The Cost of Formation: Lessons from Marcus Aurelius’s Great‑Grandfather
Marcus Aurelius credits his great-grandfather with a simple, consequential choice: he kept him out of public schools, secured capable teachers at home, and spent freely on that education. Not out of vanity or status, but out of judgment. He understood that formation is more than content delivery; it is the design of an environment where character, attention, and judgment are trained. That decision shaped an emperor’s mind long before he wore a crown.
In Book I of Meditations, Marcus Aurelius acknowledges the formative environments that shaped his education. This reflection underscores the Stoic belief that moral and intellectual training are worthy of serious investment. By valuing quality instruction over convention, Marcus highlights the importance of intentional formation rather than passive conformity.
Formation Is a System, Not an Event
Meditations — Book I, Section 4 is not an indictment of public schools. It is a systems observation: environments have defaults; defaults produce predictable outcomes. If you want different outcomes, you must design a different system.
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Inputs: teachers with judgment, sources worth reading, real work with feedback.
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Mechanisms: practice, reflection, correction, repetition.
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Constraints: quiet, standards, time blocks, consequences tied to reality.
Formation happens where these elements compound. The Stoics called it training. Today we would call it a learning loop. The point is not elitism; it is agency over the system shaping your mind.
Spend Liberally—On What, Exactly?
“Spend liberally” is less about money than about priorities. Cost is measured in attention, time, trust, and discomfort—not just currency. Spend on the parts that compound.
People
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Seek teachers who have carried real responsibility. Integrity over charisma. Judgment over jargon.
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Pay for access to their time. Do not nickel‑and‑dime instruction, feedback, or apprenticeship.
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Curate peer groups that demand clarity and hold lines. You become like the rooms you enter.
Process
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Build deliberate practice: drills, reps, and after‑action reviews.
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Keep a decision journal. Revisit the thinking, not just the outcomes.
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Establish design reviews or counsel analogues—forums where ideas are stress‑tested without theater.
Space and Tools
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Protect quiet, undistracted blocks. Attention is the rarest resource.
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Choose tools that reduce noise and make error visible. Good checklists are cheap insurance.
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Create friction where it matters (pre‑deployment checks, pre‑sail inspections); remove it where it doesn’t.
Institutions and the Average Case
Public schools, large corporations, and militaries must scale. They optimize for the median learner and the reliable outcome. That is not a moral failure—it is the problem they are solving. But if you seek uncommon capability, you must supplement the average case with intentional formation:
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Apprenticeship tracks alongside formal training.
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“Guild time” for honing craft outside delivery pressures.
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Small, serious cohorts that read primary sources and operate without performance.
Respect the institution. Build the parallel system you need.
Practice From Real Domains
At Sea
Competence on a yacht is not built in a classroom. It is built in drills: fire, flooding, man overboard, night entries. Paying for an extra day of sea trials with a seasoned engineer seems expensive—until the first time a fuel filter collapses in heavy chop at dusk. The return on that investment is not a certificate; it is a calm helm when the engine coughs.
In Software
Senior code review is a teacher. Architecture spikes, design docs, and postmortems are classes. Fund them. Make space for pair programming. Allocate a “bench” week per quarter for engineers to study system internals and historical incidents. You are buying down future outages and cultivating judgment that no framework can provide.
In Uniform
Units that conduct honest after‑action reviews—no blame, no euphemism—learn faster. The lesson isn’t the slide deck; it’s the habit of naming reality and adjusting the system. That habit is taught, not announced.
AI as Tutor, Not Master
AI can accelerate formation if you own the value function.
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Use models to broaden perspective: ask for counter‑arguments, edge cases, and failure modes.
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Draft, then verify. Treat outputs as hypotheses, not answers.
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Keep accountability human. Decisions with moral weight belong to a person with a name.
Automation without understanding is fragile. AI is useful where it sharpens thinking and reduces noise; it is dangerous where it replaces judgment with plausible text.
Practices for Leaders Who Care About Formation
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Budget for it. Line‑item money and time for teaching, reviews, and drills. Protect it when schedules tighten.
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Name teachers. Assign mentors with clear scope: what they teach, how progress is assessed, when to escalate.
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Institutionalize reflection. Decision journals, postmortems, and design reviews with written pre‑reads.
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Build a living canon. Primary sources, case studies, and internal lore. Read together; argue in good faith.
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Pay for seriousness. Bring in practitioners, not entertainers. Compensate generously for real expertise.
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Train the trainers. Teach senior people how to teach. Rotate instruction so knowledge spreads.
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Measure learning by behavior. Fewer unforced errors, better handovers, and composure under stress—not badges.
Measuring the Return
The ROI of formation rarely shows up next quarter. It appears in leading indicators:
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Faster orientation in ambiguous situations.
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Cleaner interfaces and simpler plans.
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Fewer preventable incidents and calmer recoveries.
And in lagging indicators:
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Durability of systems under load.
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Trust from customers and crews.
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Leaders capable of restrained, decisive action.
Marcus’s great‑grandfather understood that formation is a capital expense with compounding returns. He chose the environment, funded the teachers, and accepted the responsibility to shape a mind fit for real life. We owe ourselves—and those we lead—no less.
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