Grand Rising, good afternoon, good evening, whatever applies you. Thank you for being here. I did the art of war. It's done. I am now moving on to

the meditations by Marcus Aurelius. Talk to Peaches about doing this yesterday on a live stream. And after we got off the live, I pulled out the book that she had here because we both have copies, although I have no idea where mine is. So I had to use hers, which is highlighted and written in like crazy. But I read the first chapter, even though it's called the book, it's the first book,

because each one of these. which is highlighted and written in like crazy. But I read the first chapter, even though it's called

the book. It's the first book because each one of these were put together from that, from multiple

books or whatever. And I am going to give this a run to see how it goes. I'm happy with what I came

up with for the first part of this. So I'm going to read you guys a little bit of a blurb.

And then I'm going to break down a couple of things.

And then I'm going to give my understanding of book one of the teachings of Marcus Aurelius, which is kind of loosely based on, you know, and see how it goes. Right. So we'll go from there. from there. Then I'll send this out to a couple people after I'm done and see what they think about it and if this is something I want to keep doing.

But I did tell people this morning on the live stream that we were doing for Patreon that we were going to record this live. I decided not to because honestly, I don't know if I'm going to do this entire series and I don't want to put this information out there and then retract it and decide not to do it. So with that being said, meditations by Marcus Aurelius was not written for us. It was not meant to inspire. It was not

meant to teach. It wasn't meant to be published at all. This was a series of private journals.

Notes written to himself, reminders for when he was tired, irritated, tempted, afraid, or slipping

into ego. This isn't stoicism as philosophy. This is stoicism as self-correction.

That matters because when you read meditations as advice, you miss the point.

Marcus isn't talking to us. He's talking to himself at moments where he knows he's capable of

acting beneath his standard. So every line is a confrontation, not a quote for comfort. So what you're

about to hear in the series isn't me teaching Marcus Aurelius. It's us listening to a man and power

refusing to lie to himself, a man who had every excuse to become bitter, cruel, entitled, or

detached, choosing instead to govern his inner life with discipline. Meditations

is not about being calm. It's about being responsible. Marcus doesn't ask how to feel better.

He asks how to act righteously regardless of how he feels. He doesn't excuse himself because life is hard.

He tightens his standard because life is hard. That's why this book still

matters today. In this series, we're not reading the meditations to sound wise. We're reading it to

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