The Flux of Change
Heraclitus and Marcus Aurelius on the state of change
“Everything’s destiny is to change, to be transformed, to perish. So that new things can be born.”
-Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
Throughout the Meditations, one can see Marcus reassuring himself not to fear death, that it is natural, that it is the proper progression of life.
Marcus’ constant reframing of situations (such as death) is what helped to bring him tranquility. It is clear from reading the Meditations that at some point in his philosophical training, Marcus had studied the works of Heraclitus, the early Greek philosopher, from the pre-Socratic era.
Heraclitus believed that the balancing of opposite forces is what kept the universe together. He believed that it was through the tension of these opposites that life existed. While Heraclitus lived from 535–475 BC, several hundred years before Marcus, we can see the impact his thinking had on the philosopher-king.
Heraclitus’ Fragments, the only thing that remains of his writings, show a man who believed the world was in a constant state of change. Built within this constant tension was also constant change of opposites, one leading to the other. For example, one of his surviving fragments reads:
“What was scattered
gathers.
What was gathered
blows apart.”
Elsewhere in another fragment, he writes:
“Air dies giving birth
to fire. Fire dies
giving birth to air. Water,
thus, is born of dying
earth, and earth of water.”
Throughout Meditations, Marcus writes similarly of antagonistic themes such as:
“Constant awareness that everything is born from change. The knowledge that there is nothing nature loves more than to alter what exists and make new things like it. All that exists is the seed of what will emerge from it. You think the only seeds are the ones that make plants or children? Go deeper.”
And also referencing the life cycle of nature:
“You have functioned as a part of something; you will vanish into what produced you. Or be restored, rather.”
Remember that change is not unnatural, on the contrary, it is built into the very fabric of our universe--everything is changing. Things are being born, while others are dying. Empires rise while others fall. It is all cyclical.
Change is the necessary condition for life.