19: Leisure Then And Now

     It was around this time last year that I decided to retire from the urban school district where I had been working for the past 22 years, so -- even though I am now freelancing -- the subject of retirement has been on my mind recently.  In the nineteenth letter to Lucilius, Seneca advises his friend to retire from a position as provincial governor:
          "If you can, ease yourself out of that occupation of yours -- and if you can't, then tear yourself away! We have wasted enough time. Old age is upon us: time to start getting our luggage together. Surely no one can object to that. We have lived at sea; let us die in harbor. ... 'How shall I get out?' you say. However you can. Think how many risks you have taken for money, how many labors you have endured to gain fame. You should be just as bold in pursuit of leisure; otherwise you must grow old amid the cares of provincial governorships and then amid responsibilities in the city -- amid the storm, amid waves ever renewed, which you cannot escape even with moderation and quiet living. You want to rest, but what of that? Your success wants otherwise. And you're still letting it grow! The more you achieve, the more you will have to fear." 
     My career has not resulted in much fame or success -- at least not so far -- but two thousand years after Seneca wrote, leisure is something that people still hope for in retirement: resting, spending more time with family and friends, traveling, refocusing on an old hobby or starting a new one. However, Seneca's conception of leisure is different than ours (or at least than most of ours). In his separate treatise On Leisure, Seneca begins by considering the traditional Stoic teaching that one should remain in active service up until the end of life, working for the common good. Yet Seneca argues that -- even later in life -- when someone has completed her official service, she can still devote herself to the contemplation of truth, seek a coherent intellectual basis for life, and practice it. Seneca contends that one can serve the commonwealth with devotion even in leisure, or perhaps even better in leisure, by inquiring into issues such as "... what virtue is, whether it is one or many, and whether a person is made good by nature or by training ... ."
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     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 19, 1-2, 8, pages 70-71. 
    Seneca, On Leisure, translated by Gareth D. Williams in Hardship & Happiness (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2014) Book 1, 4; Book 2, 1-2; Book 4, 1-2; pages 222-224.