Four moves on anger (selected from Marcus's ten)

[First]: What is my relation to men, and that we are made for one another; and in another respect I was made to be set over them, as a ram over the flock or a bull over the herd. But examine the matter from first principles, from this. If all things are not mere atoms, it is nature which orders all things: if this is so, the inferior things exist for the sake of the superior, and these for the sake of one another.

Fourth, consider that thou also doest many things wrong, and that thou art a man like others; and even if thou dost abstain from certain faults, still thou hast the disposition to commit them, though either through cowardice, or concern about reputation, or some such mean motive, thou dost abstain from such faults.

Fifth, consider that thou dost not even understand whether men are doing wrong or not, for many things are done with a certain reference to circumstances. And in short, a man must learn a great deal to enable him to pass a correct judgment on another man's acts.

Eighth, consider how much more pain is brought on us by the anger and vexation caused by such acts than by the acts themselves, at which we are angry and vexed.

Four moves selected from Marcus's longest anger meditation (which actually runs nine numbered exhortations plus a tenth gift "from Apollo"). First, the doctrine of oikeiōsis — humans are made for one another, even the ones being difficult. Fourth, examine where you yourself fail in the same way; and notice that even when you abstain, you often do so for mean reasons (cowardice, reputation) rather than virtue. Fifth, you may not have the full picture; circumstances change the moral character of an act. Eighth — the move Marcus repeats most — anger does more damage than the offence did. The cost-benefit of anger is bad arithmetic.