15: On A Lighter Note ...

     In looking back on my most recent blog posts, one could fairly accuse me of focusing on the darker side of things. However, in the course of reading Seneca, I have learned that not all of his letters are unrelentingly serious. In the fifteenth letter, for example, Seneca advises his friend Lucilius to focus more attention on mental health rather than on the body's condition. Regarding exercise, Seneca writes:
          "It is foolish, dear Lucilius, and unbefitting an educated man, to busy oneself with exercising the muscles, broadening the shoulders, and strengthening the torso. You may have great success with your training diet and your bodybuilding, but never will you match the strength and weight of a prime ox. Besides, your mind is then weighed down by a more burdensome body, and is less agile as a result. Restrict your body, then, as much as you can, and give more latitude to the mind. Those who are obsessed with such a regimen incur many discomforts. ... Drinking and sweating -- a life full of heartburn! There are ways of exercising that are easy and quick, that give the body a workout without taking up too much time -- for time is what we have to keep track of more than anything: running, and arm movements with various weights, and jumping, either the high jump or the long jump, or the dance jump ... . Choose whichever you like, and make it easy by practice. But whatever you do, return quickly from the body to the mind and exercise that, night and day. A moderate effort is enough to nourish it, and its exercise is such as neither cold nor heat will hamper, nor even old age. Tend to the good that gets better with time. I am not telling you to be always pouring over a book or tablet: the mind should have some respite, but to relax, not to become lax."
     In my own life, I spent a significant amount of time lifting weights during my mid-teens to mid-twenties, with the public reason that it would make me a better athlete, but with the private hope that I would end up looking like Arnold Schwarzenegger in his Mr. Olympia days. While I did become somewhat stronger and more muscular, no one would have mistaken me for a professional bodybuilder. In my late twenties through late forties, my main form of exercise was distance running, yet I was never more than a middle-of-the-pack runner, even on my fastest days. Following a leg injury, I had to give up running, and switched to walking; recently, I decided to add some circuit training to increase my heart rate (as my cardiologist advised). Because it seems like the thing my body is best suited for is sitting on the sofa and drinking beer, I think Seneca would agree that the time spent on my blog is time well spent.
_______________

     Seneca, Letters on Ethics to Lucilius, Translated with an Introduction and Commentary by Margaret Graver and A.A. Long (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2015), Letter 15, 2-6, page 60. 

The Hand Of Fate?

     Regular readers of this blog may recall that I have discovered in the past few months, based on a series of tests, that I have heart-related health issues. I was ultimately referred to a specialist who confirmed last Friday that I have high blood pressure and a low "ejection" -- not "erection" -- fraction, which apparently means that my heart does not pump blood as efficiently as it should. (In addition, I have recently learned, courtesy of the Cook County vital records office, that my paternal grandfather dropped dead at the age of 40 of a heart attack). My cardiologist put me on two prescription medications, which are designed to reduce blood pressure and the risk of a heart attack; she also advised me to cut my sodium intake and exercise more.
     So the concept of fate has been on my mind recently. It is a subject that Seneca wrote about often, although perhaps not as often as he wrote about fortune. One of the most succinct statements of Seneca's thinking on fate is actually from one of his separate discourses -- On Providence, which is also addressed to his friend Lucilius:
          "I am coerced into nothing. I suffer nothing unwillingly. I do not serve god, but rather I agree with him -- all the more so because I know that all things come to pass by a law that is fixed and is decreed for eternity. The fates lead us, and the amount of time that remains for each person was stipulated at our first hour when we were born. Cause hangs on cause. Things both private and public are drawn along in a long order of events. Each thing must be suffered bravely because all things do not simply occur, as we think, but rather they arrive. It was decided long ago what you would have that you could rejoice about, what you would have that you could cry about. And however much the lives of individuals seem to be distinguished by great variety, the total comes to one thing: the things we receive perish, as will we. Why, then, do we get angry? Why do we complain? We were made ready for this. Let nature use its bodies as it wants. We should be joyful and courageous toward all things, and we should consider how nothing perishes that is ours. What belongs to a good man? To offer himself up to fate. It is a magnificent consolation to be carried away with the universe. Whatever it is that has commanded us to live in this way, to die in this way, binds the gods too with the same necessity. Human and divine are carried along equally on a course that cannot be revoked."
     The concept of fate is difficult for modern people (myself included) to accept, perhaps because we want to believe that things happen to us for a reason. However, I can now see how belief in fate could be comforting on one level. After all, it discourages people from ruminating about why things -- particularly unwelcome things -- happen to them and to those close to them.
_______________

     Seneca, On Providence, translated by James Ker in Hardship & Happiness (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2014), Book 5, 6-9, page 294.