The present of a Stoic

The OleMiss Museum, a half-mile walk through the woods behind Rowan Oak, includes an exhibit of Greek and Roman antiquities. One is a bust of Marcus Aurelius. Thought about him on my walk again yesterday.

For a man cannot lose either the past or the future: for what a man has not, how can any one take this from him?

...the longest liver and he who will die soonest lose just the same. For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not.