When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn't become a king. The palace instead becomes a circus.
—Turkish proverb
I fear where the growing situation in the US might lead the world, but we might hope the only result is as harmless as this quote proposes. Then again, a circus doesn't really benefit us either. It seems like so many of the pro-Trump talk on Hive was about how he would pump our bags, as opposed to Harris who would be terrible for the stock market and for crypto. But now where are we on that? Trump seems intent on bursting the bubble in the US stock market, which will send crypto into a tailspin, at least for a while. Sale, I suppose, amirite?
I recorded another quote in my notebook, this one more politically neutral.
If you are distressed by anything external, the pain is not due to the thing itself, but to your esteem of it; and this you have the power to revoke at any moment.
—Marcus Aurelius
This is from Meditations, Book 8, #47. I hadn't seen this particular translation of the line before so I wrote it down. I later looked it up and found it is from Maxwell Staniforth's translation in 1964.
If you look up Meditations on the web, almost all quotes from it you come across will be from the George Long translation of 1862. This translation is very common because it's out of copyright, but its English is a little long in the tooth.
His translation of this line reads:
If thou art pained by any external thing, it is not this thing that disturbs thee, but thy own judgment about it. And it is in thy power to wipe out this judgment now.
Long's translation can be comfortable, in that way that old text can be, but it can also be tiresome to read through with all those thee's and thou's and other archaic speech.
A more modern translation:
External things are not the problem. It's your assessment of them. Which you can erase right now.
That's Gregory Hays translation, made in 2003, using more direct and simpler language. Both are good, really, but if you are new to Meditations, the Hays translation is probably the one to get and read first.
Meditations is a great book and I fully recommend it to everyone. It is a great text. But more than the text, I've always been fascinated by the man himself: Marcus Aurelius, the philosopher emperor. We often have this image that anyone born into wealth is going to be a spoiled brat and grow to be a terrible person, but here was the most powerful man in the Western world, but unlike later emperors he chose not to be corrupted by his power and wealth, and instead followed this incredibly strict philosophy, not only theoretical but he very much practiced what he preached.
It’s fascinating to consider how Marcus Aurelius maintained his discipline, especially when surrounded by so much power and temptation. It’s easy to imagine how the incredibly wealth and power at his disposal could lead to self-indulgence, or at least to moral laziness. But he didn’t allow himself that. His writings are laced with reminders to stay humble, to accept hardship, and to meet challenges with dignity.
Also fascinating is that Meditations wasn’t written for us—it was his personal journal, his private struggle to stay true to his values. When he repeatedly writes to stay humble, admonishing himself constantly, this was all only for himself. There’s something powerful about that. When we read it, we’re witnessing a man wrestle with himself, striving to be better, fully aware of his own shortcomings. He didn’t need to impress anyone. He was trying to shape himself into the kind of man he believed he ought to be.
It’s a sharp contrast to modern leadership, where image often outweighs substance. Today, many leaders shape themselves to public perception, worrying about polls, likes, and headlines. There’s little space for internal reckoning, for self-criticism that isn’t staged for an audience. And perhaps that’s why so many seem adrift.
That brings me back to the circus—the palace turned chaotic. I've said it many time before on Hive: the JFK-Nixon debate was the end of decent leadership. From that point forward, character didn't matter and only appearance did, and it all became a spectacle. It's easy to call Trump a demagogue, but in a very real sense every public leader since Nixon-JFK has been a demagogue to some degree. When leadership is about performance, about spectacle, then it loses its seriousness. We lose the depth of leadership that comes from true self-reflection. The clown in the palace isn’t dangerous because of jokes or antics. He’s dangerous because he forgets—or ignores—the responsibility that comes with the crown.
But Marcus Aurelius didn’t forget. He carried that responsibility with the weight it deserved, even when it was exhausting, even when it meant confronting his own weaknesses.
And maybe that’s the lesson. In times when the world feels like it’s descending into spectacle, we can choose to be a little more like Marcus—quietly disciplined, focused on what we can control, and committed to being better, even when no one is watching.
Because if we can’t control the circus, we can at least choose not to be clowns.
❦
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David is an American teacher and translator lost in Japan, trying to capture the beauty of this country one photo at a time and searching for the perfect haiku. He blogs here and at laspina.org. Write him on Mastodon. |