Memento mori is Latin for "remember that you must die". The words aren't Marcus Aurelius's, but the reminder keeps returning in his notes, and he used it to look at how to live now. In George Long's translation of Book 4, section 17: "While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good."
Midway through the Meditations, the emperor writes down what a few fine things are made of.
The Falernian wine is "only a little grape-juice". And "this purple robe" is "some sheep's wool dyed with the blood of a shell-fish".
He's training his eye, and he says how. In that same section (Book 6, section 13) he writes that "where there are things which appear most worthy of our approbation, we ought to lay them bare and look at their worthlessness and strip them of all the words by which they are exalted." His reason comes next: "For outward show is a wonderful perverter of the reason".
Later in the same book, he turns that eye on himself.
"Take care that thou art not made into a Caesar, that thou art not dyed with this dye; for such things happen."
The man warning himself already carried the title. The same note (Book 6, section 30) goes straight on to what he'd rather be. "Keep thyself then simple, good, pure, serious, free from affectation," the list begins. That note also holds three words: "Short is life."
The brevity of life and the warning about the dye sit a few lines apart in a single note.
What does memento mori mean?
Memento mori means "remember that you must die". It's a Latin phrase, and Merriam-Webster defines it as "a reminder of mortality". In the passages of Marcus I quote here, that reminder points back at the living: at how today is spent, and at whether he's still himself while he spends it.
Thinking about death can be heavy, more so if you're grieving, unwell or having thoughts of harming yourself. If that's where you are today, you're free to stop at any line. Please talk to someone you trust, a doctor or another professional. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services.
Where does the phrase memento mori come from?
Not from Marcus. He wrote in Greek. George Long, whose translation I'm quoting, says of his own version that it "is made from the Greek". The Latin words don't appear in the notes at all.
The phrase itself is Latin. Merriam-Webster gives its meaning as "remember that you must die", and dates its first known use in English to 1598. Where the Latin was first written down, I can't point you to one source, and I'd rather leave that open than fill it with a guess.
What Marcus left is something plainer than a motto. Long thought the notes "were intended for his own use", so the reminding was something Marcus did for himself, in writing, whenever he needed it.
My own work turns on a different question from his, and the Who Am I? masterclass is where I ask it most directly. Its page puts the invitation in one line: "Stop searching for yourself in the answers others gave you." The page's button says Receive the Masterclass, and the code GIFT26 takes the listed USD 297 to zero, so it's free. Or read on.
What did remembering death remind Marcus to do?
The plainest memento mori in his notes comes in the fourth book (Book 4, section 17): "Do not act as if thou wert going to live ten thousand years. Death hangs over thee. While thou livest, while it is in thy power, be good."
See how that passage ends. It begins at the limit and finishes in the present, on what's still in his power.
Ten thousand years would let anything wait. His "Short is life" leaves no room for that, so the reminder sends him back to the day in front of him, and to the man he intends to be in it. In Book 6, section 30, he spells that out: "Strive to continue to be such as philosophy wished to make thee." He even gives himself a model, his adoptive father, and lists his ways at length before the order: "Imitate all this".
The note straight after it, Book 6, section 31, is about waking up. It begins "Return to thy sober senses and call thyself back". Then he tells himself to see that what troubled him in sleep "were only dreams", and to look at the things of his waking hours the same way.
So his memento mori adds as much as it takes away. He lays the purple bare, and he picks the colour he'd rather wear: philosophy's, and his father's example. His Stoicism belongs to his own century, and my work doesn't come from it. I've written about another of his habits, the notes he wrote for the start of a working day, in Marcus Aurelius for leaders.
Why does a colour you never chose feel like your own?
Marcus knew how colour takes. In Book 5, section 16, he writes: "Such as are thy habitual thoughts, such also will be the character of thy mind; for the soul is dyed by the thoughts." Then he turns it into an instruction to himself: "Dye it then with a continuous series of such thoughts as these". He meant it as advice: choose what you dip your mind in.
The same rule works when nobody is choosing. Dye takes by repetition. One dip barely marks the cloth. A hundred dips, and the colour runs through every thread.
People take on their colours the same way. Take a boy whose house went calm whenever he made everyone laugh. He made them laugh at dinner, in the car, at school, and at every family gathering for twenty years. By thirty he can't find the line between the joke and the man. His friends say he's the life of any room. He says it's just how he is. Nobody thinks to call it dye.
Marcus's answer was to choose his dye with care. My own work asks a different question: who was there before the first dip? The laugh was a colour that house needed. The boy had a colour of his own before anyone needed anything from him.
I've written about where that question leads in what does it mean to unbecome, and about the gap between the colour and the cloth in true self vs false self.
The Who Am I? masterclass takes that question as its subject. Its page describes "a direct encounter with the part of you that has always been there", and the code GIFT26 makes it free: Receive the Masterclass.
Nothing in this article, or in the work it points to, counts as therapy or medical care. Anyone in treatment should keep working with their own doctor or therapist. If you're grieving, you can put this down at any point and turn to a professional or to someone you trust. If you're in crisis, contact your local emergency services.
How can you describe a fine thing the way Marcus did?
Marcus practised seeing fine things as they are. You can try the same with something from your own day.
- Find something in today that carries some shine for you. A job title, a label on something you own, the name of a place you're proud to be seen at. Leave out anything tied to loss or illness.
- Describe what it's made of, flatly, the way he described the purple robe. A job title might become "four words under my name on an email". Say it to yourself, quietly.
- Notice whether it still shines the same. Nothing needs to follow from it.
You can stop after the first step, if that's as far as you want to go. If anything painful comes up, put the exercise down and share what surfaced with a professional or a friend.
Who is Unbecome for?
It's for readers looking for the following.
- The author's own voice. It's my book.
- A book about remembering. Its page gives the premise in one line: "And what is buried can be remembered."
- A path in parts. The page lays the book out as "Three journeys. One remembering."
The page also shows it as a Best Seller on Amazon. Amazon carries both the Kindle and the paperback editions, and within the UAE you can order the paperback straight from us.
Marcus called himself back in writing. If I could leave you one question to call yourself back with, it would be this one. Who were you before the world told you who to be?
Long's stiff English was a choice. He writes that he "preferred a ruder style as being better suited to express the character of the original".
Amazon dates this review to 23 September. Safae, Amazon review of Unbecome: "This is a different way of seeing life, of seeing ourselves and of living."
Robert Simic, guiding the remembering.
P.S. If you'd like one step after this article, make it Unbecome. Get The Paperback