MF 15: Marcus Aurelius's decomposition

Virtues: gentleness, courage, sincerity, good faith, simplicity, abstinence...

Marcus Aurelius' s book III: "Always define and describe the object whose image appears in the mind."

eidetic meditation and onomastic meditation.

eidetic: （头脑中的映像）极为逼真的
onomastic: 1. (Linguistics) of or relating to proper names
2. (Law) Law denoting a signature in a different handwriting from that of the document to which it is attached.

The concept of parastema: 1) what we should consider good, 2) our freedom and everything depends on our own freedom to form an opinion, 3) there is only one level of reality for the subject and it is the moment itself--the infinitely small moment that constitutes the present, prior o which nothing exists any longer and after which everything is still uncertain.

Contemplating the object as it is in essence. We must grasp the object as it is represented: naked without anything else, shorn of anything that could conceal and surround it; secondly, in its entirety; and thirdly, by distinguishing its constituent elements.

Marcus Aurelius's exercise and observe of mind. “In short, save in the case of virtue and what is connected to virtue, always remember to go straight for the parts themselves, and by analysis, come to scorn them. And now, apply the same procedure to life as a whole."

Whereas in Seneca looking down takes place from the summit of the world, in Marcus Aurelius the point of departure for this downward gaze is not the summit of the world but at the same level as human existence. We look precisely from the point where we happen to be, and the problem is to descend beneath this point in order to plunge into the heart of things so as to penetrate them thoroughly. For Seneca it involved seeing the whole of the world set out below us. For M, it involves a disqualifying, reductive, and ironic view of each thing in its specificity. On one hand, in penetrating to the heart of things and grasping all their most singular elements we demonstrate our freedom with regard to them. However, it also involves showing the extent to which our own identity is in reality only made up of singular, distinct elements, which are separate from each other, and that basically we are dealing with a false unity.