Seneca the Younger (c. 4 BC –
AD 65),[1] fully Lucius Annaeus Seneca
and also known simply as Seneca, was a Roman Stoic philosopher, statesman, dramatist, and—in one work—satirist of the Silver Age of Latin literature. As a writer Seneca is known for his philosophical
works, and for his plays, which are all tragedies. His prose works include a dozen
essays and one hundred twenty-four letters dealing with moral issues. These
writings constitute one of the most important bodies of primary material for
ancient Stoicism. As a tragedian, he is best known
for plays such as his Medea, Thyestes, and Phaedra. Seneca's influence on later
generations is immense—during the Renaissance he was "a sage admired and
venerated as an oracle of moral, even of Christian edification; a master of
literary style and a model [for] dramatic art."
In this
short, lively and insightful essay (translated by John W. Basore), Seneca contrasts the busy,
active, extroverted materialistic life with the serene, contemplative, simple, philosophical
introverted life in trying to determine how to live one’s live in giving
priority to what is essential. Reflections of how we perceive time is an
important consideration. Perhaps if we weren’t so involved in so many vain and fruitless
distractions, we would be less anxious about wasting time and learn to
appreciate every moment of time at its proper value. He presents a kind of
mindfulness that cautions against constantly being caught in a fleeting present
that distracts in constant feverish movement and encourages a more serene
directing of one’s consciousness according to a deeper sense of concentration
on what is essential. For this, the study of the great spiritual thinkers and
philosophers is of the utmost importance.
It
is not that we have a short space of time, but that we waste much of it. Life
is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently generous measure to allow
the accomplishment of the very greatest things if the whole of it is well
invested. But when it is squandered in luxury and carelessness,
when it is devoted to no good end, forced at last by the ultimate necessity we
perceive that it has passed away before we were aware that it was passing. (1)
So
it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so, nor do we have any
lack of it, but are wasteful of it. Just as great and princely wealth is
scattered in a moment when it comes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth
however limited, if it is entrusted to a good guardian, increases by use, so
our life is amply long for him who orders it properly. (1)
Look
back in memory and consider when you ever had a fixed plan, how few days have
passed as you had intended, when you were ever at your own disposal, when your
face ever wore its natural expression, when your mind was ever unperturbed,
what work you have achieved in so long a life, how many have robbed you of life
when you were not aware of what you were losing, how much was taken up in
useless sorrow, in foolish joy, in greedy desire, in the allurements of
society, how little of yourself was left to you; you will perceive that you are
dying before your season!” What, then, is the reason of this? You live as if you were destined to live
forever, no thought of your frailty ever enters your head, of how much time has
already gone by you take no heed. You squander time as if you drew from a full
and abundant supply, though all the while that day which you bestow on some
person or thing is perhaps your last. You have all the fears of mortals and all
the desires of immortals.(3)
You
will hear many men saying: “After my fiftieth year I shall retire into leisure,
my sixtieth year shall release me from public duties.” And what guarantee,
pray, have you that your life will last longer? Who will suffer your course to
be just as you plan it? Are you
not ashamed to reserve for yourself only the remnant of life, and to set apart
for wisdom only that time which cannot be devoted to any business? How late it
is to begin to live just when we must cease to live! What foolish forgetfulness
of mortality to postpone wholesome plans to the fiftieth and sixtieth year, and
to intend to begin life at a point to which few have attained! (3)
Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be
successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things—eloquence
cannot, nor the liberal studies—since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing
very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed
into it. There is nothing the busy man is
less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn. Of
the other arts there are many teachers everywhere; some of them we have seen
that mere boys have mastered so thoroughly that they could even play the
master. It takes the whole of life to
learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the
whole of life to learn how to die. (7)
Everyone hurries his life on and
suffers from a yearning for the future and a weariness of the present. But he
who bestows all of his time on his own needs, who plans out every day as if it
were his last, neither longs for nor fears the morrow.
