Marshall Robbins’s Reviews > Meditations > Status Update

n5:
-Always think to yourself; what am i doing to my mind and soul?
-The soul is cause and the body is matter.
-Because there is infinite time, the universe will always return from fire despite it being of finite matter.

n5:
-Thing happen to you because they are good for the universe.
-Philosophy is a therapy.

begin n5:
-Keep useful thoughts readily available.
-Remember what you have to do when you’re reluctant to get out of bed in the morning.
-Don’t let other people distract you from your path.
-We gain everything from the earth yet abuse it all the same.
-“I wasn’t made that way” cannot excuse bad qualities and behaviour. Virtue is up to us.
-A virtuous man doesn’t shout his good deeds from the rooftops.

n4:
-There is no good or bad luck only how you take it.
-Time is vast and death is imminent. What is the difference between dying 3 days young or 300 years old?
End of notebook 4.

n4:
-What is detrimental to you doesn’t depend on other people.
-Nothing is bad or good, it is thinking that makes it so.
-Never consider the world as a one substance.
-Time is a river and its current is strong; everyone gets swept away and eventually their memory and impact not far after.
-The death of one article is the birth of another.

n4:
-Do only what’s necessary to be content. Consider every action and thought; wether it is necessary or not.
-Don’t upset yourself or complicate your life. If someone does you wrong they are only wronging themselves. Every experience is fated and life is short, so profit from every moment.
-Intrust yourself to God. Be neither a tyrant nor a slave.
-Life is fleeting and in time you will not be remembered.

n4:
-Fame and praise serve as indifferences. Just a heads cherry on top.
-Beauty does not fade without praise.
-Seminal principle: A foundation that contains all the information to grow and develop, that will unfold naturally over time.
-Everything has a matter and a cause: A shoe is an object made of leather (it’s matter), made for walking (its purpose).

n4:
-You came into the universe as a part of a whole and someday the elements that make you up will go there separate ways to be reused by the universe.
-“The wisest man is an ape compared to God, just as the most beautiful ape is ugly compared to man.” -Heraclitus. It is impossible to devote yourself to reason for too long without being distracted by our lives.
-You won’t live forever so try to be a good man.

n4:
-Instead of retreating to calm places physically, allow yourself to retreat into your mind.
-Master pleasure and pain, do not become a servant to them.
-Everything is temporary and will change over time and eventually cease to exist.
-Nothing hurts you unless you allow it too.

Begin notebook 4:
-We should turn our experiences into lessons, should take things quickly and from smallest to biggest so we don’t become overwhelmed. These points are analogized into your rational faculty being a flame consuming things to grow greater, a small flame would be extinguished by objects too large.