| It can feel like everything is falling to pieces. It can feel like you're lost. It can feel like there's no hope, no way forward, nothing to do. But that's just because you've gotten rattled. That's just because you've gotten turned around. "When jarred, unavoidably, by circumstances," Marcus Aurelius reminds himself in Meditations (get your exclusive leatherbound edition through The Painted Porch), "revert at once to yourself, and don't lose the rhythm more than you can help. You'll have a better grasp of the harmony if you keep on going back to it." What is this harmony and rhythm he speaks of? Probably the same one that Bon Iver sings in their song of the same name. Can I feel another way? Or are less and more the same? Can I really still complain? To be back here once again There are miles and miles of tape You can watch it, it's been saved There's a rhythm to reclaim Get tall and walk away The Stoics called this rhythm the logos. It was the way, the word, the harmony of the universe and a life in accordance with nature. It was the master plan. It was the thing we didn't know we needed, but of course did. It was this rhythm that Zeno got back to when he lost everything in a shipwreck, accepting that he was meant for something other than the merchant's trade. It was this that Marcus Aurelius tried to put his faith in after the funerals, after the betrayals, after the twists of fate. We, ourselves, must understand that there is a rhythm. Inevitably, we will be jarred and scarred and kicked around by fortune. But we can always reclaim this rhythm and the harmony found within it. We can always revert to ourselves. We can always find in this rhythm a steady way forward. *** | 
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