Modern Marcus: The Fourth Book

‘Love what you do. Enjoy your talents. They’ll allow you to spend the rest of your life as neither master nor slave.’

1. Get some perspective

When you’re OK with the way things are in reality, you can adapt to whatever the world throws at you — threat or opportunity. You won’t come at things weighed down by the baggage of expectation or prejudice. You’ll be able to step back and get some distance. Then, no matter what happens, you can judge whether to embrace it, fight it or ignore it.

2. There is no try

Yoda was right. If you’re going to do something, do it properly and with purpose.

3. Wish you were here?

Everyone wants to get away from it all to the perfect hideaway.

Ever notice how it’s almost always somewhere far away? Thing is, get your mind into the right place and you can get away from it all without ever leaving your own head. Understand your own mind and you can find this inner peace whenever you want, as often as you like.

In doing so, you can recharge your batteries whenever you feel run down (just make sure you don’t take too long to get back in the game).

What really stresses you out anyway? Other people? Remember, we’re all in this together, tolerating others is just part of creating a fair world. People aren’t willingly evil. And whatever they do wrong will soon be gone (as will they before they know it). So chill out.

Maybe it’s your personal circumstances that make you worry. Well, either we’re just a random jumble of atoms or there is some wider purpose to all this. If it’s random, what can you do except roll with the punches? If there is purpose, then simply play your part to the best of your ability.

Or are you hurting? Well, pain is simply what the brain determines it to be. Train your mind to detach from the physical and you’ll hurt a lot less.

Or are you worried about what others think of you? Not getting enough love for your latest Instagram update? Soon enough, no one will either remember nor care. You’re on a tiny part of a small blue dot flying through the universe. When you look at it from that perspective, who gives a damn what others think?

So take a break in the sanctuary of your mind when you need to. Whatever happens, view things from the perspective of a human who is on this planet for just a little while. When it comes to it, nothing outside your mind can really affect you (unless you let it). And when shit happens, it won’t last long anyway.

Let’s face it, most run-of-the-mill bad stuff has happened to you loads of times in the past and you probably remember hardly any of it. Why will this one be any different?

In the final analysis, everything changes and most things in life are simply a matter of opinion.

4. Hello fellow citizen

We all have minds, we’re all rational creatures, we can all tell right from wrong. It doesn’t matter where you’re from, we’re all citizens of planet Earth. From this fellow citizenship, we all get our understanding, reason and law. Nothing comes from nothing — the mind is no different.

5. The love life of atoms

Birth. Death. It’s all part of the same process — atoms come together, atoms break apart. There’s nothing really to get worked up about, it’s just part of nature.

6. Spare change

You can’t change people, they’ll act as they will. Expecting anything different is like expecting a cat to bark. But why worry? Soon we’ll be dead and a little while later, no one will remember us anyway.

7. Get over it

Don’t get all wound up and offended by others. Abandon the feeling of being wronged and you’ll get rid of the wrong itself.

8. Become bulletproof

What doesn’t affect your mind can’t affect your life or harm you in any way.

9. The whole enchilada

Ultimately, the natural course of action is one that benefits the whole of humanity, nature and the universe.

10. Get in order

Whatever you do should be the result of an ordered series of decisions (not just a random bunch of events). Make sure your heart is in the right place. Do the right thing, not just the easy one, and you won’t go far wrong.

11. Get a reality check

How you view the world will dictate your opinions. So be careful to see it as it really is and not as it appears on Facebook or in the news or how you’d like it to be.

12. A simple recipe

OK, two things. First, do only what reason says is good for those around you. Second, don’t be afraid to change your mind if (and only if) someone can convince you based on reason and the common good.

13. A reasonable idea?

You’ve got a brain right? Then why not use it? Once you can apply reason to all your problems, you’ve got life nailed.

14. An atom at a time

You are a part of the universe, and at some point, you’ll dissolve back into it, atom by atom.

15. A haiku

Many petals fall

Some fall now and some later

There’s no difference

16. How awesome are you?

Right now, some people may see you as a bit of an idiot. (I know, right?) But get back in touch with your reason and in a week’s time they’ll see you as some kind of god.

17. The sand is running down

Face it, you won’t live to be a thousand. Time’s running out for you just like everyone else. Do some good while you still can.

18. Go straight ahead

Don’t waste time caring about what others say or do. Just focus on doing the right thing. Not only will it cut down stress, you’ll get where you need to go faster.

