“Walk the long gallery of the past, of empires and kingdoms succeeding each other without number. And you can also see the future, for surely it will be exactly the same, unable to deviate from the present rhythm. It’s all one whether we’ve experience forty years or an aeon. What more is there to see?
MARCUS AURELIUS, MEDITATIONS, 7.49
Everything comes to an end, eventually. All great empires come crashing down at some point. Kings die, without exception, and kingdoms inevitably crumble. Nothing lasts forever. It’s not grim or sad — it’s just the rhythm of history that can’t be deviated from, as Marcus mentions above in his quote from The Daily Stoic today.
It’s an endless cycle, one that repeats again and again, just like the waves crashing on the shore for thousands and millions of years. Now and forevermore — things will continue as they always have. People will have individual struggles in their lives, societies will rise and fall, and flowers will keep growing and dying.
Within this cyclical rhythm of history, we can be sure of one thing, and it’s that the world never stands still. Everything changes, always. Even though it’s the same rhythm, it keeps moving and changing. Endlessly. Forever.
