Many very worrying things are happening all over the world — as always.
No matter how bad things are, there are things that make everything more complicated:
news. Today’s news is a business,
If you make a balanced report and tell everyone that everything will be fine, the news will not make money.
What the news is doing now is to use scare everyone to make money.
And it is very smart.
But we need the corresponding antidote,
In fact, we already have the resources we need.
Remind us that these challenges are not new,
We have the ability to survive these difficulties,
And in fact, there have been many worse things before.
This antidote is: history.
When political events seem to go to new lows,
We may refer to the work of an ancient Roman historian:
Suetonius. Born at the end of the first century AD,
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus is the chief administrator of the empire and the chief secretary of the emperor Hadrian.
He was the first historian to try to accurately describe the ruling characters.
Describe the actual appearance from Caesar to the Great People’s Congress.
The truth is shocking.
Suetonius lists the extreme stupidity and crimes of these rulers.
They were the first 12 people to rule the Western world.
Among them, Julius Caesar is a thief, a liar, a arrogant, a murderer;
Caligula, the infamous mentally ill, the successor of Octavian,
Will throw people down the mine, feed the beasts,
Or shut into a small prison and then divide the body into two,
Not because they committed a major crime, but only because they did not appreciate the circus performance he sponsored.
Or did not mention his ingenuity with enough respect.
According to Suettonius, Caligula’s preferred execution,
It is a small number of minor injuries, but does not directly damage the main organs;
His usual order is: “Let them feel that they are dying.”
Next is Nero, who dresses himself in a fur coat.
Men and women will be tied to wooden stakes and attack their private parts.
In the evening he will walk on the street and kill strangers randomly.
Then throw the body into the ditch.
Then came Vitellius, whose ruling crime was gluttony and brutality.
He opened three or four banquets a day, relying on frequent use of emetics.
One of his pleasures was to let the prisoners be executed before his eyes.
Then there is Domitian, as far as we know, at the beginning of his reign
He spends a few hours a day catching flies alone, puncturing them with a sharp needle.
And he treated his people better than flies.
These eccentric characters described by Suetonius,
They were the most powerful people in the world at the time.
Reading Suetonius can actually make people feel unusually calm;
Someone may want to read him in bed, especially after watching the latest election news.
This kind of reading is surprisingly gratifying.
Because the core of these narratives is actually “resilientness.”
Suetonius described earthquakes, plagues, wars, riots,
Rebellion, conspiracy, betrayal, ferocity, terrorism, massacre
In this respect, it seems to be a record of a society that is about to collapse.
But in fact, Suetonius wrote the time before, not after, the most brilliant period of the Roman Empire.
Those brilliant achievements took place fifty years later.
Under the rule of the Stoic school philosopher and emperor Marcus Aurelius.
The disasters described by Suetonius,
In fact, it can coexist with a society that is moving toward peace and prosperity as a whole.
Reading Suetoniu, it can be seen that the disaster is not so deadly to a society.
In fact, it is common for things to get worse.
From this point of view, reading the feelings caused by ancient history is exactly the opposite of what is caused by watching the news:
There have been many worse things before, and everything will eventually get better.
People’s performance is very common, it is a very common state.
Human beings and civilizations are always facing a crisis of survival.
And I think that our time is monopolizing the stupid chapters of human beings. It is a distorted narcissism that is inconsistent with the facts.
Reading Suetonius, we unconsciously accepted his less excited, Stoic response;
He, as well as history as a whole, encourages us to come into contact with something that is unprecedentedly important:
We are less panic and more resilient inside.
No matter how bad things are, there are things that make everything more complicated:
news. Today’s news is a business,
If you make a balanced report and tell everyone that everything will be fine, the news will not make money.
What the news is doing now is to use scare everyone to make money.
And it is very smart.
But we need the corresponding antidote,
In fact, we already have the resources we need.
Remind us that these challenges are not new,
We have the ability to survive these difficulties,
And in fact, there have been many worse things before.
This antidote is: history.
When political events seem to go to new lows,
We may refer to the work of an ancient Roman historian:
Suetonius. Born at the end of the first century AD,
Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus is the chief administrator of the empire and the chief secretary of the emperor Hadrian.
He was the first historian to try to accurately describe the ruling characters.
Describe the actual appearance from Caesar to the Great People’s Congress.
The truth is shocking.
Suetonius lists the extreme stupidity and crimes of these rulers.
They were the first 12 people to rule the Western world.
Among them, Julius Caesar is a thief, a liar, a arrogant, a murderer;
Caligula, the infamous mentally ill, the successor of Octavian,
Will throw people down the mine, feed the beasts,
Or shut into a small prison and then divide the body into two,
Not because they committed a major crime, but only because they did not appreciate the circus performance he sponsored.
Or did not mention his ingenuity with enough respect.
According to Suettonius, Caligula’s preferred execution,
It is a small number of minor injuries, but does not directly damage the main organs;
His usual order is: “Let them feel that they are dying.”
Next is Nero, who dresses himself in a fur coat.
Men and women will be tied to wooden stakes and attack their private parts.
In the evening he will walk on the street and kill strangers randomly.
Then throw the body into the ditch.
Then came Vitellius, whose ruling crime was gluttony and brutality.
He opened three or four banquets a day, relying on frequent use of emetics.
One of his pleasures was to let the prisoners be executed before his eyes.
Then there is Domitian, as far as we know, at the beginning of his reign
He spends a few hours a day catching flies alone, puncturing them with a sharp needle.
And he treated his people better than flies.
These eccentric characters described by Suetonius,
They were the most powerful people in the world at the time.
Reading Suetonius can actually make people feel unusually calm;
Someone may want to read him in bed, especially after watching the latest election news.
This kind of reading is surprisingly gratifying.
Because the core of these narratives is actually “resilientness.”
Suetonius described earthquakes, plagues, wars, riots,
Rebellion, conspiracy, betrayal, ferocity, terrorism, massacre
In this respect, it seems to be a record of a society that is about to collapse.
But in fact, Suetonius wrote the time before, not after, the most brilliant period of the Roman Empire.
Those brilliant achievements took place fifty years later.
Under the rule of the Stoic school philosopher and emperor Marcus Aurelius.
The disasters described by Suetonius,
In fact, it can coexist with a society that is moving toward peace and prosperity as a whole.
Reading Suetoniu, it can be seen that the disaster is not so deadly to a society.
In fact, it is common for things to get worse.
From this point of view, reading the feelings caused by ancient history is exactly the opposite of what is caused by watching the news:
There have been many worse things before, and everything will eventually get better.
People’s performance is very common, it is a very common state.
Human beings and civilizations are always facing a crisis of survival.
And I think that our time is monopolizing the stupid chapters of human beings. It is a distorted narcissism that is inconsistent with the facts.
Reading Suetonius, we unconsciously accepted his less excited, Stoic response;
He, as well as history as a whole, encourages us to come into contact with something that is unprecedentedly important:
We are less panic and more resilient inside.
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