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August  9th

STICK   WITH    JUST    THE FACTS

“Don’t  tell    yourself    anything    more    than    what    the initial impressions report. It’s    been    reported    to

you that    someone is  speaking    badly   about   you.    This    is  the report—the  report  wasn’t  that    you’ve

been    harmed. I   see that    my  son is  sick—but    not that    his life    is  at  risk.   So  always  stay    within  your

first   impressions,    and don’t   add to  them    in  your    head—this   way nothing can happen  to  you.”

—MARCUS AURELIUS,   MEDITATIONS,    8.49

t first, this can seem like the opposite of everything you’ve been taught. Don’t we cultivate our minds
and critical thinking skills precisely so we don’t simply accept things at face value? Yes, most of the
time. But sometimes this approach can be counterproductive.
What a philosopher also has is the ability, as Nietzsche put it, “to stop courageously, at the surface”
and see things in plain, objective form. Nothing more, nothing less. Yes, Stoics were “superficial,” he
said, “out of profundity.” Today, while other people are getting carried away, that’s what you’re going to
practice. A kind of straightforward pragmatism—seeing things as their initial impressions make them.