I bear the solitude of command with equanimity, at peace being the one the decision finally rests on.

How Aurelius might see it

One way to read this — take what fits, leave what doesn’t.

You've named solitude as something you've mastered. But peace with isolation can quietly become a closed loop — where no outside check ever reaches you. The real question isn't whether you can bear the weight alone. It's whether bearing it alone is actually serving the decisions you make.

The short answer

Comfort with solitary authority feels like strength, but it can slowly cut you off from the friction that keeps judgment honest. The best judges stay connected — to the record, to argument, to dissent. Equanimity is good. Insularity is a risk worth watching.

You carry final authority, and you've made peace with that. That's genuinely hard-won. But research on judicial behavior points to something worth sitting with: judges who see themselves as apart from ordinary feedback loops — political, collegial, institutional — can drift in ways they don't notice. Not corrupt, just gradually unmoored. The solitude of command is real, but it works best when it's solitude in the moment of decision, not solitude as a permanent posture. Marcus's words in 6.6 push against the idea that peace comes from standing alone. He points toward something more active — passing from one connected act to the next, without interruption. His comfort wasn't in isolation. It was in staying in motion, staying tied to others, keeping God (or purpose, or duty) as the anchor rather than his own self-sufficiency. Equanimity drawn inward can become stillness. Equanimity turned outward stays alive. This week, pick one decision you made recently — one you felt fully at peace with — and read the strongest argument against it. Not to second-guess yourself. Just to stay honest. A judge who can sit calmly with the best counterargument is genuinely grounded. One who no longer needs to hear it may just be comfortable.