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I recommend Gregory Hays' new translation, without the 'thou's and 'dost's. http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Modern-Library-ebook/dp/B000FC1JAI

I recommend Gregory Hays' new translation, without the 'thou's and 'dost's. http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Modern-Library-ebook/dp/B000FC1JAI http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Modern-Lib... "At dawn, when you have trouble getting out of bed, tell yourself: ‘I have to go to work–as a human being. What do I have to complain of, if I’m going to do what I was born for–the things which I was brought into the world to do? Or is this what I was created for? To huddle under the blankets and stay warm? - But it’s nicer here… So you were born to feel “nice?” Instead of doing things and experiencing them? Don’t you see the plants, the birds, the ants and spiders and bees going about their individual tasks, putting the world in order, as best they can? And you’re not willing to do your job as a human being? Why aren’t you running to do what your nature demands? - But we have to sleep sometime… Agreed. But nature set a limit on that–as it did on eating and drinking. And you’re over the limit. But not of working. There you’re still below your quota. You don't love yourself enough. Or you'd love your nature too, and what it demands of you. People who love what they do wear themselves down doing it, they even forget to wash or eat. Do you have less respect for your own nature than the engraver does for engraving, the dancer for the dance, the miser for money or the social climber for status? When they're really possessed by what they do, they'd rather stop eating and sleeping than give up practicing their arts."

cm2012 12y ago
I'd rather be comfortable. The life of animals in the wild is generally brutal and short - give me my blankets any day over some sense of duty.
- aswanson 12y ago
  Staying under the blankets longer than required will shorten the journey even further. Perhaps, it might make it even more brutal.
- joaorico 12y ago
  Nature and evolution provided us with a whole hierarchy of needs, and some people are no longer surrounded by predators and do have a reasonable social security net. A life under warm blankets? The last paragraph addresses the comfort need. "You don't love yourself enough" is somewhere midway in the hierarchy. Related pseudo-Einstein quote: "“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life. All that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”"
- Jach 12y ago
  This thread reminded me of an excerpt from the beginning of http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/kjn/people/heaviest.htm http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/kjn/people/heavies... "Dionysius of Heracleia was notorious for his appetite, and eventually grew so weighty that he could scarcely budge: he suffered from apnea or narcolepsy besides, prompting his doctors to prick his flesh with needles whenever he fell asleep on his throne. A contemporary poet has him declare that he aspired to end his days 'on my back, lying on my many rolls of fat, scarcely uttering a word, taking labored breaths, and eating my fill,' for of all the ways a man might die, an excess of luxury was the only truly happy death. Nevertheless, he lived to what was then the ripe old age of 55, earning a reputation for fairness and generosity that competed with his size as an object of astonishment." Rejection of duty is rejection of responsibility. I have no complaints about people who do so -- and would enjoy more vacations of that sort myself -- so long as they've set up their lives to not be responsible for others during their rejection period. It may be better to find ways of enjoying life's comforts while staying on top of your business, though.
sgentle 12y ago
The Gregory Hays translation is great. I didn't even finish Meditations the first time I tried because the language in my translation was dry and archaic to the point of being distracting. I basically had to read each page twice and couldn't get into the flow of actually understanding and enjoying what he was trying to say. The original wasn't meant to be a dry treatise; it was a journal. I think a rendering that uses personal and simple language is more faithful than one that goes for the inscrutable ancient wisdom angle.
randallsquared 12y ago
Unfortunately, looking at what other entities do doesn't provide any answer to what you ought to do. Is vs ought is a serious problem, unsolved and (as far as I can see) unsolvable. We end up doing things for no reason other than that we feel like it. But, if your philosophy suggests that you should do things in spite of how you feel, that's going to be a problem.
- maroonblazer 12y ago
  "looking at what other entities do doesn't provide any answer to what you ought to do." It doesn't? If my neighbor rises early, works hard and seems happier than me, whereas I spend all day in bed and feel depressed, doing what he's doing isn't a bad place to start.
- tjradcliffe 12y ago
  What is it about you that makes you think the is-ought problem is a problem you ought to be worried about? Advocates of the importance of the is-ought problem want us to be deeply concerned about it, but they never explain why we ought to be. And in fact, we ought not be worried about it whether it is solved, unsolved or unsolvable: Once we identify what it is in our nature that makes solving the is-ought problem a problem we ought to be worried about, we will have solved the is-ought problem and it will no longer be a problem we ought to be worried about. Until we have identified what it is in our nature that makes the is-ought problem a problem we ought to be worried about, we have no reason to consider it a problem we ought to be worried about. QED For myself, I think the is-ought problem is ill-posed in its traditional "ultimate moral justification" form and trivially easy in any sensible form that acknowledges the vast amount of stuff Hume didn't know, like evolutionary biology. The sensible form doesn't solve the ultimate-moral-justification question Hume was concerned with for the same reason chemists never solved the creation of the Philosopher's Stone alchemists were concerned with: because such problems are the result of bizarre fantasies that have nothing to do with actual human existence. Science will never tell us how to forge the One Ring, either, but that isn't because of the limitations of science, it's because the One Ring is fantasy, just like ultimate moral justifications and the Philosopher's Stone.
  - 12y ago
thomasfl 12y ago
It's not available as a paper copy. Only Kindle e-book. Does anyone know where we can get hold of Hays' fine translation of this truly timeless gem on paper ?
- Luc 12y ago
  Abebooks.com has copies: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Meditations%3A+A+New+Translation http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Medit... I have the hardcover, but it's not great quality. The paper is thin and yellowing, the printing is crooked, and the binding is simply a paperback glued into a hardcover, with a ribbon in between to give the impression of a real binding. The content is great though, and despite my complaining I am mostly stoic about it :)
- killnine 12y ago
  Thought so too, but found this: http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/0812968255 http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Aur...

