Powering Up with Philosophy!

April 11, 2023April 10, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistles 64.2-4

“We talked about different things as one does at dinner, taking no matter to conclusion, but leaping from one thing to another.. Then we had a book read aloud by Quintus Sextius the father, a great man, if you trust me, and a Stoic, even if he denies it. Good gods, how much vigor and spirit in the man! You don’t find this in all philosophers–many with famous names have feeble writings. They propose, they dispute, but they don’t make it spirited because they lack it.

But when you read Sextius you conclude: “He is alive! He is strong! He is free! He is beyond a man and he sends me away filled with belief. I’ll tell you how I feel when I read his work: I need to call our every chance, to shout, “Why do you hold back, Fortune? Come on–see how I am prepared!” I put on the character of a man who seeks to test himself, some way to show his worth.”

Varius nobis fuit sermo, ut in convivio, nullam rem usque ad exitum adducens, sed aliunde alio transiliens. Lectus est deinde liber Quinti Sextii patris, magni, si quid mihi credis, viri et, licet neget, Stoici. Quantus in illo, di boni, vigor est, quantum animi! Hoc non in omnibus philosophis invenies; quorundam scripta clarum habentium nomen exanguia sunt. Instituunt, disputant, cavillantur, non faciunt animum, quia non habent; cum legeris Sextium, dices: “Vivit, viget, liber est, supra hominem est, dimittit me plenum ingentis fiduciae.” In qua positione mentis sim, cum hunc lego, fatebor tibi: libet omnis casus provocare, libet exclamare: “Quid cessas, fortuna? Congredere; paratum vides.” Illius animum induo, qui quaerit, ubi se experiatur, ubi virtutem suam ostendat,

Grief Fatigue and Limits to Mourning

April 10, 2023April 9, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistle 63.12-14

“You have buried someone you loved; seek someone else you can love. It is better to replace a friend than mourn one. I know that what I am about to add is extremely cliched, but I won’t avoid it just because many have said it. Whoever makes no end to grief intentionally, finds one in time. The most shameful cure for grief for a wise person is being worn out by sorrow. I would prefer that you give up on pain rather than it give up on you and, further, that you stop it as soon as possible, since even if you desire to keep it up, you can’t go on for long.

Our ancestors decided that a year is a long enough time for a woman to mourn, not so that they may weep that long, but for no longer. There was no limit given to men because no amount was considered right. Still, for all those women who could not barely be pulled away from a corpse, how many can you find whose tears outlasted a month?

Nothing inspires hatred as quickly as grief. When it is new, it finds compassion and draws people to itself; but once it becomes constant, it turns into a joke, and not without reason. It seems either faked or foolish.

I am writing these words to you even though I was the one who was so undone by weeping for my dearest friend Annaeus Serenius that I must include myself among the list of people whom sorrow defeated, against my wishes. Today I speak out against my action and I know that the reason I mourned so much was that I didn’t even suspect his death would come before mine. My only thought was that he was younger than me by a lot, as if the fates kept track of the order in which we were born!”

Quem amabas, extulisti; quaere, quem ames. Satius est amicum reparare quam flere. Scio pertritum iam hoc esse, quod adiecturus sum, non ideo tamen praetermittam, quia ab omnibus dictum est: finem dolendi etiam qui consilio non fecerat, tempore invenit. Turpissimum autem est in homine prudente remedium maeroris lassitudo maerendi. Malo relinquas dolorem quam ab illo relinquaris, et quam primum id facere desiste, quod etiam si voles, diu facere non poteris. Annum feminis ad Iugendum constituere maiores, non ut tam diu lugerent, sed ne diutius; viris nullum legitimum tempus est, quia nullum honestum. Quam tamen mihi ex illis mulierculis dabis vix retractis a rogo, vix a cadavere revulsis, cui lacrimae in totum mensem duraverint? Nulla res citius in odium venit quam dolor, qui recens consolatorem invenit et aliquos ad se adducit, inveteratus vero deridetur, nec inmerito. Aut enim simulatus aut stultus est.

Haec tibi scribo is, qui Annaeum Serenum, carissimum mihi, tam inmodice flevi, ut, quod minime velim, inter exempla sim eorum, quos dolor vicit. Hodie autem factum meum damno et intellego maximam mihi causam sic lugendi fuisse, quod numquam cogitaveram mori eum ante me posse. Hoc unum mihi occurrebat, minorem esse et multo minorem, tamquam ordinem fata servarent.