19. The dead don’t remember

So many people want to be remembered for something after they’ve died. But really, who cares?

Say people do remember you, soon they’ll be dead too. So will those that come after them. And even if, by some miracle of science, they did live forever, what’s it to you? Nothing.

Face it, in all your desire to make your mark for posterity, you’re wasting what you could be doing today.

20. Flattery will get you nowhere

Truly beautiful things are beautiful whether anyone praises them or not. It’s the same with intelligence or kindness or talent. In reality, none of these things is ever improved by praise or damaged by criticism.

21. We are all made of stars

Is there really a way for the soul to go on after death?

If there is a heaven, wouldn’t it get full? Think about all those physical bodies — people and animals — buried in the earth or that have gone up in smoke. They’ve simply transformed from one collection of atoms to another.

So maybe whatever we think of as a soul will go through the same process, transforming back into the stardust that makes up the universe around us.

How can we know the truth? By understanding the difference between things and the evidence for what happens.

22. It’s simple really

Stop fucking about. Simply make sure you’re seeing what’s really there and do the right thing.

23. What goes around comes around

It’s like this: Things will happen when they happen — no sooner, no later. Ultimately, everything comes from nature and, sooner or later, everything ends up there too.

24. Free: time

In the real world, it’s better to do a few things well than try to do anything and everything.

Most of the other stuff is just bullshit anyway. So you might as well save yourself the time and trouble. Whenever you’re faced with another to-do, ask yourself, ‘Is this really necessary?’ If not, don’t even think about it.

25. Take this test

Try this on for size: Simply attempt to lead a good life. Be happy with your lot. Enjoy doing the right thing. Then see how it suits you.

26. Take a chill pill

Chill out. Unfaze yourself. If someone you know is doing wrong, that’s their problem. If something has happened to you, so what? That’s just the way the cookie crumbles.

Life is short my friend. Seize the moment. Don’t get caught up with things you can do nothing about.

27. Maybe you’re not as crazy as you think you are

Either the universe is an interconnected orderly affair or it’s the chaos of an angry two-year-old. Thing is, can there be so much disorder in the universe and still order within you? Think about it — everything around you in nature simply works.

28. Rant

What an absolute dick! What a muggle-brained, stubborn, small-minded fool! (Sorry, sometimes you’ve just got to let it out.)

29. Getting cut off

Those who fail to see the true world around them are as much a stranger to reality as those who are simply a bit dim. They are exiled. Blind. Poor. Birdshit on the newly cut hair of the world — a world they’ve divorced by bitching about ‘stuff’ (while forgetting that they are just ‘stuff’ themselves). It’s like they’ve amputated themselves from a world where everything should be one.

30. Sometimes, reason is all there is

Philosophers are a funny sort. You get one without a coat, another without books. One will complain about having no food but say they still have faith in reason. For my part, while I make no money from my learning, I’ll still stick with it.

31. Nobody’s slave

Love what you do. Enjoy your talents. They’ll allow you to spend the rest of your life as neither master nor slave.

32. Not worth a bean

Look back in history. Take the 60s for example. All those people going about their lives: getting married, having kids, getting sick, dying, fighting, partying, doing business, throwing insults, having sex, making money, chasing power.

Fast forward to the 80s and you’ll see exactly the same thing.

Today? Just the same again.

All those people throughout history beavering away before passing away. You probably know some yourself, running headlong after their little vanities rather than focusing on the simple good life that lies right at their feet.

At the end of the day, things are only worth what they’re actually worth. Remember this and you won’t get distracted.

33. No one thinks about Betamax anymore

Words go out of fashion and die — who today talks about video cassettes or modems or velocipedes? It is the same for people — the stars of our childhoods fade over time. Even an Elvis Presley or a Princess Diana is spoken about less today than in their time. Even the mega-famous and super powerful are destined to become footnotes in history.

Let’s face it, what good is everlasting fame to anyone? Nothing. Zero. Zilch. So why bother?

What makes life worth living? Just this: understanding the world, doing the right thing, telling the truth and cultivating an attitude that treats every event as no big thing.

34. Give it up

Give yourself over to whatever happens and play your part in the rich tapestry of life.

35. Forget about it

Everything is just dust in the wind — both the person who remembers and the person remembered.

36. Plant a seed

If one thing is certain, it’s change. One thing leads to another and another and another. You think the only seeds are the ones that develop into plants? Think again.

37. RIP

You’ll soon be dead. Yet you still worry. You’re still afraid. You still rush to take on other people’s troubles. What’s the point?

