💀 Dying Every Day
The Dying Every Day series delivers guided Stoic meditations on the art of living. Each meditation provides a quote, a selected passage, and a journaling prompt to consider. These meditations are designed to help you (and me) reflect on what it means to live a ‘good’ life.
Epictetus on the ‘Rational Faculties’
“If, at some point in your life, you should come across anything better than justice, honesty, self-control, courage—than a mind satisfied that it has succeeded in enabling you to act rationally, and satisfied to accept what’s beyond its control—if you find anything better than that, embrace it without reservations—it must be an extraordinary thing indeed.”
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations, 3.6
Selected Passage
In this week’s Dying Every Day meditation, we’re exploring the rational faculties — through a selected passage from Epictetus.
The rational faculty, for this, is the only faculty that we have received which examines itself, what it is, what power it has, and what is the value of this gift, and examines all other faculties: for what else is there which tells us that golden things are beautiful, for they do not say so themselves? …
What, then, should a man have in readiness in such circumstances? What else than this? What is mine, and what is not mine; and what is permitted to me, and what is not permitted to me. ‘I must die.’ Must I then die lamenting? ‘I must be put in chains.’ Must I then also lament? ‘I must go into exile.’ Does any man then hinder me from going with smiles, cheerfulness, and contentment? …
These are the things philosophers should meditate on, which they should write daily, in which they should exercise themselves. […]
+ Adapted from Discourses
Reflection Exercise
Simply put, the ‘rational faculties’ allow us to think and reason. As an example, we use these ‘rational faculties’ to discern what is within our control and what is not. The ‘good life’ requires us to make informed judgments and conscious choices and align our actions with virtue, making our ‘rational faculties’ an indispensable ingredient of the art of living.
In his book Beyond the Individual, Prof. Will Johncock (a previous podcast guest) described the word “rational” like this,
Rational in a human regard implies someone’s ordered and systematic thinking. A rational thinker’s mental functions, their interpretations, decisions, and judgements, reliably associate effects with causes, and contextualize present events within past patterns of events in order to anticipate future events. A rational mind does not pluck its interpretations of what happens in the world, or decisions about how to respond to the world, from just anywhere. Rational thinking processes instead occur logically, orderly, repeatedly, and in sync with the world around the thinker. […]
Consider Prof. Johncock’s description of ‘rational’ with the opening quote from Marcus Aurelius, “a mind satisfied that it has succeeded in enabling you to act rationally.” How does one know if they have ‘succeeded’ in thinking (or acting) rationally? What does it mean to have our ‘thinking processes’ in sync with the world around us?
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
P.S. New here? Catch up on previous volumes in the archive!