Picture of a fragment of a Roman wall painting. Two women incline their heads toward each other — Roman wall painting of women gossiping. Getty Villa 96.AG.302

Adjusting Your Horizon of Deathpectation

April 8, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistles 61

“We should stop wanting what we used to. I am surely doing that. As an old man, I stopped wanting those things I did as a boy. My days, my nights, my labor are in this alone, this thought: to bring some end to long-lasting problems. I am acting as if each day is a whole life. By Heracles, I am not “seizing the day as if it is the last”, although I suspect that it is. I am writing this letter with that in mind–as if death might call me even as I write. it. I am ready to leave and I am enjoying life because I am not worrying too much about how long in the future this will be.

Before old age, I was dedicated to living well; now that I am old, it’s about dying well. Dying well is dying freely. Put a lot of effort into never doing something unwillingly. Something that is required should you refuse it is a choice if you want it. I mean this: whoever accepts orders freely avoids the worst part of slavery: doing what you don’t want to. Someone who is ordered to do something is not unhappy, but someone who works unwillingly is miserable.

So, Let us rearrange our thoughts to want whatever a matter asks of us and foremost that we may think about our death without sadness. We should be preparing for death before life. Life is well enough equipped, but we are too greedy for its accommodations. Something seems missing; something always seems missing. Whether we have lived long enough isn’t about years or days but the mind. I have lived long enough, dearest Lucilius. I am awaiting death, full. Goodbye.

Desinamus, quod voluimus, velle. Ego certe id ago: senex ea desii velle quae puer volui. In hoc unum eunt dies, in hoc noctes, hoc opus meum est, haec cogitatio: inponere veteribus malis finem. Id ago, ut mihi instar totius vitae dies sit. Nec mehercules tamquam ultimum rapio, sed sic illum aspicio, tamquam esse vel ultimus possit. Hoc animo tibi hanc epistulam scribo, tamquam me cum maxime scribentem mors evocatura sit. Paratus exire sum et ideo fruar vita, quia quam diu futurum hoc sit, non nimis pendeo.

Ante senectutem curavi, ut bene viverem, in senectute, ut bene moriar; bene autem mori est libenter mori. Da operam, ne quid umquam invitus facias. Quicquid necesse futurum est repugnanti, volenti necessitas non est. Ita dico: qui imperia libens excipit, partem acerbissimam servitutis effugit, facere quod nolit. Non qui iussus aliquid facit, miser est, set qui invitus facit. Itaque sic animum conponamus, ut quicquid res exiget, id velimus et in primis ut finem nostri sine tristitia cogitemus. Ante ad mortem quam ad vitam praeparandi sumus. Satis instructa vita est, sed nos in instrumenta eius avidi sumus; deesse aliquid nobis videtur et semper videbitur. Ut satis vixerimus, nec anni nec dies faciunt, sed animus. Vixi, Lucili carissime, quantum satis erat; mortem plenus exspecto. Vale.

Hungry Hungry Humans

April 7, 2023April 7, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistle 60

“I make a complaint, I sue, I am enraged. Do you still want what your nurse, your tutor, or your mommy have prayed for you. Don’t you know how much evil they begged? How harmful are the wishes of our loved ones! And the more successful they are, the more hostile they turn out to be. This is why I am not amazed that all these bad things plague us from youth. We’ve grown up among our parents’ curses! May they gods listen to our voice too, since it asks for nothing.

How long will we keep begging the gods as if we can’t take care of ourselves? How long will we fill the markets of our cities with goof. How long will people fill the city? How long will so many vessels carry the supplies for a single meal from many seas? The bull gets full by feeding on just a few acres; a single forest is good enough for many elephants. Yet a human being snacks on earth and sea.

What? Did nature make our gut so insatiable when we got these small bodies that we should outstrip the greed of the largest and hungriest animals? Nope. How little is enough for us naturally? Just a little bit. It is not our bellies’ hunger that costs us so much, but our envy.

So, those who, as Sallust says, “are obedient to their bellies” should be counted among the animals, not people. And some of them shouldn’t be ranked with the animals, but consigned instead to the dead. Whoever makes use of many is alive; whoever makes use of themselves, lives too. But those who hide away and grow overfull live in homes like tombs. We should inscribe their names in marble above their doors, since they’re dead before they died.”

Queror, litigo, irascor. Etiamnunc optas, quod tibi optavit nutrix tua aut paedagogus aut mater? Nondum intellegis, quantum mali optaverint? O quam inimica nobis sunt vota nostrorum! Eo quidem inimiciora quo cessere felicius. Iam non admiror, si omnia nos a prima pueritia mala secuntur; inter execrationes parentum crevimus. Exaudiant di nostram quoque¹ pro nobis vocem gratuitam.

