Tragic Circumstance

Derren Brown opens Book Eleven of Marcus Aurelius's Meditations with why the Greeks and Romans made offerings to Fortune, and why we could use some of that respect. He brings back his graph, aims on one axis and what life throws back on the other, and traces the same undulating line through Machiavelli, Schopenhauer and Freud, who only ever promised to make people naturally unhappy. Vision boards, in this light, are a discourtesy to a goddess.

The turn is anger. Brown likes Marcus's line that if somebody hates him, he'll do nothing to deserve their contempt, then sets out Marcus's tactics for the annoying person in front of you: picture their private life, remember you make the same mistakes, remove the judgment before it becomes an itch, respond with kindness. He ends on the figs: only a madman looks for them in winter, and only a madman expects this person to do a better job than they can.