Seneca, Moral Epistles 24.25-26
“The brave and wise person shouldn’t flee life, but merely leave. And that affect that plagues many–a lust for death–should be avoided. Just as with other things, Lucilius, the mind has an unconsidered inclination to death that often afflicts the kindest and most serious people as much as the ignorant and dissolute. The former hate life; the latter are annoyed by it.
Others are moved by being done with doing and seeing, not by a hatred of life but by boredom. We slide into this as philosophy itself pushes. So we say, “How long for the same things? Do I just keep on waking, sleeping, getting hungry, getting bored, growing cold, then warm again? There’s no end to things, but everything is tied up in a circle, fleeing and following. Night presses upon day, day presses upon night, summer gives way to autumn, winter replaces fall and in turn melts into spring.
I do nothing new; I see nothing new. Eventually you get sick of this too.” There are many who don’t think being alive is a hardship, but that it is empty. Goodbye.”
Vir fortis ac sapiens non fugere debet e vita, sed exire. Et ante omnia ille quoque vitetur affectus, qui multos occupavit, libido moriendi. Est enim, mi Lucili, ut ad alia, sic etiam ad moriendum inconsulta animi inclinatio, quae saepe generosos atque acerrimae indolis viros corripit, saepe ignavos iacentesque; illi contemnunt vitam, hi gravantur.. Everything moves in this way to return.
Quosdam subit eadem faciendi videndique satietas et vitae non odium sed fastidium, in quod prolabimur ipsa inpellente philosophia, dum dicimus: “Quousque eadem? Nempe expergiscar dormiam, esuriam fastidiam, algebo aestuabo. Nullius rei finis est, sed in orbem nexa sunt omnia, fugiunt ac secuntur. Diem nox premit, dies noctem, aestas in autumnum desinit, autumno hiemps instat, quae vere conpescitur; omnia sic transeunt ut revertantur. Nihil novi facio, nihil novi video; fit aliquando et huius rei nausia.” Multi sunt, qui non acerbum iudicent vivere, sed supervacuum. Vale.
