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Dissolved and Resolved

Another Marcus Aurelius meditation

 Consider how quickly all things are dissolved and resolved: the bodies and substances themselves, into the matter and substance of the world: and their memories into the general age and time of the world.

 The dissolution of things once held to be "real" is always around us. Reading this made me think of my backwater hometown in India that does not exist anymore though the place survives on the map, now part of a state that did not exist back then. But everything else that was familiar from then has dissolved away. I no longer recognize it despite a few surviving landmarks that seem out of order being there.

 And yes, have also experienced resolution of problems that seemed completely insurmountable at one time. The memories did get subsumed in "the general age and time of the world". This meditation makes so much sense at a certain age and stage of life. I never read it when I perhaps needed it most - in the time of youth of folly. Wonder if it would have made an impression then or changed the course of events.
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