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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 Shore of Indifference Photo of the Day
June 28, 2018

The Shore of Indifference

Epictetus famously reminded his students that some things are up to us, and some things are not. We often exhaust our spirits trying to command the tides, to dictate the weather of our lives, or to demand that the world remain as still as a painted room. Yet, the sea has no interest in our […]
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The Weight of Ephemeral Things Photo of the Day
June 16, 2018

The Weight of Ephemeral Things

Seneca once remarked that life is like a play; it matters not how long it lasts, but how well it is performed. We are often preoccupied with the duration of our days, measuring our worth by the accumulation of years or the permanence of our works. Yet, the most profound truths are frequently found in […]
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The Virtue of the Ordinary Photo of the Day
June 11, 2018

The Virtue of the Ordinary

Seneca once reminded his friend Lucilius that we are often distracted by the pursuit of grand, distant things, while the true substance of life is found in the simple, daily acts of sustenance. To eat, to nourish, to appreciate the earth’s yield—these are not merely biological necessities, but opportunities to practice gratitude for the present. […]
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The Stillness of Stone Photo of the Day
June 6, 2018

The Stillness of Stone

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 rushing toward a future that remains unwritten, rarely pausing to observe the world as it stands in its own quiet dignity. There is a profound, ancient wisdom in simply allowing […]
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The Architecture of Stillness Photo of the Day
June 3, 2018

The Architecture of Stillness

Seneca once observed that we are often more frightened than hurt, and that we suffer more in imagination than in reality. We build our lives like fortresses, stacking stone upon stone, steel upon steel, convinced that our permanence is found in the height of our structures or the density of our industry. Yet, the ancient […]
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The Architecture of Restraint Photo of the Day
May 22, 2018

The Architecture of Restraint

Epictetus famously remarked that no man is free who is not master of himself, yet he also understood that the body is often subject to the whims of fortune and the walls of the world. We are all, in some sense, creatures of our own making, confined by the habits we cultivate and the spaces […]
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The Unburdened Spirit Photo of the Day
April 15, 2018

The Unburdened Spirit

Seneca once remarked that true happiness is to enjoy the present, without anxious dependence upon the future. We often mistake joy for a grand achievement or a destination reached after much toil, yet the ancients understood it as something far more immediate and unadorned. It is a lightness of being that arises when the mind […]
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The Quietude of Being Photo of the Day
April 6, 2018

The Quietude of Being

Epictetus taught that we should not desire things to happen as we wish, but rather wish for them to happen as they do. In this simple shift of perspective, the friction between our expectations and the world’s reality begins to dissolve. We spend so much of our brief lives demanding that the river flow backward […]
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The Flow of Becoming Photo of the Day
March 14, 2018

The Flow of Becoming

Heraclitus famously observed that one cannot step into the same river twice, for the waters are ever-changing and the man himself is not the same as he was a moment before. We often mistake the world for a collection of static objects, solid and reliable, when in truth we inhabit a constant state of flux. […]
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The Weight of the Path Photo of the Day
March 12, 2018

The Weight of the Path

Seneca once reminded his friend Lucilius that we are all, in a sense, laborers in a vast field, often mistaking the tools we carry for the purpose of our existence. We become so accustomed to the burden of our daily tasks that we forget the legs carrying the weight are themselves fragile, temporary, and prone […]
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The Unsung Mastery Photo of the Day
January 12, 2015

The Unsung Mastery

Every old street carries the memory of thousands of footsteps that have worn down its stone. In the historic quarters of Old Dhaka, heritage is not preserved under museum glass; it is hammered into brass, spun on potter wheels, and whispered across tea stalls in the afternoon heat. There is an enduring resilience in those […]
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The Unbroken Light Photo of the Day
May 10, 2014

The Unbroken Light

Children do not need grand reasons to be happy; they simply discover joy in whatever is placed in their hands. A puddle becomes an ocean, a strip of bamboo a swift vessel, a sunny afternoon an eternity. Somewhere along the road to adulthood, we unlearn this spontaneous grace. We convince ourselves that happiness must be […]
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