Summary of Books 4-6

How live your best life as told by Marcus Aurelius (Book 4)

In this book, Aurelius focuses on the different ways in how to live your best life. He seeks to inform on the most ‘philosophic’ way of treating the self. For instance, he emphasizes the need to live a well ordered life which includes tranquility and free of resentment. In this way, Aurelius takes the position against revenge and resentment, and argues that justice isn’t as vengeful as it may seem, and rather

“tolerance is a part of justice.”

Meditations, 24.

I think that this is especially important because especially during this time (and even now to a certain degree) many conflicts are started as a means of micro-aggression caused from previous resentments. If we were to let go of these resentments, and understand, as Aurelius says, that

“wrongdoing is not deliberate”

Meditations, 24

then we would be on our way to living a peaceful and harmonious life. (Aurelius 24). Aurelius proceeds with this book in providing various aphorisms to further exemplify/put into action several of his main points. I think that something especially worth noting about this book is that Aurelius seems to allude to a 1^st level political theory of human nature—being that since humans make up cities, then we should focus on human nature in order to understand the behavior of a city. This political theory in seen in how Aurelius emphasizes the importance of a community’s well-being, attributed to the well-being (and thus rational principles) practiced by the individual human.