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Contributing Writer Classical Philosophy & the Long View

Dominic Aurelius

Dominic Aurelius is a writer and classicist whose lifelong conversation with ancient philosophy — the Stoics above all — has given him an unusual lens for contemporary experience. He has contributed to Light & Composition since 2018. For Dominic, every photograph confirms something Marcus Aurelius already said, which is less about the ancients being right and more about how little the essential human situation has changed in twenty centuries.

206 Published Reflections

Reflections by Dominic Aurelius

Showing 12 of 206 essays
The Silence of Heights Photo of the Day
August 4, 2018

The Silence of Heights

Seneca once remarked that we are often more afraid than hurt, and that we suffer more in imagination than in reality. He understood that the human mind, left to its own devices, tends to populate the unknown with monsters of its own making. We fear the vast, the empty, and the silent places because they […]
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The Weight of Small Things Photo of the Day
July 29, 2018

The Weight of Small Things

Seneca once remarked that nature does nothing in vain, and that even the smallest of her works are crafted with a precision that puts our grandest monuments to shame. We often mistake scale for significance, assuming that only the vast, the loud, or the enduring deserve our contemplation. Yet, the Stoics remind us that the […]
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The Weight of the Present Photo of the Day
July 25, 2018

The Weight of the Present

Epictetus often reminded his students that we are not disturbed by things themselves, but by the views we take of them. We tend to overlook the simple, immediate reality of an object, preferring instead to project our own complex narratives onto it. We see a thing and immediately ask what it is for, what it […]
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The Architecture of Stillness Photo of the Day
July 23, 2018

The Architecture of Stillness

Seneca once remarked that we are often more frightened than hurt, and that we suffer more in imagination than in reality. We spend our days constructing elaborate anxieties about the future or nursing the grievances of the past, rarely pausing to inhabit the singular, crystalline truth of the present. To be truly present is to […]
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The Weight of Stillness Photo of the Day
July 22, 2018

The Weight of Stillness

Seneca once reminded a friend that we are like travelers on a ship; whether we sit or stand, we are moving toward the same destination. We often mistake our own restlessness for progress, believing that if we are not actively changing the world, we are failing to exist within it. Yet, there is a profound […]
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The Weight of the Watch Photo of the Day
July 21, 2018

The Weight of the Watch

Seneca once remarked that it is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor. We often mistake the quiet endurance of duty for a lack of ambition, yet there is a profound, singular wealth found in the person who stands exactly where they are required to be. […]
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The Unmoving Horizon Photo of the Day
July 21, 2018

The Unmoving Horizon

Seneca once remarked that travel does not provide an escape from the self, for we carry our own restlessness across every border and into every climate. We seek the high places, the thin air of the mountains, believing that the sheer scale of the world might finally quiet the internal noise we bring with us. […]
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The Quietude of Labor Photo of the Day
July 15, 2018

The Quietude of Labor

Seneca once remarked that it is not the man who has too little, but the man who craves more, who is poor. We live in an age that equates movement with progress and noise with significance, yet the ancient mind understood that true substance is often found in the repetition of a single, necessary task. […]
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The Quietude of Being Photo of the Day
July 10, 2018

The Quietude of Being

Seneca once remarked that nature does not hurry, yet everything is accomplished. We often mistake stillness for inactivity, forgetting that the most profound growth occurs in the silence between breaths. In our modern age, we are conditioned to believe that significance is found only in the loud, the expansive, or the frantic pursuit of the […]
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The Dignity of Time Photo of the Day
July 10, 2018

The Dignity of Time

Seneca once remarked that life is long enough if we know how to use it. We often mistake the passage of years for a slow erosion of the self, assuming that as the body gathers the weight of experience, the spirit must necessarily dim. Yet, the ancients understood that there is a particular strength found […]
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The Weight of Small Things Photo of the Day
July 9, 2018

The Weight of Small Things

Epictetus famously taught that we are not disturbed by things themselves, but by the views we take of them. He suggested that if we could strip away the layers of judgment we place upon our circumstances, we might find a surprising lightness in the mundane. We often view the act of walking through a city […]
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The Quietude of the Deep Photo of the Day
July 3, 2018

The Quietude of the Deep

Seneca once remarked that the mind is never so well-disposed as when it is at rest, removed from the clamor of the world and the vanity of human ambition. We spend our days tethered to the surface, caught in the frantic currents of expectation and the noise of our own making. Yet, there exists a […]
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