What Happens in Vegas... - Unpublished Selections Explained, Med. VII.29

Meditation VII.29 - What Happens in Vegas... - Translated by George Long and rewritten by Russell McNeil

Wipe out the imagination.⁽¹⁾ Stop the pulling of the strings.⁽²⁾ Confine yourself to the present.⁽³⁾ Understand well what happens either to you or to another.⁽⁴⁾ Divide and distribute every object into the causal (formal) and the material.⁽⁵⁾ Think of your last hour.⁽⁶⁾ Let the wrong which is done by anyone stay there where the wrong was done.⁽⁷⁾

Explanation

(1) Deal with what is real and concrete. Do not add anything to what you know to be true.

(2) The "strings" are the physical sensations that drive our appetites. Each string is a source of pleasure or pain. These strings serve a purpose in our lives by allowing us to survive. But the strings need not be added to by the imagination or fantasy.

(3) The past is done. The future is yet to be. The only influence we can have on our lives is in the present. Live there.

(4) Think carefully and critically about everything that makes an impression on you using your reason.

(5) Marcus often draws on Aristotle's four causes (material, efficient, formal and final) as a guide to formal reasoning. For example, the material cause refers to what something is made of while the formal cause places the "object" within a category of objects with similar form or essence. (see also Meditation XII.29 - Living Rightly)

(6) Life is brief. Live each hour always as if it were your last.

(7) Let go of wrong. Perhaps an early expression of the popular expression "what happens in Vegas ..." This is really an appeal to mercy. We have been wronged. We will experience wrong again. For the Stoic all wrong is based on ignorance. We need to let go of wrong by forgiving those who attempt to do harm. This perspective is also found in the Christian tradition in the Lord's Prayer - 'forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those who trespass against us.'

Russell McNeil, PhD, is the author of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained by Skylight Paths Publishing. The unpublished selections presented in this Blog are provided as supplemental material to the published selections which are annotated and explained in the book. The published selections are referenced in this Blog by page number and section.

Death is Annihilation or Change - Unpublished Selections Explained, Med. VII.32

Meditation VII.32 - Death is Annihilation or Change - Translated by George Long and rewritten by Russell McNeil

About death: Whether it is a dispersion, or a resolution into atoms, or annihilation, it is either extinction or change.⁽¹⁾

Explanation

(1) In contrast with the ancient atomic school, Stoic physics allied itself generally with the Aristotelian non-atomic view in which matter was considered infinitely divisible. Nevertheless Marcus recognizes here that the question was unsettled (indeed it remained so until modern times). Stoics do not presume an afterlife. Human self-consciousness ceases to be at death. Nonetheless the active and invulnerable aspect of human nature - the Logos in us - does survive death because it in effect returns to the universal nature from which it was derived. This is really a statement of the law of conservation of energy since that active aspect of our aware existence is a material substance pneuma - a substance which a modern Stoic would identify with the forces and fields of modern physics. There is no question that the physical body ceases to exist at death. "Extinction or change" refers to the unknown destiny at death of the active conscious Logos in us - the "soul". At death the soul either ceases to be and merges with the universal, or the soul changes - that is it somehow retains a conscious awareness as it transforms into another self. Marcus does not know, and really does not care since the self is no longer extant: our life is over and the purpose of our existence complete. What happens to the "soul" after that is really a religious question and not in the domain of the philosophy of Stoicism because it cannot be resolved observationally or through rational argument.

Russell McNeil, PhD, is the author of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained by Skylight Paths Publishing. The unpublished selections presented in this Blog are provided as supplemental material to the published selections which are annotated and explained in the book. The published selections are referenced in this Blog by page number and section.

Equanimity - Unpublished Selections Explained, Med. VII.38

Meditation VII.38 - Equanimity - Translated by George Long and rewritten by Russell McNeil

It is not right to worry ourselves about things, for they care nothing about it.⁽¹⁾

Explanation

(1) Being worried, vexed or annoyed with anyone - or in this example about "things," is a violation of one of the so-called Stoic "commandments" discussed in Meditation VIII.08 (in the book). The focus here is psychological and goes to the heart of the nature of worry. As discussed in more detail in Meditation VIII.42, when we think closely about worry we notice that most of our worries (be they about the past, present or future) turn on pleasure, pain, reputation, or money. But in Stoicism none of these things should ever be a cause for worry. Each of these areas is self-serving and body focussed. In Stoicism the appropriate stance toward each of these is indifference. We may think that the good life is defined by a financial prosperity that ensures ample pleasure, freedom from pain and enduring reputation. But the Stoic understands that it is possible to be truly happy without these things. A Stoic has no reason to avoid the simple pleasures of life or not to take measures to avoid discomfort. But these ought not be the focus of our existence and they ought never prevent us from being good.

