《沉思录·卷二·写于格拉努阿河畔》第14条
Though thou shouldest be going to live three thousand years and as many times ten thousand years, still remember that no man loses any other life than this which he now lives, nor lives any other than this which he now loses. The longest and shortest are thus brought to the same. For the present is the same to all, though that which perish is not the same;+ and so that which is lost appears to be a mere moment. For a man cannot lose either the past or the future: for what a man has not, how can any one take this from him? These two things then thou must bear in mind; the one, that all things from eternity are of like forms and come round in a circle, and that it makes no difference whether a man shall see the same things during a hundred years, or two hundred, or an infinite time; and the second, that the longest liver and he who will die soonest lose just the same. For the present is the only thing of which a man can be deprived, if it is true that this is the only thing which he has, and that a man cannot lose a thing if he has it not.
注释摘要
奥勒留在这里做的，是把人对死亡和寿命的恐惧一点点拆解，最后发现「失去」这个词用错了地方。他先从一件几乎人人都暗暗认定的事开始：多数人觉得，活得越长，拥有的生命就越多，因此死的时候损失也就越大。他偏要翻过这个直觉来问：我们真正拥有过什么生命？答案很清楚——只有当下这一刻。过去已经不在你手里，未来尚未到你手里，你怎么能失去根本不曾被你握住的东西呢？所以他说，人…