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Welcome back to practical stoicism.

I know you're all gearing up for a rip-roaring New Year's Eve tomorrow, but as you do that,

keep in mind all that you've learned this year and ask yourself, as you prepare to while out

with a goofy hat and blinking glasses, what would Marcus do? And maybe have a slightly less

wild New Year's Eve than you normally would. Try not to do anything that finds you waking up

in the morning and saying, oof, well, that wasn't very stoic of me. I guess what I'm telling you to do

is to have a virtuous New Year's Eve, which is a very

dad-like thing to do, isn't it? God. Geez, I'm just turning 40 and I'm already talking like a dad.

Eric's the one with a kid, and yet here I am, dadding it up like an old pro. Just take care of

yourself, New Year's Eve, okay? Today we're going to cover

meditation 36 from book four, which reads as follows. Observe constantly that all things

take place by change and accustom thyself to consider that the nature of the universe

loves nothing so much as to change the things which are

and to make new things with them. For everything that exists is in a manner the seed of that which

will be, but thou art thinking only of seeds which are cast into the earth or into a womb,

but this is a very vulgar notion.

This is pretty appropriate for the advancing New Year, isn't it? The universe loves nothing so

much as to change the things which are, and to make new things with them. That's a cosmic truth,

don't you think?

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