Quousque poscemus aliquid deos ita quasi nondum ipsi alere nos possimus? Quamdiu sationibus inplebimus magnarum urbium campos? Quamdiu nobis populus metet? Quamdiu unius mensae instrumentum multa navigia et quidem non ex uno mari subvehent? Taurus paucissimorum iugerum pascuo impletur; una silva elephantis pluribus sufficit; homo et terra et mari pascitur. Quid ergo? Tam insatiabilem nobis natura alvum dedit, cum tam modica corpora dedisset, ut vastissimorum edacissimorumque animalium aviditatem vinceremus? Minime. Quantulum est enim, quod naturae datur?

Parvo illa dimittitur. Non fames nobis ventris nostri magno constat, sed ambitio. Hos itaque, ut ait Sallustius, “ventri oboedientes” animalium loco numeremus, non hominum, quosdam vero ne animalium quidem, sed mortuorum. Vivit is, qui multis usui est, vivit is, qui se utitur; qui vero latitant et torpent, sic in domo sunt, quomodo in conditivo. Horum licet in limine ipso nomen marmori inscribas, mortem suam antecesserunt. Vale.

The Ol’ Stoic Killjoy

April 6, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistle 59.1-2

“I got a lot of pleasure from your letter–permit me to use words commonly, without insisting on their Stoic meaning. We believe that pleasure is a vice. It may very well be. Still, we have the habit of using that term for characterizing a joyous feeling in the mind. I know that if we measure words by our dictionary that pleasure is a matter of bad repute and joy is available only to the wise.

Joy is the elation of a mind that relies in its own goodness and truth. Still, when we use it casually, we say we get great joy from a friend’s consulate, or their marriage, or the birth of their child. These things are not really joyous as much as the seeds of future sadness. Nope. Real joy is made to never stop, to never be turned into its opposite.”

Magnam ex epistula tua percepi voluptatem; permitte enim mihi uti verbis publicis nec illa ad significationem Stoicam revoca. Vitium esse voluptatem credimus. Sit sane; ponere tamen illam solemus ad demonstrandam animi hilarem adfectionem. Scio, inquam, et voluptatem, si ad nostrum album verba derigimus, rem infamem esse et gaudium nisi sapienti non contingere. Est enim animi elatio suis bonis verisque fidentis. Vulgo tamen sic loquimur, ut dicamus magnum gaudium nos ex illius consulatu aut nuptiis aut ex partu uxoris percepisse, quae adeo non sunt gaudia, ut saepe initia futurae tristitiae sint. Gaudio autem iunctum est non desinere nec in contrarium verti.

Photograph of oil painting. bright colors in abstract composition "Joy, Collage of Life" Oil painting on canvas by artist René Cheng - Finalist of the First International Art Prize Meneghetti. Private collection — “Joy, Collage of Life” Oil painting on canvas by artist René Cheng – Finalist of the First International Art Prize Meneghetti. Private collection

Scheduling a Time to leave

April 5, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistles 58.32-34

“Frugality can bring about old age which, I suppose, shouldn’t be desired any more than it is refused. There’s pleasure in spending as much time with oneself as possible, when you’ve made yourself worthy of enjoying. The point then on which we should make our judgment is whether we should seek out the final stages and not await the end, or make it happen. Someone who waits for their fate slowly is like one who is afraid, as if a bit of a drunkard who drains a full jar and slurps up the dregs too.

But we should nevertheless still ask about this too: “Is the last part of life the dregs, or is it the clearest and purest of all, provided that the mind is free of injury and the senses give their support to the body and the body is not tired or too close to death?” Oh, there’s a big difference between someone extending their life and putting off their death.

But if the body is not useful for its tasks, why should we free its laboring spirit? Well, maybe we should do this just a bit before we must lest we lose the ability to do it. Since the danger of living poorly is greater than the danger of dying quickly, then someone who refuses to wager a small bit of time for great profit is a fool.”

Potest frugalitas producere senectutem, quam ut non puto concupiscendam, ita ne recusandam quidem. Iucundum est secum esse quam diutissime, cum quis se dignum, quo frueretur, effecit. Itaque de isto feremus sententiam, an oporteat fastidire senectutis extrema et finem non opperiri, sed manu facere. Prope est a timente, qui fatum segnis expectat, sicut ille ultra modum deditus vino est, qui amphoram exiccat et faecem quoque exorbet. De hoc tamen quaeremus, pars summa vitae utrum faex sit an liquidissimum ac purissimum quiddam, si modo mens sine iniuria est et integri sensus animum iuvant nec defectum et praemortuum corpus est.

