On staying yourself

Marcus wrote the Meditations at the frontier of a war he did not want, emperor of a world that flattered him constantly. His private notebooks are full of instructions to himself to ignore the applause and simply do the work at hand. Power gave him every excuse to become someone grander than he was. He kept refusing it, on the page, night after night, reminding himself that character is not a thing you announce but a thing you practice.

This week the Irish musician Glen Hansard died in a crash in Dublin at 56. He won an Oscar in 2008 for the song "Falling Slowly," which he co-wrote for the indie musical Once, and he started out as a busker on the streets of Dublin. What people kept saying about him was simpler than the award: he was the Oscar winner who never stopped busking on Dublin streets. The prize did not rearrange him. He remained the man who stood on the pavement and sang.