Mon 25 June 2018

A part of society

Written by Hongjinn Park in Articles

Today I want to reflect on the following quote from The Meditations:


A branch cut away from the branch beside it is simultaneously cut away from the whole tree. So too a human being separated from another is cut loose from the whole community.

The branch is cut off by someone else. But people cut themselves off—through hatred, through rejection—and don't realize that they're cutting themselves off from the whole civic enterprise.

Except that we also have a gift, given us by Zeus, who founded this community of ours. We can reattach ourselves and become once more components of the whole.

But if the rupture is too often repeated, it makes the severed part hard to reconnect, and to restore. You can see the difference between the branch that's been there since the beginning, remaining on the tree and growing with it, and the one that's been cut off and grafted back.

"One trunk, two minds." As the gardeners put it.

– Marcus Aurelius

I've always been independent and I don't get lonely easily. But I've definitely come to realize how much I need other people. We are social animals and no amount of rational thinking can prevent us from desiring community.

Marcus wasn't a fan of court drama and it must have been hard dealing with social climbers and people plotting directly against him. Here he reminds himself that he is part of a community, and that is our natural state of being as humans. We all share in the Logos.



Articles

Personal notes I've written over the years.