For what new pleasure is there that any hour can now bring? They are all known,
all have been enjoyed to the full. Mistress Fortune may deal out the rest as
she likes; his life has already found safety. Something may be added to it, but
nothing taken from it, and he will take any addition as the man who is
satisfied and filled takes the food which he does not desire and yet can hold. (7)
And so there is no reason for you
to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hairs or wrinkles; he
has not lived long—he has existed long. For what
if you should think that that man had had a long voyage who had been caught by
a fierce storm as soon as he left harbour, and, swept hither and thither by a
succession of winds that raged from different quarters, had been driven in a
circle around the same course? Not much voyaging did he have, but much tossing
about. (7)
But
see how these same people clasp the knees of physicians if they fall ill and
the danger of death draws nearer, see how ready they are, if threatened with
capital punishment, to spend all their possessions in order to live! So great
is the inconsistency of their feelings. But
if each one could have the number of his future years set before him as is
possible in the case of the years that have passed, how alarmed those would be
who saw only a few remaining, how sparing of them would they be! And yet it
is easy to dispense an amount that is assured, no matter how small it may be;
but that must be guarded more carefully which will fail you know not when. (8)
And yet this is the part of our
time that is sacred and set apart, put beyond the reach of all human mishaps,
and removed from the dominion of Fortune, the part which is disquieted by no
want, by no fear, by no attacks of disease; this can neither be troubled nor be
snatched away—it is an everlasting and unanxious possession.
The present offers only one day at a time, and each by minutes; but all the
days of past time will appear when you bid them, they will suffer you to behold
them and keep them at your will—a thing which those who are engrossed have no
time to do. The mind that is untroubled and tranquil has the power to roam into
all the parts of its life; but the minds of the engrossed, just as if weighted
by a yoke, cannot turn and look behind. And so their life vanishes into an abyss;
and as it does no good, no matter how much water you pour into a vessel, if
there is no bottom to receive and hold it, so with time—it makes no difference
how much is given; if there is nothing for it to settle upon, it passes out
through the chinks and holes of the mind. (10)
Present
time is very brief, so brief, indeed, that to some there seems to be none; for
it is always in motion, it ever flows and hurries on; it ceases to be before it
has come, and can no more brook delay than the firmament or the stars, whose
ever unresting movement never lets them abide in the same track. The engrossed, therefore, are concerned
with present time alone, and it is so brief that it cannot be grasped, and even
this is filched away from them, distracted as they are among many things. (10)
But
for those whose life is passed remote from all business, why should it not be ample?
None of it is assigned to another, none
of it is scattered in this direction and that, none of it is committed to
Fortune, none of it perishes from neglect, none is subtracted by wasteful
giving, none of it is unused; the whole of it, so to speak, yields income. And
so, however small the amount of it, it is abundantly sufficient, and therefore,
whenever his last day shall come, the wise man will not hesitate to go to meet
death with steady step. (11)
Of all men they alone are at
leisure who take time for philosophy, they alone really live; for they are not
content to be good guardians of their own lifetime only. They annex ever age to
their own; all the years that have gone ore them are an addition to their
store. Unless we are most ungrateful, all those men,
glorious fashioners of holy thoughts, were born for us; for us they have
prepared a way of life. By other men’s labours we are led to the sight of
things most beautiful that have been wrested from darkness and brought into
light; from no age are we shut out, we have access to all ages, and if it is
our wish, by greatness of mind, to pass beyond the narrow limits of human
weakness, there is a great stretch of time through which we may roam. We may argue
with Socrates, we may doubt with Carneades, find peace with Epicurus, overcome
human nature with the Stoics, exceed it with the Cynics. Since Nature allows us
to enter into fellowship with every age, why should we not turn from this
paltry and fleeting span of time and surrender ourselves with all our soul to
the past, which is boundless, which is eternal, which we share with our
betters? (14)
Do
you retire to these quieter, safer, greater things! Think you that it is just
the same whether you are concerned in having corn from oversea poured into the
granaries, unhurt either by the dishonesty or the neglect of those who
transport it, in seeing that it does not become heated and spoiled by
collecting moisture and tallies in weight and measure, or whether you enter
upon these sacred and lofty studies with the purpose of discovering what
substance, what pleasure, what mode of life, what shape God has; what fate
awaits your soul; where Nature lays us to rest When we are freed from the body;
what the principle is that upholds all the heaviest matter in the centre of
this world, suspends the light on high, carries fire to the topmost part,
summons the stars to their proper changes—and ether matters, in turn, full of
mighty wonders? You really must leave
the ground and turn your mind’s eye upon these things! Now while the blood is
hot, we must enter with brisk step upon the better course. In this kind of life
there awaits much that is good to know—the love and practice of the virtues, forgetfulness
of the passions, knowledge of living and dying, and a life of deep repose.
(19)
image thanks to https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/01/seneca-on-the-shortness-of-life/
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