The problem with worry in Stoic terms goes beyond the irrationality of focusing mental energy on inanimate objects (for example, we become angry at our car when it breaks down and worry about the financial implications). The worry itself and the emotional state that worry engenders (anger, rage, dejection, fear) alienates us from what is true about existence. The universe is beautiful and good, and the laws that act on the things we worry about are - in and of themselves - part of the beauty of nature. Stoicism is never about denial; it is about embracing change and accepting life. Your car will break down. You will have accidents and setbacks. These are all inevitabilities and manifestations of the operations of nature. Everything changes, decays and dies. This is the Law, and the Law is inherently good. We have the power to change our attitude or opinion about these things from worry to indifference. This is equanimity - a virtue (please see also Meditation VIII.32). Through equanimity we will remain tranquil through any disturbance.

Russell McNeil, PhD, is the author of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained by Skylight Paths Publishing. The unpublished selections presented in this Blog are provided as supplemental material to the published selections which are annotated and explained in the book. The published selections are referenced in this Blog by page number and section.

Stoic Method - The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - Unpublished Selections Explained, Med. XI.39

Meditation XI.39 – Stoic Method - Translated by George Long and rewritten by Russell McNeil

Socrates used to say, What do you want? Souls of rational people or irrational? - Souls of rational people. - Of what rational people? Sound or unsound? - Sound. - Why then do you not seek for them? - Because we have them. - Why then do you fight and quarrel?^1,2

Explanation

(1) Although Socrates (ca. 469-399 BCE) predates Stoicism, he is viewed within the tradition as a model Stoic actor in both his actions and his methods of questioning. In this meditation Marcus draws on Socratic logic to uncover a fundamental contradiction between truth and behavior. Although there may be rational grounds for fighting and quarreling (Marcus was a warrior, as was Socrates), this behavior is intrinsically in opposition to nature, if there are no rational grounds for a conflict. The three fold method of Stoicism is examined in detail in Chapter 6 of my book, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained. The goal of the method is to act rightly (virtuously) in all circumstances, but action must be preceded by a thorough self-searching (the goal of meditation being self knowledge, that is know thyself), followed by a relent rationally based critical examination of nature designed to uncover the Law of nature, which in turn becomes the template or guideline for virtue or morality.

(2) The image file is of Rodin's The Thinker at the Musée Rodin is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution ShareAlike 3.0

Russell McNeil, PhD, is the author of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained by Skylight Paths Publishing. The unpublished selections presented in this Blog are provided as supplemental material to the published selections which are annotated and explained in the book. The published selections are referenced in this Blog by page number and section.

Hopelessness - The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius - Unpublished Selections Explained, Med. XII.07

Meditation XII.07 – Hopelessness - Translated by George Long and rewritten by Russell McNeil

Consider in what condition both your body and your soul should be when you are overtaken by death; and consider the shortness of life, the boundless abyss of time past and future, the feebleness of all matter.¹

Explanation

(1) Nothing could engender a more profound sense of humility than this profoundly moving meditation. Within the boundlessness of time and space we are, in truth, nothing. The implications of this reflection ought to be apparent to anyone who dares to consider its chilling truth. The fragility of life, the feebleness of existence, the senselessness of pride, will inspire hopelessness in those whose values are rooted in the service of the self. This is Marcus’s intention.

Russell McNeil, PhD, is the author of The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius: Selections Annotated and Explained by Skylight Paths Publishing. The unpublished selections presented in this Blog are provided as supplemental material to the published selections which are annotated and explained in the book. The published selections are referenced in this Blog by page number and section.

Andy Warhol (1928-1987)

Quotation

Fantasy love is much better than reality love. Never doing it is very exciting. The most exciting attractions are between two opposites that never meet.

Research

COPAC UK: Andy Warhol
Library of Congress: Andy Warhol
Library of Canada Search Form
Other Library Catalogs: Andy Warhol

Biographical

Andy Warhol (August 6, 1928 - February 27, 1987) was a major artist in the pop art movement. Warhol was born in Pittsburgh (assumed), PA, United States and died in New York, NY, United States. Warhol started his career in advertising. In the mid 1950s he started to make paintings of famous American products like Campbell's soup cans and Coca-Cola. In the 1960s he switched to silkscreen prints. His studio, The Factory, became a meeting place of artists and would-be artists like Mick Jagger, Lou Reed and Truman Capote. One of the regulars, Valerie Solanas shot Warhol in 1968, almost killing him. In 1970s and 1980s he mainly made prints of famous people such as Marilyn Monroe. Besides being a painter, Warhol also made movies. Between 1963 and 1968, he made more than sixty films. His most famous one is Sleep (1963), which shows a man sleeping for eight hours. He used to hang out at Serendipity, a club in New York City. The Andy Warhol Museum is in Pittsburgh, PA. [This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License and uses material adapted in whole or in part from the Wikipedia article on Andy Warhol.]

