A Meditation on Impermanence

What I’m about to write comes from a little book I’m working on*; the title of which is Gems of Stoic Wisdom. The idea is to compile a bunch of useful, practical examples of Stoic philosophy, and to even extend it a little further.

“Everything material soon disappears in the substance of the whole; and everything formal (causal) is very soon taken back into the universal reason; and the memory of everything is very soon overwhelmed in time.” — Marcus Aurelius, 7.10

A Withering Flower

Flowers are beautiful; but they’re not beautiful forever. Most of us are aware of this fact, but we don’t ever put it into perspective. For this reason, I set down for you a meditation on the withering flower.

The idea is to get a flower, any flower, and place it somewhere in your home where you may encounter it on a daily basis. If you awake to go to the bathroom first thing in the morning, place it there. Or, if you prefer, near the coffee pot. It doesn’t matter, as long as you see it daily.

Each time you see it, it will most certainly look different. Eventually, the flower will be so withered that if you touch it, it will crumble. It returns to the earth, if you will. Thus is life: fleeting, like the flower.

Hopefully this doesn’t sound depressing — it’s not meant to be. It’s meant to make us enjoy life more while we’re here, while we’re able to, to remind us that we’re not going to be around forever. With this in mind, we gain a better appreciation of our time. We wont get so upset at minor things, we’ll better enjoy the company of the people around us, and we’ll get to work on things that matter to us.

* The book is currently available on http://mettastoic.com/books/gems-of-stoic-wisdom.pdf, but it is far from finished.