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Marcus Aurelius knows that he will be able to look after mankind, which has been entrusted to him, insofar as he knows how to take care of himself properly.
We must apply ourselves to ourselves, we turn away from everything that is not part of ourselves but which might grab our attention, our diligence, and arouse our zeal. We must turn away from this in order to turn around to the self. Our attention, eyes, mind, and finally our whole being must be turned towards the self throughout our life.
A top as an example: the top is something that turns on itself at the behest and on the instigation of an external impulse. By turning on itself, the top successively presents different faces in different directions and to the different components of its surroundings. And finally, although the tip apparently remains immobile, in reality it is always in movement. Wisdom, in contrast, consists in never allowing ourselves to be induced to make an involuntary movement at the behest of or through the instigation of an external impulse. Rather, we must seek the point at the center of ourselves to which we will be fixed and in relation to which we will remain immobile. It is towards ourselves, towards the center of ourselves, in the center of ourselves, that we must fix our aim.
epistrephein pros heauton: turning towards the self, converting to the self.
Seneca: convertere ad se: converting to the self.
Plato's notion of epistrophe: first, in turning away from appearances; second, acknowledging one's own ignorance and by deciding precisely to care about the self; third, then we will be able to return to our homeland, the homeland of essences, truth and Being.
There is a fundamental opposition between the world down here and the other world, and it is governed by the theme of a liberation, of the soul's release from the body, the prison-body, the tomb body. o know oneself is to know the true. To know the true is to free oneself.
In the Hellenistic and Roman culture of the self conversion gets us to move from that does not depend on us to that which does, a liberation from what we do not control so as finally to arrive at what we can control. It does not appear as a liberation from the body, but rather as the establishment of a complete, perfect,and adequate relationship of self to self. The essential element is much more exercise, practice, and training; askesis rather than knowledge.
Christian conversion (metanoia): it involves a sudden change and a transition from one type of being to another, from death to life, from mortality to immortality, from dark to light, from the reign of the devil to that of God. It is renunciation of oneself, dying to oneself, and being reborn in a different self and new form which no longer has anything to do with the earlier self in itsw being, its mode of being, in its habits or its ethos.
In philosophy, Seneca says that philosophy spins the subject around on himself in order to free himself. People converted by turning to look towards the self. Yo protect and equip the self.
The Gaze:
In Christian and monastic literature: Pay attention to all the images and representations which enter your mind; always examine every movement in your heart so as to decipher in them the signs or traces of a temptation; try to determine whether what comes to your mind has been sent by God or the devil, or even by yourself.
For the Romans, look at yourself is to look inside yourself to discover the seeds of the truth within yourself. It means to turn away from others at first and then later to turn the gaze away from the things of the world, to turn away from the curiosity that makes interested in other people.
Plutarch's On Curiosity: the windows of a house should not open onto the neighbors' houses. Don't look at wat is going on in the houses of other people, but look rather at what is going on in our own.
Marcus Aurelius: We are generally never unhappy because we pay no heed to what is going on in another person's soul. Don't use up what is left of your life thinking about what the other person is doing.
Curiosity: It is meddling in what does not concern us. Plutarch defines it as the desire, the pleasure of hearing about the troubles of other people, about what ills the other person is suffering. It is being interested in what is not going well for others.
Plutarch's advice: Don't be curious. Instead of concerning other people's flaws, be concerned about your own flaws. We should shift our attention to three things: 1) study the secrets of nature, 2) it is more worthwhile to read history, and 3) we should retire to the countryside and take pleasure in the calm and comforting scene around us.
His anti-curiosity exercises: 1) memory exercises, 2) exercise by going for a walk without looking here and there, 3) putting good dishes in front of us and not eating them.
It is so as to be able to concentrate on keeping the straight line we must follow in heading to our destination. We must focus ourselves. If we must turn away from others, it is so as better to listen solely to the internal guide. We should think about preparation as an athletic kind of concentration, as an archer launches his arrow towards his target.
To clear a space around the self, to think of the aim, or rather of the relation between yourself and the aim. Think of the trajectory separating you from that towards which you wish to advance, or which you wish to reach. All your attention should be concentrated on this trajectory from self to self. Presence of self to self.
From self to the true, there is a distance.
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