38. School’s in

Check out what really makes wise people tick. What do they love? What do they hate?

39. Head to head

What goes on in other people’s heads can’t harm you. So why do you hurt? It’s simply because, in your own head, you’ve decided you’re harmed.

It’s the same with physical pain. Refuse the judgement and you’ll eliminate the pain.

What happens in life is neither good nor bad, it’s thinking that makes it so.

40. All stuff and nonsense

Remember, everything in the universe is made of the same stuff — atoms. More than this, it’s all interconnected. Everything affects everything else — like the butterfly in South America that sets in train events that become a hurricane thousands of miles away.

41. As Epictetus put it…

‘You are just a soul lugging a corpse.’

42. Change for good?

Change isn’t necessarily a bad thing. But then again, the outcome of change isn’t always good either (no matter what the self-help gurus say).

43. Sink or swim

Time is like a river in full flood. No sooner do you get a grip on what’s happening than it is swept past to be replaced by the next thing, and the next, and the next.

44. It’s only natural

Everything is as natural as spring flowers or summer fruit. This includes sickness, death, lies, office politics and the popularity of cat pics on the internet — everything that delights and everything that brings misery.

45. Cause then effect (repeat)

Whatever occurs always follows on from what happened before. It’s not just a random hodgepodge of events but an orderly sequence of cause and effect. Just as everything that already exists works as part of the whole, everything new takes its place in the great cosmic clockwork too.

46. As Heraclitus put it…

‘When earth dies, water is born. When water expires, air is born. And when air kicks the bucket, we get fire. And on and on.’

He also talked about ‘people who’ve forgotten where their paths are heading’ and about ‘people who are strangers to their constant companion: reason.’

Ultimately, he advises us all to avoid sleepwalking into the future and to refuse to simply act as obedient children just because that’s what others do.

47. What are you doing tomorrow?

Imagine there is a god and they say to you, ‘Tomorrow, you’re going to die. Or if not tomorrow, definitely the day after.’ Will you really make a huge fuss over which it’s to be?

Thing is, in the greater scheme of things, the same applies if we’re talking days, months or years. So treat it all the same and stop worrying.

48. This is a one-way trip

Never forget how many doctors have died — men and women who spent their careers pondering their patients’ illnesses. Or the many futurologists who predicted impending doom. Or all the philosophers who’ve come up with grand theories about life and death. Or the millions of soldiers who’ve killed for whatever cause. Or the politicians who thought up the cause in the first place. In fact, think of all the towns and cities that have been destroyed over the ages.

Then count up all the people you’ve known personally who’ve buried and mourned their friends only to be buried and mourned themselves not so long after.

Existence is quick and dangerous (and nobody makes it out alive). From a tumble in the sheets to a corpse in the coffin, it goes faster than we imagine. So live your life on your terms. And then, when your number is up, go with good grace, ready to return to the pool of atoms that makes up the whole of the universe.

49. Do you feel lucky?

Be like the rock (the stone, not the actor) that stands in the sea, pounded by the waves, yet standing firm.

Now you could get all sulky with a ‘Man, I’m so unlucky’ vibe. But don’t.

Instead, go with, ‘How lucky am I that I can take all this shit and still stand and face it.’ Just think, others may have simply given up. Not you.

And what is luck anyway?

Why do we choose to call this one thing bad luck and this other good luck? If it is just how things turn out in the real world, then luck has nothing to do with it. Does whatever happened stop you from being fair, forgiving, truthful, kind, well-meaning, independent and all those other things that will enable you to live up to your full potential?

So the next time you’re tempted to bitch about your bad luck, think this: Enduring ‘bad luck’ and coming successfully out the other side is actually good luck.

Lucky you.

50. A good innings?

OK, let’s park the whole philosophy thing for a minute.

You’re afraid of dying, I get it. Try this for size: Think of all those old people who staved off the Reaper for longer than most but are now pushing up daisies. Are they better off than those who didn’t manage ‘a good innings’?

Sure, they got a few more years of work. A few more years of hanging out with tolerable people. A few more years encased in a failing body.

Maybe that’s a good thing, but still, they all ended up dead just like everyone else.

When you think about the 13.8 billion years to date and the probable infinity of years to come, there’s not much difference between a centenarian with a weak bladder and a baby that doesn’t make it out of the hospital.

51. Do not pass go

Always take the shortest, simplest route. It’ll free you from unnecessary stress and drama, allowing you to make the right choices and act accordingly.