Day 156

 Today is Friday August 14, 2020 In recent coronavirus news. According to the Washington Post, "On Wednesday: The United States recorded the most covid-19 deaths in a single day since mid-May, nearly 1,500 fatalities. "

This seems nearly unfathomable to me. How can people, six months into a pandemic, read this and continue to venture out without masks and refuse to social distance.  Do these imbeciles not realize that they are perpetuating the virus spread? Today I heard a story about a restaurant in Kankakee, Illinois where every patron and employer were unmasked and the place was completely full. Un-fuken-believable. Where is the common sense? The concern for self and others. 

I recall, years a go, seeing a bumper that read Slap the stupid people. 

 

So it goes. On and on. It is increasingly frustrating for me to read these increasing numbers then hear/read stories like the restaurant in Kankakee and have faith in human kind.  

So I would like to talk about Marcus Aurelius and his writings. Aurelius was a Roman emperor from 161-180 and the last emperor of Pax Romana, a long period in Roman history known for peace and stability. He was a philosopher of stoicism, a belief system based on personal ethics and driven by logic and natural laws. The philosopher wrote, “The longest-lived and those who will die soonest lose the same thing. The present is all that they can give up, since that is all you have, and what you do not have, you cannot lose.” This is included in his writings under the title Meditations, a source of writings on Stoicism still praised centuries after his death.

The stoics, with their radical view of ethics, had a goal and that was to live their best life.

They strove for self-discipline and an acceptance of all things present.  They were mindful before it was cool. Virtuous and fair they were read by many great minds of history such as George Washington, Walt Whitman, Frederick the Great, Immanuel Kant and Ralph Waldo Emerson.  Kant, a German philosopher, seeking to define enlightenment often referred to the latin phrase Sapere aude which can be loosely translated as "Dare to be wise"

If only some of us dared more often.