Living According to Nature
This week you'll follow one of Stoicism's most radical ideas to its logical end: that living "according to nature" isn't a vague invitation to go for walks outside. It is a precise, demanding account of what you actually are and what that demands of you. The arc moves from the outermost ring inward: you'll begin with humanity's social nature, move through the discipline of assent and impulse, confront the sacred interconnection of all things, and arrive, on Saturday, at the core discovery. That discovery is this: the rational faculty you carry is not merely your own, but a fragment of divine reason governing the whole. Each day builds on the last, so hold the earlier passages in mind as you go.
Passage
Every natural thing is satisfied when it fares well, and a reasonable nature fares well when it gives its assent to nothing false or obscure in its imaginations, directs its impulses only to social ends, desires and avoids only what is in our power, and welcomes all that is assigned by Universal Nature.
— Marcus Aurelius, Meditations VIII.7
Reflection
Marcus now gives you the most complete inventory yet of what a 'reasonable nature faring well' actually looks like in practice: it assents to nothing false, directs its impulses only toward social ends, desires and avoids only what is in our power, and accepts what Universal Nature assigns. Notice that these four criteria form an integrated whole, corrupt one and the others follow. If you accept false impressions, your impulses go astray; if your impulses chase what isn't in your power, you resist what the universe assigns. Marcus is not listing four nice virtues; he's describing a single mode of being that either holds together or falls apart.
Go deeper
Of the four criteria Marcus names (sound assent, social impulse, power-bounded desire, and acceptance of what's assigned), which one, if you're honest, is your weakest link right now, and what does failing there cost the other three?
Practice
The Four-Criteria Check-In
Choose a current challenge or decision in your life, something with real stakes. Write it at the top of a page. Then evaluate it against each of Marcus's four criteria, one by one: (1) Am I assenting to anything false or unclear about this situation? (2) Are my intended actions aimed at a social good or only at private gain? (3) Am I desiring or avoiding something that isn't actually in my power? (4) Is there anything about this situation I'm refusing to accept that Universal Nature has already arranged? Write two to three honest sentences for each criterion.