17: Is Poverty Carefree?

     The seventeenth letter to Lucilius discusses another topic on which I have to agree to disagree with Seneca, at least in part. This letter begins with Seneca chiding his friend Lucilius about the latter's decision -- which he justifies by trepidation about poverty -- to continue in the family business and save money for the future rather than retire and devote himself to the study of philosophy. Seneca writes:
          "Trust me: you should make philosophy your advocate. It will persuade you not to linger over your balance sheet. No doubt your aim, the purpose of all your delay, is to ensure that you need not fear poverty. But what if poverty is actually something to pursue? Many have found riches an obstacle to the philosophical life: poverty is untrammeled, carefree. When the trumpet sounds, the poor know that they are not the ones under attack; when the alarm of fire is raised, they look around for the exit, not for their belongings. When a poor person is about to embark, there is no tumult at the harbor, no bustling throng along the beach, attendants all of a single person; no pack of slaves standing around ... . Hunger is cheap; it is the palate that is expensive. Poverty is content to satisfy the immediate wants. Why, then, do you refuse to take as your companion one whose habits it is sensible for the wealthy to imitate? If you want to have time for your mind, you must either be poor or resemble the poor. Study cannot be beneficial without some time for frugality, and frugality is just voluntary poverty. So away with your excuses!"
     I live about a mile away from one of the largest temporary homeless shelters in Chicago, and the residents there are among the least carefree people I have ever seen; rather, they appear to be suffering from chronic stress (among other maladies). Thus, I cannot agree with Seneca's argument that poverty is carefree. Seneca was born into a prosperous provincial family, and by the time he sat down to write the Letters late in his life, he was probably one of the wealthiest men in the Roman Empire; he seems, therefore, to have had no personal experience with poverty. However, in Seneca's defense, it must be noted that he attributed much of his success to good fortune.
     Like Seneca, President Trump was born into prosperous family; like Seneca, Trump went on to build substantial personal wealth (although we do not know exactly how rich he is, because he will not release his income tax returns). But unlike Seneca, Trump attributes his success to "genius" -- instead of admitting that (after being given a head start in life) he has also been very lucky in business, as well as in politics.
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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 17, 2-5, pages 64-65. 

98: Fortune And Misfortune

     One of the concepts that comes up most frequently in Seneca's letters to his friend Lucilius is fortune. If one were to make a list of the letters in which the word "fortune" appears and a list of the letters in which it does not occur, I think the first list would be longer than the second. In Letter 98, for example, Seneca writes:
          "All the things that fortune favors become fruitful and pleasant only if those who possess them are also in possession of themselves and not in the power of their property. It is a mistake, Lucilius, to judge fortune responsible for anything that is good or bad for us. Fortune merely gives us the material for good and bad things -- the preliminaries for what will either turn out to be good or bad within us. For the mind is more powerful than every act of fortune: by itself the mind guides its affairs one way or the other, and is the cause of a happy or unhappy life for itself. A bad mind turns everything into bad, even things that have arrived looking excellent. A mind that is upright and sound corrects fortune's wrongs, softens its hardness and roughness with the knowledge of how to endure, receives prosperity with gratitude and moderation, and shows firmness and fortitude in face of adversity. You could be sensible, do everything with good judgment and never exceed your strength, but you will not achieve the good that is sound and beyond threat unless you are secure in dealing with what is insecure."
     In my own case, I have had a brush with misfortune recently (thankfully not a very serious brush, but a brush nonetheless). Regular readers of this blog may recall that I took early retirement last year, and that it was several months before I found another job. Eventually, I accepted a position as a contract attorney on a project that was supposed to last six months. However, after three months, myself and the other 20 or so other lawyers on the project were told -- with less than one day's warning -- that the job was ending early (we were not told why). Following Seneca's advice, I attempted to focus my mind on finding another position, and -- fortunately -- found a new project within about a week. Although this job is expected to last around a month, I hope the episode has taught me the importance of not dwelling upon what many would characterize as "bad luck" (the modern term for misfortune) but rather to be comfortable with insecurity.
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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 98, 2-3, pages 386-387.