05i - Seneca

Lucius Annaeus Seneca was born around 4 BCE (749 AUC) in Cordova, Spain. Referred to by some as Seneca the younger, he was the son of M. Annaeus Seneca. He was a sickly child and spent his childhood in Rome being nursed by an aunt, who later helped launch his official career. He was a successful lawyer and became rather wealthy. He was greatly disliked by the emperor Caligula, exiled by Claudius, and later employed as the tutor of the young emperor Nero. When false rumors convinced Nero that Seneca was a member of a plot to assassinate him, Nero forced Seneca to commit suicide. Seneca wrote mainly three types of works. He wrote essays on Stoic philosophy and beliefs. He wrote letters or epistles to give philosophical advice to his friends. And, he wrote intense, violent plays which focused on Stoic belief that disaster results from passion destroying reason.

There is not anything in this world, perhaps, that is more talked of, and less understood, than the business of a happy life.

Wherefore, it highly concerns us to take along with us a skillful guide; for it is not in this, as in other voyages, where the highway brings us to our place of repose; or if a man should happen to be out, where the inhabitants might set him right again: but on the contrary, the beaten road is here the most dangerous, and the people, instead of helping us, misguide us. Let us not therefore follow, like beasts, but rather govern ourselves by reason, [rather] than by example.

...we must leave the crowd if we would be happy: for the question of a happy life is not to be decided by vote:...

...the common people find it easier to believe than to judge, and content themselves with what is usual, never examining whether it be good or not. By the common people I mean the man of title as well as the clouted shoe: for I do not distinguish them by the eye, but by the mind.

The true felicity of life is to be free from perturbations; to understand our duties toward God and man: to enjoy the present without any anxious dependence upon the future. Not to amuse ourselves with either hopes or fears, but to rest satisfied with what we have, which is abundantly sufficient; for he that is so, wants nothing. The great blessings of mankind are within us, and within our reach; but we shut our eyes, and, like people in the dark, we fall right over the very thing we search for without finding it. Tranquility is a certain equality of mind, which no condition of fortune can either exalt or depress. Nothing can make it less: for it is the state of human perfection: it raises us as high as we can go; and makes every man his own supporter, whereas he that is borne up by anything else may fall. He that judges aright, and perseveres in it, enjoys a perpetual calm. He takes a true prospect of things. He observes an order, a measure, a decorum in all his actions. He has a benevolence in his nature. He squares his life according to reason, and draws to himself love and admiration.

It must be a sound mind that makes a happy man; there must be a constancy in all conditions, a care for the things of this world, but without trouble; and such an indifference for the bounties of fortune, that either with them, or without them, we may live contently. There must be neither lamentation, nor quarreling, nor sloth, nor fear; for it makes discord in a man's life. "He that fears, serves." The joy of a wise man stands firm without interruption; in all places, at all times, and in all conditions. His thoughts are cheerful and quiet. As it never came in to him from without, so it will never leave him; but it is born within him, and inseparable from him.

I do not speak this either as a bar to the fair employment of lawful pleasures, or to the gentle flatteries of reasonable expectations. But, on the contrary, I would have men to be always in good humor, provided that it arises from their own souls, and be cherished in their own breasts. Other delights are trivial. They may smooth the brow, but they do not fill and affect the heart. "True joy is a serene and sober motion." And they are miserably out that take laughing for rejoicing. The seat of it is within, and there is no cheerfulness like the resolution of a great mind, that has fortune inder his feet. He that can look death in the face, and bid it welcome, open his door to poverty, and bridle his appetites, this is a man whom Providence has established in the possession of inviolable delights. The pleasures of the vulgar are ungrounded, thin, and superficial. The others are solid and eternal.