Meditations
Marcus Aurelius
Summary
Timeless advice from one of the original Stoic philosophers
Rating: 5/5
Notes
See things for what they are and accept them
Keep in mind how fast things pass by and are gone - those that are now and those to come. Nothing is stable, not even what’s here
Concentrate every minute on doing what’s in front of you with genuine seriousness
Everyone gets one life. Instead of treating yours w/ respect, you have entrusted your own happiness to the souls of others
You could leave right now. Let that determine what you do and say and think
You cannot lose another life than the one you’re living now or live another one than the one you’re losing
The present is all you can give up since that is all you have and what you don’t have, you cannot lose
Don’t waste the rest of your time here worrying about other people
Your ability to control your thoughts - treat it with respect
Each of us lives now, the brief instant. The rest has been lived already or is impossible to see. The span we live is small, small as the corner of earth where we live
Nowhere you can go is more peaceful than your own soul
Disturbance comes from within - from our own perceptions
The tranquility that comes when you stop caring what they say, or think, or do
What use is praise, except to make your lifestyle a bit more comfortable?
If you seek tranquility, do less. Do less, better.
Everything fades so quickly, turns into legend and soon oblivion and those are the ones who shine. What is ‘eternal fame?’ Emptiness
Everything is transitory - the knower and the known
There is nothing nature loves more than to alter what exists and make new things from it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it
Human lives are brief and trivial
Take the shortest route, the one that nature planned and act in the healthiest way. Do that and be free of pain and stress, free of calculation and pretension
What things gravitate towards is their goal
Locate goodness in thinking and doing the right thing and to limit your desires to that
Good fortune is what you make for yourself. Good fortune: good character, good intentions and good actions
Pride is a master of deception: when you think you’re occupied in the weightiest business, that’s when he has you in his spell
What should we prize? To do (and not do) what we were designed for
It’s the truth that I’m after and the truth never harmed anyone. What harms us is to persist in self-deceit and ignorance
Keep reminding yourself of the way things are connected of their relatedness
Live this life out truthfully and rightfully and be patient with those that don’t
Do your best to convince them. But act on your own if justice requires it. If not w/ force, then fall back on acceptance. Use the setback to practice other virtues. Remember our efforts are subject to circumstances. You weren’t aiming to do the impossible. You aimed to try. And you succeeded. What you set out to do is accomplished.
Practice hearing what people really say. Do your best to get inside their minds
I am in control of my thoughts as necessary. What is outside my mind means nothing to it. Absorb that lesson and your feet stand firm
So many who were remembered are already forgotten and those who remembered them long gone
Look at the past and from that, extrapolate the future: the same thing. No escape from the rhythm of events
Forget what they think of you. Be satisfied if you can live the rest of your life, however short, as nature demands. Focus on that and don’t let anything distract you
External things are not the problem. It’s your assessment of them, which you can change right now
Do what nature demands and don’t worry if anyone won’t give you credit for it. Be satisfied with even the smallest progress and treat the outcome of it all as unimportant
Everything was born to die
All of this has happened before and will happen again. All just the same. Only people are different.
Have I done something for the command good? Stay centered on that and don’t give up
Someone despises us, that’s their problem
Everything you’re trying to reach by taking the long way round you could have in this moment. If only you’d let go of the past, entrust your future to faith and guide the present toward reverence and justice
We all love ourselves more than other people but care about their opinions more than our own
Before long, you’ll be no one and nowhere. Like all the things and people now living. Everything’s destiny is to change, to be transformed, to perish. So new things can be born.