Plurimum enim refert, vitam aliquis extendat an mortem. At si inutile ministeriis corpus est, quidni oporteat educere animum laborantem? Et fortasse paulo ante quam debet, faciendum est, ne cum fieri debebit, facere non possis. Et cum maius periculum sit male vivendi quam cito moriendi, stultus est, qui non exigua temporis mercede magnae rei aleam redimit.

Anxiety and the Burden

April 3, 2023April 2, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistles 55.12-15

“That wit is fickle and has not yet looked inward to itself when it over-reacts to voices and random movements. It carries inside itself the root of its worry and its fear, a fact that makes it anxious, as our Vergil says:

And I, whom no thrown missiles could move,
nor a battleline of Greek infantry–
Now my ears tremble at anything, every sound frightens
me fearing equally over my child and my burden.” (Verg. Aen. 2.726-29)

The first person is wise since the moving weapons don’t frighten them, neither does the clashing armor of the close-positioned line, nor the sound of a city in chaos. Later, they are ignorant about the things they fear, turning pale at every sound–any voice at all seems like a battle cry and breaks them. The slightest motions make them breathless. Their baggage makes them afraid. Choose anyone at all from those lucky ones, pushing many things, carrying them, and you will see one “fearing over their child and burden”.

So, know that you have mindfulness when no sound bothers you, when no voice disturbs you, not if it tries to charm or threaten or turns out to be just meaningless, empty sound. “What,” you say, “Is it not just easier to live in isolation?” I confess that it is. So, I will move from this place. I only wanted to test and practice myself. Why is it necessary to be tortured any longer when Ulysses discovered so easy a remedy for his companions against the Sirens?”

Leve illud ingenium est nec sese adhuc reduxit introrsus, quod ad vocem et accidentia erigitur. Habet intus aliquid sollicitudinis et habet aliquid concepti pavoris, quod illum curiosum facit, ut ait Vergilius noster:

Et me, quem dudum non ulla iniecta movebant
Tela neque adverso glomerati ex agmine Grai,
Nunc omnes terrent aurae, sonus excitat omnis
Suspensum et pariter comitique onerique timentem. (Verg. Aen. 2.726-29)

Prior ille sapiens est, quem non tela vibrantia, non arietata inter se arma agminis densi, non urbis inpulsae fragor territat. Hic alter inperitus est, rebus suis timet ad omnem crepitum expavescens, quem una quaelibet vox pro fremitu accepta deicit, quem motus levissimi exanimant; timidum illum sarcinae faciunt. Quemcumque ex istis felicibus elegeris, multa trahentibus, multa portantibus, videbis illum “comitique onerique timentem.”

Tunc ergo te scito esse conpositum, cum ad te nullus clamor pertinebit, cum te nulla vox tibi excutiet, non si blandietur, non si minabitur, non si inani sono vana circumstrepet. “Quid ergo? Non aliquando commodius est et carere convicio?” Fateor. Itaque ego ex hoc loco migrabo. Experiri et exercere me volui. Quid necesse est diutius torqueri, cum tam facile remedium Vlixes sociis etiam adversus Sirenas invenerit? Vale.

Color photograph of oil painting. Realistic image of ship with men rowing, Odysseus lashed to the mast, and bird women flying around to distract them all — John William Waterhouse . “Odysseus and the Sirens” 1891

What Was There Before I Was Born?

April 1, 2023April 1, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistles 54.4-5

“What is this?” I ask. “Does death so often test me? Let it. I have been testing death for some time now.” “Since when?” You ask. Since before I was born. Death is not-being, I know what that’s like. What was before me will be after me. If there is any kind of suffering in this state, it is necessary that it also existed before we entered into the light. Yet, we didn’t experience any pain then.

I ask: don’t you think someone to be a complete fool if they believe that the map was worse off when it didn’t burn, before someone lit it? We are also sparked into flame and put out. In between, we suffer something, but there’s considerable rest on either side. Unless I am wrong about this, we are mistaken if we believe that death follows when it was there before and will follow too. Whatever existed before us was death.

What is the difference if you do not begin or if you stop when the outcome of either is not existing?”

