26/49: Rehearsing For Death?

     Since the passing of my mother-in-law Faye, discussed in the previous post, the subject of death has been on my mind. Over the past few months, I have also watched my Aunt Judith deal with the return of her cancer in an aggressive form and with the physical pain that this is bringing her, which she has faced courageously. Last but not least, after recently falling and breaking her hip, undergoing surgery, as well as working with all manner of therapists (occupational, speech, etc.), my mother Patricia has been suffering physically -- and mentally, as advancing Parkinson's Disease increasingly impacts her brain.
     For the Stoics in general, and for Seneca in particular, death was not something to be feared. Rather, in Letter 26 to Lucilius, the older Seneca advises his younger friend to "rehearse for death" (quoting Epicurus again). In the forty-ninth letter, Seneca goes on to flesh out this thought:
          "What am I up to? Death is after me; life is on the retreat. Teach me something I can use against that! Don't let me run from death any longer; don't let life run away from me! Encourage me to face what is difficult; give me the serenity to accept what I cannot avoid. Expand the narrow confines of my remaining time. Teach me that the goodness of a life depends not on how long it is but on how it is used; and that it is possible -- in fact quite common -- for a person to have a long life that is scarcely a life at all. Say to me before I sleep, 'It's possible you will not wake up,' and when I rise, 'It's possible you will never sleep again.' Say to me when I go out, 'It's possible you will not return,' and when I return, 'It's possible you will never leave.' You are wrong if you think that it is only aboard ship that 'life is but an inch away from death.' The interval is the same wherever you go. There death is in full view, but everywhere it is just as close to us." [Emphasis added].          
     By the way, I mentioned in my post of 12/2/17 that Seneca has been acknowledged as the original essayist in Western history. However, the passage above suggests that he could also be described as the author of the Serenity Prayer's first draft.
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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 26, 8-10, page 94; Letter 49, 9-11, pages 143-144.
     Wikipedia, 12/8/18, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Serenity_Prayer.

20: Is Life Long Or Short?

     In the twentieth letter to Lucilius, Seneca continues the campaign to encourage his friend to retire from a position as provincial governor: "For it will be to my credit if I manage to extricate you from that place where you are now floundering without hope of escape." As noted in my previous post, one of Seneca's arguments in favor of retirement is that it gives one the leisure time necessary for contemplating the important issues in life.
     Seneca's separate treatise, On The Shortness Of Life, advances another argument in favor of retirement: that time is an immaterial yet precious commodity. The essay is addressed to Pompeius Paulinus, who was the father of Seneca's wife Pompeia Paulina. Apparently, Paulinus was in charge of the Roman grain supply, a stressful job back in the day when famine was an ever-present threat and source of political instability. Seneca begins by telling Paulinus that life is actually long enough for those who devote their days to worthwhile pursuits (like philosophy). However, for those who waste their time, life is indeed short. Seneca devotes a substantial portion of the work to discussing the many activities that he believes preoccupy people, including: pursuing trade on every land and every sea; striving after the wealth of others or complaining about their own; climbing the social ladder; chasing clients (or being chased by them); consorting with prostitutes; drinking to excess; and -- my personal favorite -- speculating about "useless literary questions" (Seneca's example is inquiring into how many rowers Ulysses had aboard his ship in the Odyssey). Those who have spent their careers pursing political ambitions, Seneca notes, often say that when they reach the age of 50 or 60, they will retire and then devote themselves to the pursuit of wisdom. But Seneca observes that there is no guarantee that one will have many years of life left after retirement; the future is uncertain.
     Accordingly, near the end of the essay, Seneca advises Paulinus to retire from his high-pressure occupation sooner rather than later, so that he may spend his remaining time with the likes of Socrates, Epicurus, Zeno, and Aristotle -- "The greater part of your life, and certainly the better part, has been given to the state: take some of your time for yourself as well." Even though I am not retired, as someone who left the public sector after a twenty-nine year career, these words are especially meaningful to me.
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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 20, 1, pages 72-73. 
    Seneca, On The Shortness Of Life, translated by Gareth D. Williams, in Hardship & Happiness (University of Chicago Press, Chicago and London, 2014) Book 8, 1-4, page 118; Book 13, 1-2, pages 123-124; Book 14, 1-5, pages 125-126; Book 18, 1, page 130.

1: Seneca (Was) On Time

     As mentioned in my previous blog post, I am embarking on a series of posts on Lucius Annaeus Seneca, a Roman politician/dramatist/philosopher who lived in the first century AD/CE. Readers of this blog will recall that two of my prior posts pertained to Seneca: one on anger, based on his treatise of the same name (11/9/17); the other on insults, based on his essay On the Constancy of the Wise Person (12/2/17).

     My project has been made easier by a series of new translations of Seneca's works published by the University of Chicago Press. Included in the series is an excellent translation of Seneca's Letters on Ethics to Lucilius, by Margaret Graver and A.A. Long. Gaius Lucilius Iunior -- to whom the Letters are addressed -- was a younger friend of Seneca's who (like him) was a writer who also served in government. Although each of the 124 individual letters begins with a salutation to Lucilius, Seneca clearly intended that they reach a larger audience.

     I believe that what makes a thinker from the past relevant today (among other factors) is whether or not what he or she had to say is still applicable to modern concerns. In recent years, "Mindfulness" has become a popular topic -- just enter the word in your favorite Internet search engine -- spawning books and magazines and websites. Originally an ancient Buddhist teaching, mindfulness in its modern incarnation focuses on paying close attention to, and living in, the present moment. Along these lines, note the following from Seneca's first letter to Lucilius:
          "And so, dear Lucilius, do what your letter says you are doing: embrace every hour. If you lay hands on today, you will find you are less dependent on tomorrow. While you delay, life speeds by. Everything we have belongs to others, Lucilius; time alone is ours. Nature has put us in possession of this one thing, this fleeting, slippery thing -- and anyone who wants to can dispossess us. Such is the foolishness of mortal beings: when they borrow the smallest, cheapest items, such as can easily be replaced, they acknowledge the debt, but no one considers himself indebted for taking up our time. Yet this is the one loan that even those who are grateful cannot repay. "  

     As this passage shows, another thing that makes Seneca worth reading today -- 2,000 years after his death -- is the quality of his writing.
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References:

    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 1, 2-3, page 25; see also pages 1-3.