cm2012 12y ago

I'd rather be comfortable. The life of animals in the wild is generally brutal and short - give me my blankets any day over some sense of duty.

aswanson 12y ago
Staying under the blankets longer than required will shorten the journey even further. Perhaps, it might make it even more brutal.
joaorico 12y ago
Nature and evolution provided us with a whole hierarchy of needs, and some people are no longer surrounded by predators and do have a reasonable social security net. A life under warm blankets? The last paragraph addresses the comfort need. "You don't love yourself enough" is somewhere midway in the hierarchy. Related pseudo-Einstein quote: "“We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life. All that we need to make us happy is something to be enthusiastic about.”"
Jach 12y ago
This thread reminded me of an excerpt from the beginning of http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/kjn/people/heaviest.htm http://www.dimensionsmagazine.com/dimtext/kjn/people/heavies... "Dionysius of Heracleia was notorious for his appetite, and eventually grew so weighty that he could scarcely budge: he suffered from apnea or narcolepsy besides, prompting his doctors to prick his flesh with needles whenever he fell asleep on his throne. A contemporary poet has him declare that he aspired to end his days 'on my back, lying on my many rolls of fat, scarcely uttering a word, taking labored breaths, and eating my fill,' for of all the ways a man might die, an excess of luxury was the only truly happy death. Nevertheless, he lived to what was then the ripe old age of 55, earning a reputation for fairness and generosity that competed with his size as an object of astonishment." Rejection of duty is rejection of responsibility. I have no complaints about people who do so -- and would enjoy more vacations of that sort myself -- so long as they've set up their lives to not be responsible for others during their rejection period. It may be better to find ways of enjoying life's comforts while staying on top of your business, though.

sgentle 12y ago

The Gregory Hays translation is great. I didn't even finish Meditations the first time I tried because the language in my translation was dry and archaic to the point of being distracting. I basically had to read each page twice and couldn't get into the flow of actually understanding and enjoying what he was trying to say. The original wasn't meant to be a dry treatise; it was a journal. I think a rendering that uses personal and simple language is more faithful than one that goes for the inscrutable ancient wisdom angle.

randallsquared 12y ago

Unfortunately, looking at what other entities do doesn't provide any answer to what you ought to do. Is vs ought is a serious problem, unsolved and (as far as I can see) unsolvable. We end up doing things for no reason other than that we feel like it. But, if your philosophy suggests that you should do things in spite of how you feel, that's going to be a problem.

maroonblazer 12y ago
"looking at what other entities do doesn't provide any answer to what you ought to do." It doesn't? If my neighbor rises early, works hard and seems happier than me, whereas I spend all day in bed and feel depressed, doing what he's doing isn't a bad place to start.
tjradcliffe 12y ago
What is it about you that makes you think the is-ought problem is a problem you ought to be worried about? Advocates of the importance of the is-ought problem want us to be deeply concerned about it, but they never explain why we ought to be. And in fact, we ought not be worried about it whether it is solved, unsolved or unsolvable: Once we identify what it is in our nature that makes solving the is-ought problem a problem we ought to be worried about, we will have solved the is-ought problem and it will no longer be a problem we ought to be worried about. Until we have identified what it is in our nature that makes the is-ought problem a problem we ought to be worried about, we have no reason to consider it a problem we ought to be worried about. QED For myself, I think the is-ought problem is ill-posed in its traditional "ultimate moral justification" form and trivially easy in any sensible form that acknowledges the vast amount of stuff Hume didn't know, like evolutionary biology. The sensible form doesn't solve the ultimate-moral-justification question Hume was concerned with for the same reason chemists never solved the creation of the Philosopher's Stone alchemists were concerned with: because such problems are the result of bizarre fantasies that have nothing to do with actual human existence. Science will never tell us how to forge the One Ring, either, but that isn't because of the limitations of science, it's because the One Ring is fantasy, just like ultimate moral justifications and the Philosopher's Stone.
- 12y ago

thomasfl 12y ago

It's not available as a paper copy. Only Kindle e-book. Does anyone know where we can get hold of Hays' fine translation of this truly timeless gem on paper ?

Luc 12y ago
Abebooks.com has copies: http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Meditations%3A+A+New+Translation http://www.abebooks.com/servlet/SearchResults?sts=t&tn=Medit... I have the hardcover, but it's not great quality. The paper is thin and yellowing, the printing is crooked, and the binding is simply a paperback glued into a hardcover, with a ribbon in between to give the impression of a real binding. The content is great though, and despite my complaining I am mostly stoic about it :)
killnine 12y ago
Thought so too, but found this: http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Aurelius/dp/0812968255 http://www.amazon.com/Meditations-New-Translation-Marcus-Aur...