Debts & Lessons - Akira the Don, Марк Аврелий

My grandfather Verus

Character and self-control

My father

Integrity and manliness

My mother

Her reverence for the divine

Her generosity

Her inability not only to do wrong

But even to conceive of doing it

My great-grandfather

To avoid the public school

Hire good private teachers

And accept the resulting costs

As money well-spent

My first teacher

Not to support this side or that in chariot-racing

This fighter or that in the games

To put up with discomfort and not make demands

Do my own work

Mind my own business

And have no time for slanderers

Do my own work

Mind my own business

And have no time for slanderers

Diognetus

Not to waste time on nonsense

Not taken in by conjurors

Not to be obsessed with quail-fighting

Or other crazes like that

To hear unwelcome truths

To practice philosophy, study

To write dialogues as a student

And to choose the Greek lifestyle

The camp bed

And the cloak

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

Rusticus

The recognition that I needed to train and discipline my character

Not to be sidetracked by interest in rhetoric

Not to write treatises on abstract questions

Or deliver moralizing little sermons

Or compose imaginary descriptions

Of ‘The Simple Life' or ‘The Man Who Lives Only for Others'

To steer clear of oratory

Poetry

And belles lettres

Not to dress up just to stroll around the house

Write straightforward letters

To behave in a conciliatory way

When people who have angered us want to make up

Read attentively

Not to be satisfied with «just getting the gist of it»

And not to fall for each smooth talker

Apollonius

Independence and unvarying reliability

To pay attention to nothing

No matter how fleetingly

Except the logos

To be the same in all circumstances

Intense pain

Loss of a child

Chronic illness

To see clearly

That a man can show both strength and flexibility

His patience in teaching

To have seen someone who clearly viewed

His expertise and ability as a teacher as the humblest of virtues

And to have learned how to accept favors

From friends without losing your self-respect

Or appearing ungrateful

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

Sextus

Kindness

An example of fatherly authority in the home

What it means to live as nature requires

Gravity without airs

To show intuitive sympathy for friends

Tolerance to amateurs and sloppy thinkers

His ability to get along

With everyone

To investigate and analyze

With understanding and logic

The principles we ought to live by

Not to display anger or other emotions

To be free of passion and yet full of love

To praise without bombast

To display expertise without pretension

Literary Critic Alexander

Not to be constantly correcting people

Not to jump on them when they make an error

But just answer their question

Or add another example

Or debate the issue itself

Not their phrasing

Or make some other contribution to the discussion

Fronto

To recognize the malice

Cunning and hypocrisy that power produces

And the peculiar ruthlessness often shown by people from «good families»

Alexander the Platonist

Not be constantly telling people

I’m too busy

Not to be always ducking my responsibilities

Cos of «pressing business.»

Catulus

Not to shrug off a friend’s resentment

Even unjustified resentment

But try to put things right

To show your teachers

Ungrudging respect

And your children

Unfeigned love

(Instrumental Bridge)

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS

DEBTS

AND LESSONS