Some great lessons from a long dead Roman Emperor
By Alec Hogg
At one of the Berkshire Hathaway AGMs some years back, Charlie Munger referred to Marcus Aurelius, the Roman philosopher Emperor whose personal scribblings have survived a couple millenium. Munger, a wise man who exhorts us to learn from dead guys, is a great admirer of this most rational of beings. Anyone who picks up Marcus Aurelius's "Meditations" will appreciate why.
The stoic Aurelius's ideas have shaped my own philosophy on life. Which runs something along the lines of ever since the Good Lord told Adam about Eden's Tree of Good and Evil, each member of the human race was born simply to learn. Every development in our lives, each crisis or celebration, is relevant. Often our finite minds battle to understand why some things happen. But with that most exact of sciences, hindsight, it becomes easier to comprehend.
When our aged selves eventually look back on our lives, Aurelius taught, it should be in the knowledge the time here was used productively. That no matter how exalted a station reached, we remained grounded in the knowledge we came from and return to dust. As importantly, that we used our time productively and learnt enough to leave the mortal coil better for having been on it. Any lesson worth learning is difficult. It takes time and sometimes even pain to absorb. Thousands of years ago, Marcus Aurelius appreciated that reality. Sometimes, even for nations, it's worth remembering.
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