Marcus Aurelius wrote. It was journaling ante litteram. His writing helped him manage emotions, thoughts, decisions, difficulties. Though enlightened by the standards of his time, he lived through an intense period, both for the Empire and within his own family, Commodus included. His writings became a reinforcement, the pulsing, concrete part of stoicism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If Epictetus gave us the more didactic side, no less important, it is thanks to Marcus Aurelius that we came to know the more practical part, and perhaps at times the more useful one, of stoicism. Both matter, but our life is not always the same, and we know that well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Let me say it again, about myself. In this period the stress from liquidity has reached notable levels. A client with an overdue invoice, overdue for a long time, asking for a 30% credit note or he will not pay. Another cutting all suppliers, us included. A teaching fee that only arrives in the second half of September, not before.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When you run a small company, and you give priority to those who work with you, it becomes a complex balance: incoming payments, suppliers, taxes, and then your own family. Especially when the ethical code you have imposed on yourself creates an order of priority that not everyone follows the same way.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As I have told you, these are numbers. And the more I think about that concept, the more I realise how irrational I would have been in the past, and how instead now I have worry, legitimate, but managed. I observe the present, the payments due now, the actions available now. Not because I ignore what comes later out of carelessness, but because later is not now. I know it, it simply must not command me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I focus my energy on concrete actions, the ones that plant seeds and grow. In the past I moved with illogic just to recover cash flow, but that was irrational survival. Now I know I cannot abandon the planting, because that is the foundation of the future. Current problems, beyond the individual events, are also children of the past, leftovers that can only be overcome if we stop perpetuating them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
This digression comes from a precise reason. Precisely in this moment of anxiety, at times panic, certainly worry, I notice the usefulness of stoicism, both Epictetus’s and Marcus Aurelius’s.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But if the first gave me the foundations, the thinking for key moments, it is the second who becomes essential now. I do not command an Empire, but with the right abstraction the issues are not so different. Thinking of Marcus Aurelius leads me to think of myself, writing on this blog, acting while remembering his words.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps today’s post, written hot on a Thursday, comes from exactly this. That therapeutic journaling, those Marcus Aurelius style writings. I do not know for certain why, but I know it helps me. It puts me back on track, it focuses me. You do not give up, you face it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And here I can also bring in Epicurus. I cannot fear death, because if it is present, we are not. It sounds absurd, and yet it makes sense: we are here, we are not dead, we are alive, therefore we can act.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Perhaps I have taken Epicurus to an extreme, applying to my liquidity anxiety a reasoning he built for the fear of death. But the underlying logic still holds: as long as we are here, alive, present, we can act. And if we can act, fear loses its paralysing power. Philosophy, once again, extends a hand. There is nothing left to do but take it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Marcus Aurelius wrote for himself, with no thought of publication, and that journaling helped him govern an empire under enormous pressure. In this period of liquidity stress I understand why: Epictetus gave me the theoretical foundations, but it is Marcus Aurelius who becomes essential now, when theory must turn into concrete action. <\/p>\n
You do not give up the planting. You face it, one number at a time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1,112],"tags":[2069,2084,1931,2086,2071,1552,1789,198],"class_list":["post-502","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-free-thoughts","category-pragmatism","tag-epictetus","tag-epicurus","tag-journaling-en","tag-liquidity","tag-marcusaurelius","tag-personalgrowth","tag-resilience","tag-stoicism"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=502"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":503,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/502\/revisions\/503"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=502"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=502"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lucainfante.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=502"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}