***
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How the World Works
Noam Chomsky
Summary
A combination of books Chomsky wrote in the 80s and 90s about America and it's role in the world. Fascinating read and insight into one of the great thinkers of the 21st century
Rating: 5/5
Notes
The US invaded Greece in 1947 and supported a horrendous war which led to 160k Greek deaths. This was the model for Vietnam and allowed American business to gain and thrive
US policies in the 3rd world consistently opposed democracies if they couldn’t be controlled as real democracies believe government should respond to the needs of their own population rather than those of US investors
US-run contra forces in the 3rd world isn’t ordering killing - it’s brutal sadistic torture (Nicaragua, El Salvador, Guatemala)
From the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 till the collapse of the communist governments in eastern europe in the 80s, it was possible to justify every US attack as defense against the Soviets
If you want a global system that’s subordinated to the needs of US investors, you can’t let pieces of it wander off. It’s clearly stated in the documents of record
The US wants ‘stability’ meaning security for the upper classes and large foreign businesses
Solid case for impeaching every American president since World War 2 either outright as war criminals or involved in serious war crimes
El Salvador and Nicaragua were not covered by the US media in the 70s when US-supported brutal torture and murder were taking place
In the early 80s, America’s friends slaughtered 10s of thousands of Guatemalans with countless others tortured and raped
After Vietnam, the major US policy goal has been to maximize repression and suffering of countries demonstrated by their violence - blocked other countries from seeking aid
The US regularly carries out or supports aggression
For most of the 20th century, the US was the dominant economic power and used economic warfare as a weapon ranging from illegal embargoes to enforcement of weak IMF rules with their military becoming pre-eminent
The US tries to avoid negotiations with countries as the US fears it will lose and other countries will be better off
When a state has huge debts, it must divert the population from what’s happening and they do this by inspiring fear of our enemies (Russia in Europe)
The real enemy of the US has always been ‘the poor who seek to plunder the rich’. In America, it’s the opposite and has been for generations
‘The war on drugs’ was a manufactured media blitz by the US leadership to distract the population, increase repression in inner cities and build support for attack on civil liberties
The US government blocks international effort to seek peace (Russia and Ukraine)
Major media are large companies owned and interlinked with even larger conglomerates. The market is the advertisers and the product is audiences
The power in the US lies in the hands of people who determine investment decisions as they determine production, distribution and staff the government. They want a passive, quiescent population
The struggle of freedom is never over and requires active and sustained efforts
One important consequence of globalization is it extends the third world model to industrial nations where the average person has their jobs shipped away while the rich and elite continue to amass massive amounts of wealth
We’ve moved to an international state with the IMF, World Bank, G7 & EU, WEF where the general population doesn’t know what’s happening and it doesn’t know it doesn’t know
If the borrowing the US has done was used for constructive purposes like investment or infrastructure, the US would be better off, but it was used to enrich the rich - for consumption, financial manipulation and speculation which are all harmful
The class warfare of the last few decades has successfully weakened popular organizations leaving people to feel isolated
The US is so deeply in debt to the international financial community because of debt that they have a lock on US policy
Many of the large number of security council resolutions vetoed by the US have to do with Israeli aggression or atrocities
Invaders typically use local collaborators to run things for them by playing upon existing rivalries to get onne group to work for them against another
European wars were wars of extermination. If we were to be honest about history, we would simply describe it as barbarian invasion
There has always been racism but it developed as a leading principle of thought in the context of colonialism.
A standard technique of belief formation goes along with oppression
In the US, you’re not allowed to talk about the class differences, which is the real issue
When the US establishment talks about jobs, it means profits for its corporations
The elite are masters and they follow what Adam Smith said about ‘the vile maxim’ - all for ourselves and nothing for anyone else
People who aren’t owners and investors have nothing much to say in the US
Jefferson warned against banking institutions and corporations and said if they grow, aristocrats would’ve won and the revolution would’ve been lost
The ‘Free market’ is for the poor. We have a dual system - protection for the rich and market discipline for everyone else
There’s been a considerable increase in inequality and has the American society moving towards a third world model, thereby seeing increased crime and signs of social disintegration
A huge area of the media is dedicated to diverting people and making them more stupid and passive
There’s nothing individualistic about corporations who are totalitarian in nature
Free trade agreements result in reduced wages for local employees while predominantly benefiting the rich consumer while also destroying unions
Operation Paper Clip imported large number of known Nazi criminals
The American army’s counter-insurgency literature begins with an analysis of the German experience in Europe written with the co-operation of Naxi officials (instruments of statecraft - book)
US involvement in Chile with the coup in 1973 to reduce social democracy
The threat of a good empire is what the US worried about with reforms on uncontrolled capitalism
The US killed a few million people and destoryed 3 countries during the Vietnam war
A huge amount of business propaganda is to create wants
The answers to solve all these issues is to organize. Being alone you can’t do anything but if you join with other people, you can make changes
Under capitalism, investment is supposed to be as risk free as possible. No competition wants free markets - what they want is power
The government subsidizes corporations’ costs, protects them from market risks and lets them keep the profits
There’s never been much difference between the 2 business parties and the differences are disappearing
The CIA has been involved in drug running for generations (the politics of heroin book)
You need something to frighten people with, to prevent them from paying attention to what’s really happening to them. You have to engender fear and hatred
The first world lives in a highly indoctrinated society
Neoliberalism is nothing more than the imperial formula: free markets for you and plenty of protection for me. The rich would never accept it but they’re happy to impose it on the poor
The UN does mostly what US business wants
‘Politics is the shadow cast on society by big business’ - John Devery
If people dedicate themselves to organizing and activism, we’ll gain access to broader audiences
If you extrapolate to the future, it’s very ugly but the point is it’s not inevitable. It can be changed but we can’t change things till we understand them.
***
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