In the books by Ryan Holiday, he often borrowed philosophy from Marcus Aurelius, the Roman Emperor. You may well say Ryan Holiday based his life on the book!
Meditations is not a normal book. It is written more so like a personal journal than a non-fictional book.
The "book" is not proofread, nor had the writing constantly refined.
Yet, it is enlightening to read the words of a Roman emperor, also a stoic philosoper, in a direct and truthful way.
It shed lights on his life as an emperor.
When you wake up in the morning, tell yourself: The people I deal with today will be ungrateful, arrogant, dishonest.. They are like this because they can't tell good from evil. But I have seen the beauty of good, and the ugliness of evil.
Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone--those that are now, and those to come. Existence flows past us like a river: the "what" is in constant flux, the "why " has a thousand variations.
Yet, sometimes gets depressing.
The human body itself is no more than "rotting meat in a bag"
Like seeing roasted meat and other dishes in front of you and suddenly realizing: This is a dead fish. A dead bird. A dead pig.
Or making love--something rubbing against your penis, a brief seizure and a little cloudy liquid.
His point is: Lay them bare and see how pointless they are, to strip away the legend that encrusts them
Because many things are merely perceptions.
He also give directions to life.
What is it in ourselves (human) that we should prize?
It is not: audience clapping
I think it's this: to do (and not do) what we were designed for.
If there is one quote you need to takeaway from the book,
Everything we hear is an opinion, not a fact. Everything we see is a perspective, not the truth.
