Marcus Aurelius Didn't Write Meditations for You

The most popular philosophy book in the world was never supposed to be a book. Marcus Aurelius never gave it a title, never edited it, and almost certainly never expected another person to read a single word. What we call the Meditations is a private journal: notes he wrote to himself in a tent on the frontier, through plague and war, to get through the hardest years of his life. This is about what changes when you read it as what it actually is, a man talking himself through, and not a book written for you. Chapters: 0:00 A book that was never meant to be a book 0:53 What The Book Actually Is 3:07 What Changes When You Read It This Way 6:04 Translations And What They Do To The Text 8:02 Why This Matters Now 10:01 Outro Sources: Marcus Aurelius, Meditations (Hays and Hammond translations); Pierre Hadot, The Inner Citadel; the manuscript tradition that kept the text alive. Free Stoic guides and more writing: iamromanstone.com #Stoicism #MarcusAurelius #Meditations