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Frederick Horsman Varley (1881-1969)

Canadian painter and a founding member of the Group of Seven. As Varley and Arthur Lismer were schoolmates, the early history of their lives is very similar. Like Lismer, Varley was born in Sheffield, studied at the Sheffield School of Art and later, the Antwerp Academy, in Antwerp, Belgium. At Antwerp, Varley had a reputation of being a heavy drinker and leading a rather bohemian life. From Antwerp, he returned to London, where he almost starved trying to support himself as an illustrator. Four years later, on his return to Yorkshire, he married and fathered two children. In 1912, Lismer once again met up with Varley - who this time was depressed and struggling to support his family. Lismer persuaded him to come to Canada, where he found work at Grip.

In Toronto, Varley soon became friendly with the other artists at Grip. He was often a difficult person to get along with because of his temperamental moods and rather unconventional ways. He did however find a close friend in Tom Thomson, who was like him in spirit. They went on weekend excursions, but rarely sketched together, as Varley preferred people to trees for subject matter.

At first, Varley concentrated mainly on portraits and established himself as a painter of Toronto's elite society. Although this brought him much needed income, he disliked painting to order, and his ways soon upset his clients. At one sitting with Vincent Massey, magnate of the Massey-Harris fortunes, the client arrived an hour late. Once he had taken his seat, Varley put down his brushes and walked away saying "You wait there. Now I'm going out for an hour." Despite these disturbances, Varley was respected as a great painter, and when the World War One broke out, he was sent to France as a Canadian War Artist. At this point, he did very poignant work. Perhaps his most famous painting is entitled, For What?. He returned from the war matured both as an artist and as an individual. At this point, his interest in painting the Canadian north was awakened, and he began painting landscapes such as Stormy Weather, Georgian Bay. Varley's concern with the world of feelings and emotions was always relayed through his work.Adapted from Canadian Government Group of Seven Web Site

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Jesse Trevino (c 1946-)

Jesse Trevino, who won his first art contest when he was in grade school, is one of America's finest realist painters and muralists. Two of Trevino's paintings are in the collection of the Smithsonian's American Art Museum. In recent years Trevino has become known for his building-size murals and his large photorealistic style paintings. His nine-story by 40 feet mural, titled Spirit of Healing, on Santa Rosa Children's Hospital has become a San Antonio landmark. But tragedy almost deprived the world of Trevino's artistry. He was attending the Art Students League in New York, and was about to go to Paris, when he received his draft notice for Vietnam. There he lost his right arm in combat. While recovering he turned again to his love of art. He enrolled in a drawing course at San Antonio College and gradually learned to paint and draw with his left hand. Trevino earned his bachelor's degree from Our Lady of the Lake University and a master's degree from the University of Texas. His current project is a 40-foot, three-dimensional veladora, or candleholder, that will be dedicated to the victims of the September 11 terrorist attack. - adapted from American Association of Community Colleges

Books from Alibris: Hispanic American Art

Tom Thomson (1877-1917)

Take everything as it comes; the wave passes, deal with the next one.

Books from Alibris: Tom Thomson

Alma W. Thomas (1891-1978)

Alma W. Thomas had her first one-woman show at the age of 68 and developed her signature style seven years later. Despite her belated start, Alma Woodsey Thomas went on to have retrospectives at the Corcoran Gallery of Art and the National Museum of American Art, both in Washington, D.C.; she was the first African American woman to have a solo show at the Whitney Museum of American Art; and she exhibited her paintings at the White House on three occasions.

Thomas was born and raised in Columbus, Georgia. In 1907 she moved with her family to Washington, D.C., into the house where she spent the remaining seven decades of her life. After graduating from high school, where she excelled at art, Thomas earned a teaching certificate and, later, a master's degree in art education. Throughout her life, Thomas concentrated on her career; she painted part time while supporting herself by teaching art, notably at Shaw Junior High School, where she worked from 1924 until her retirement in 1960.

Thomas's early art was realistic. However, at Howard University, where she was the Art Department's first graduate in 1924, she became fascinated by abstraction, based on the influence of her professors Lois Mailou Jones and James V. Herring. When she was invited to exhibit her art at Howard in 1966, Thomas decided to experiment with a new approach, the type of painting for which she is best known today: large canvases filled with dense, irregular patterns made by brushes heavily laden with bright colors. Thomas's mature work has been compared with Byzantine mosaics, the pointillist technique of Georges Seurat, and the paintings of the Washington Color School, yet her work is quite distinctive.

