{"id":11988,"date":"2021-10-25T16:14:28","date_gmt":"2021-10-25T20:14:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/?p=11988"},"modified":"2021-10-25T16:14:28","modified_gmt":"2021-10-25T20:14:28","slug":"the-best-way-to-arm-yourself","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/the-best-way-to-arm-yourself\/","title":{"rendered":"The Best Way To Arm Yourself"},"content":{"rendered":"

Perhaps you remember the final scene of the movie\u00a0Gladiator<\/em>. Maximus is wounded, severely, and is fighting against Commodus, who he has just temporarily disarmed. Sword, Commodus shouts to the Praetorian guards,\u00a0sword!<\/em>\u00a0But the soldiers refuse to help him.<\/span><\/p>\n

Maximus, bleeding badly, drops his sword and begins to drift into unconsciousness. His family is waiting for him in the afterlife. He walks towards them. But with a final exercise of will, he seizes command of himself. Commodus comes at him with a dagger. With his bare hands and faltering strength, Maximus fights Commodus to submission and then kills him, as Commodus impotently struggles against the very weapon he tried to wield. Victorious but dying, Maximus uses his last breaths to order Rome to be restored to the vision of Marcus Aurelius.<\/span><\/p>\n

It\u2019s a fictional scene\u2014a goosebump-inducing one to be sure\u2014but also, in its own way, an illustration of one of the best passages in\u00a0Meditations<\/em><\/a>. Be a boxer, not a fencer, Marcus writes to himself. It\u2019s better to have your weapons be a natural part of you than to be something you have to pick up.<\/span><\/p>\n

Commodus is dependent on his sword. He\u2019s dependent on the power of his office. He\u2019s dependent on fear. He\u2019s at the mercy of his bodyguards. But Maximus? Maximus is his own master. He moves under his own power. He is ruled by dignity, by his own strength, by his own principles, and his own weapons. He doesn\u2019t need anyone or anything, to be great. Even when he is bleeding out and under attack, all he has to do, as Marcus Aurelius writes, is clench his fist.<\/span><\/p>\n

Which are you? Commodus or Maximus? Self-reliant or an imposter? A tyrant or a gladiator? A boxer or a fencer? If you\u2019re being truly honest, what would your final exercise of will look like?<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Perhaps you remember the final scene of the movie\u00a0Gladiator. Maximus is wounded, severely, and is fighting against Commodus, who he has just temporarily disarmed. Sword, Commodus shouts to the Praetorian guards,\u00a0sword!\u00a0But the soldiers refuse to help him. Maximus, bleeding badly, drops his sword and begins to drift into unconsciousness. His family is waiting for him […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5269,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[38],"tags":[],"yoast_head":"\nThe Best Way To Arm Yourself<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/dailystoic.com\/the-best-way-to-arm-yourself\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"The Best Way To Arm Yourself\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Perhaps you remember the final scene of the movie\u00a0Gladiator. Maximus is wounded, severely, and is fighting against Commodus, who he has just temporarily disarmed. Sword, Commodus shouts to the Praetorian guards,\u00a0sword!\u00a0But the soldiers refuse to help him. Maximus, bleeding badly, drops his sword and begins to drift into unconsciousness. 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