“Quid hoc est?” inquam. “Tam saepe mors experitur me? Faciat; ego illam diu expertus sum.” “Quando?” inquis. Antequam nascerer. Mors est non esse; id quale sit, iam scio. Hoc erit post me, quod ante me fuit. Si quid in hac re tormenti est, necesse est et fuisse, antequam prodiremus in lucem; atqui nullam sensimus tunc vexationem. Rogo, non stultissimum dicas, si quis existimet lucernae peius esse, cum extincta est, quam antequam accenditur? Nos quoque et extinguimur et accendimur; medio illo tempore aliquid patimur, utrimque vero alta securitas est. In hoc enim, mi Lucili, nisi fallor, erramus, quod mortem iudicamus sequi, cum illa et praecesserit et secutura sit. Quicquid ante nos fuit, mors est. Quid enim refert, non incipias an desinas, cum utriusque rei hic sit effectus, non esse?

color photograph of oil painting showing a woman half skeleton but half clothed — Life and Death, Wellcome Trust https://wellcomecollection.org/search/images?query=life%20and%20death

The Talking Heads, “Naive Melody”

I can’t tell one from another

Did I find you, or you find me?There was a time before we were born

If someone asks, this where I’ll be where I’ll be

Construction Delays in the Foundation of Wisdom

March 30, 2023March 30, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistles 52.5-6

“Imagine that two buildings have been built. They are different at the foundation, but the same in height and beauty. One has a perfect plot and the labor proceeds without delay. But the other takes forever at the foundations as the building materials are spent in the soft, moving ground and labor is exhausted to make it to something solid.

You can look at both of them and see clearly how far the first building has come, while the greater, more difficult part of the other one lies hidden. It is the same way with people’s characters: some are easily handled while others, as they say, must be carefully worked by hand and are completely occupied working on their own foundations.

I would call someone who has never had any problem with themselves lucky, but the other has earned better for themselves because they have defeated the rot of their own nature and haven’t merely led themselves to wisdom, but dragged themselves there.”

Puta enim duo aedificia excitata esse, ab imo disparia, aeque excelsa atque magnifica. Alterum puram aream accepit; illic protinus opus crevit. Alterum fundamenta lassarunt in mollem et fluvidam humum missa multumque laboris exhaustum est, dum pervenitur ad solidum. Intuenti ambo quicquid fecit alter in aperto est, alteriusmagna pars et difficilior latet. Quaedam ingenia facilia, expedita, quaedam manu, quod aiunt, facienda sunt et in fundamentis suis occupata. Itaque illum ego feliciorem dixerim, qui nihil negotii secum habuit, hunc quidem melius de se meruisse, qui malignitatem naturae suae vicit et ad sapientiam se non perduxit, sed extraxit.

Fighting Fortune: Two Enter, One Leaves

March 29, 2023March 29, 2023 ~ sententiaeantiquae ~ Leave a comment

Seneca, Moral Epistles 51.7-9

“What if we did what Hannibal did and give our time to pampering ourselves once we have stopped the course of events and given on the war? There’s no one who’d fail to upbraid us for our poorly scheduled laziness, something full of danger for a victor, and much more for someone merely about to conquer. And this is less appropriate for us than for those waving Punic sigils, since our danger is greater than theirs if we relax and our labor is more if we persevere.

Fortune is waging war against me. I will not be defeated; I will not accept the yoke. No, I’ll shake it off, something I have to do with greater dedication. The soul should not be coddled. If I give up to pleasure, then I must also yield to pain, to labor, to poverty. Ambition and rage would desire to have the same right over me too and I would be stretched to pieces, no, ripped to pieces, overcome by all these forces.

Freedom sits before me. My labor is for that prize. What is freedom, you ask? To be a slave to nothing, to no need, to no chance. It means meeting Fortune in the arena as an equal. On the day when I see that I am in control, she will be able to do nothing. Should I give in to death when death is in my hand?”

Si faceremus, quod fecit Hannibal, ut interrupto cursu rerum omissoque bello fovendis corporibus operam daremus, nemo non intempestivam desidiam victori quoque, nedum vincenti, periculosam merito reprehenderet; minus nobis quam illis Punica signa sequentibus licet, plus periculi restat cedentibus, plus operis etiam perseverantibus. Fortuna mecum bellum gerit; non sum imperata facturus. Iugum non recipio, immo, quod maiore virtute faciendum est, excutio.

Non est emolliendus animus; si voluptati cessero, cedendum est dolori, cedendum est labori, cedendum est paupertati; idem sibi in me iuris esse volet et ambitio et ira; inter tot adfectus distrahar, immo discerpar. Libertas proposita est; ad hoc praemium laboratur. Quae sit libertas, quaeris? Nulli rei servire, nulli necessitati, nullis casibus, fortunam in aequum deducere. Quo die illa me intellexero plus posse, nil poterit. Ego illam feram, cum in manu mors sit?