A lifelong political activist, Thomas offered weekly art classes to children from Washington's poorest neighborhoods even when she was suffering from severe arthritis. In her 80s, neither a broken hip nor a heart ailment prevented her from continuing to paint. - Malaspina Biography

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Dorothea Tanning (1910-)

Keep your eye on your inner world and keep away from ads, idiots and movie stars.

Books from Alibris: Dorothea Tanning

Yves Tanguy (1900-1955)

The painting develops before my eyes, unfolding its surprises as it progresses. It is this which gives me the sense of complete liberty, and for this reason I am incapable of forming a plan or making a sketch beforehand.

Books from Alibris: Yves Tanguay

Graham Vivian Sutherland (1903-1980)

English painter, renowned for his work as an official artist during the Second World War. He also painted abstract landscapes. Born in London, Sutherland originally apprenticed as an engineer, before studying art at Goldsmiths College, London. From 1940-45 he was employed as an official war artist. One of his first tasks was to depict bombing damage in the east end of London. Sutherland described his experiences in his journal:

At the beginning I was a bit shy as to where I went. Later I grew bolder and went inside some of the ruins. I remember a factory for making women's coats. All the floors had gone but the staircase remained, as very often happened. And there were machines, their entrails hanging through the floors, but looking extraordinarily beautiful at the same time. And always there was the terrible smell of sour burning.

Books from Alibris: Graham Sutherland

Jaune Quick-To-See Smith (1940-)

Jaune Quick-to-See Smith's art presents a cross-cultural dialogue between those values and experiences of the artist's inherited past and those of late-20th-century Euro-American culture. A painter of Salish, French-Cree, and Shoshone heritage, Smith was born in St. Ignatius, Montana, and raised on the Flathead Reservation. She became an artist while in her 30s, and was already earning a living as a painter before she completed her M.F.A. degree at the University of New Mexico. By the mid-1970s Smith had also founded artists' groups, curated exhibitions, and organized grassroots protests to express her concern for the land and its people. Over the past two decades, she has become one of the best known American Indian artists in a ground-breaking generation that includes herself, George Longfish, Hachivi Edgar Heap of Birds, and others. - Malaspina Biography

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Mario Sironi (1885-1961)

Mario Sironi, born in Sardegna Italy, is known for his highly personal romantic expression. As a student, he first specialized in mathematics and engineering but then abandoned them for painting. Studying art in Rome at the Free School of Nude Drawing, he was exposed to the exponents of Futurism, which he explored in his early art work. One of his close associates was Umberto Boccioni, a leading Futurist, who involved Sironi in Futurist exhibitions held in Rome. Boccioni described Sironi as an artist "who has embarked in a profound and highly original way on research into plastic dynamism." Sironi also worked as an illustrator for various Italian periodicals. Faced with the threats of World War I, he and his companions enrolled in the Volunteer Lombard Battalion of Cyclists and Motorists (1915-18) and signed the manifesto calling on Italy to enter the war. He married Matilde Fabbrini, a painter, in 1919 and they lived and worked in Milan. - Malaspina Biography

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Benjamin Zwi Shahn (1898-1969)

I felt very strongly the whole social impact of that depression, you know, and I felt very strongly about the efforts that this Resettlement Administration was trying to accomplish; resettling people, helping them, and so on.

Books from Alibris: Ben Shahn

Egon Schiele (1890-1918)

Art cannot be modern.. Art is primordially eternal.

Books from Alibris: Egon Schiele

Anne Savage (1896-1971)

Anne Savage was influenced initially by the Group of Seven but later developed an independent style and made a significant impact on Canadian art and education. She was a member of the Beaver Hill Hall group and President of the Canadian Group of Painters (1949, 1960). Savage was one of the first women to participate actively in the creation of a Canadian school of painting, and an early exponent of child art and creative teaching. Trained as a painter, and a self taught teacher, her success as an educator and her development as a painter were concurrent. As an artist, she was part of the vital Canadian art movements of the 30's and 40's closely linked to the The Group of Seven and the Northern Symbolist landscape tradition. In her teaching, she was influenced by the writings of Belle Boas, Marion Richardson and Herbert Read, and was associated with Arthur Lismer. - Malaspina Biography

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Georges Rouault (1871-1958)

Anyone can revolt. It is more difficult silently to obey our own inner promptings, and to spend our lives finding sincere and fitting means of expression for our temperament and our gifts.

Books from Alibris: Georges Rouault

Albert H. Robinson (1881-1956)

Albert Robinson sent two canvasses to the first Group of Seven exhibition in 1919, neither of which has been possible to locate. The painting shown here Noontime, Longue Pointe Village had been exhibited the month before. This work is a strong and expressive painting and marked Robinson as one of the boldest innovators working in Montreal at that time. (The Group of Seven: Art for a Nation, National Gallery of Canada, Charles C. Hill, McClelland & Stewart, p.312, 1995) - Malaspina Biography

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