what is touted as the "Greatest Work of Western Thought" or the "Pinnacle of Stoic Philosophy." It just feels like I’m reading someone’s notebook. Someone sick of other people, trying to stay true to himself anyway.

If Ex Verbis is about anything, it’s about pulling eternal ideas from quiet spaces or ancient thoughts. Marcus Aurelius wasn’t outlining a system of philosophy; he was just writing to steady himself in a world that often refused to do the same. He didn’t speak like a god. He didn’t even claim to be a philosopher. What he left behind wasn’t certainty, it was sincerity. A record of his efforts, a manual for returning to what really matters in life. And that, more than anything, is what I’ll remember from Meditations.