I Read Some Seneca
I finally finished reading some works by Seneca the Younger, AKA Lucius Annaeus Seneca.
It was wonderful. Seneca is a Stoic, or someone who practices Stoicism, the school of philosophy that founded propositional logic - which is why they're known for their general, timeless wisdom. You've likely heard of Marcus Aurelius' Meditations - he was the Emperor of Rome for a time, and a practicing Stoic. Seneca lived right around the 0th year, which is cool, from 4BC - 65AD. He grew up in Rome, and, at 49 years old, tutored the Emperor Nero.
It's worth pointing out that the word stoic generally means to not show your feelings or complain, even in the face of hardship. That's not at all what I would call the core of Stoicism, but one related thing that landed hard for me was in one of his letters to a friend titled On Meeting Death Cheerfully.
He writes,
“Before I became old I tried to live well; now that I am old, I shall try to die well; but dying well means dying gladly. See to it that you never do anything unwillingly… ...He who takes orders gladly, escapes the bitterest part of slavery—doing what one does not want to do. The man who does something under orders is not unhappy; he is unhappy who does something against his will. Let us therefore set our minds in order that we may desire whatever is demanded of us by circumstances, and above all that we may reflect upon our end without sadness."
Sometimes we do things that we are bid to do, bound to do, asked to do as part of our "job", or as a means to an an end, and sometimes those things might misalign with what we really want to be doing, but we must. We choose our jobs, to the degree that we choose anything, but in that we choose to relinquish control to the powers within that thing, we've agreed to take orders to some degree. Often, we are bound to take orders just by being born. The government, our family - you know the saying about death and taxes.
"See to it that you never do anything unwillingly" means that if you've decided to do something, do it without regret, without pain or guilt or shame or the resistance of your own self. Do it without suffering it. And if you really don't want to do something - because it's immoral or some other worthy reason - then don't do it, and know where that line is.
This idea is expressed in Buddhism, as well - our suffering is multiplied by our resistance to it. We have the thing that must be done, which might suck, but the more resistant to it we are, the more we suffer it.
One of the most powerful things you can learn is that all of your suffering is internal. Your fear, your guilt, your shame, that part of you that's constantly saying that something's not good enough, that more is required - it's just YOU, telling YOU things that are taking away from your joy. Objective reality stays the same while you are telling yourself those things, suffering them. You can have the same reality, while understanding that everything is okay. The story you're telling yourself is framing everything as good or bad, and you dictate that story entirely. Even physical pain is internal. It's not to be ignored, but that suffering, too, is multiplied by your resistance to it. It's just a signal. You being upset that it's there is more self-inflicted suffering.
Seneca says,
"Let me share with you the saying which pleased me today. It, too, is culled from another man’s Garden: 'Poverty brought into conformity with the law of nature, is great wealth.' Do you know what limits that law of nature ordains for us? Merely to avert hunger, thirst, and cold. In order to banish hunger and thirst, it is not necessary for you to pay court at the doors of the purse-proud, or to submit to the stern frown, or to the kindness that humiliates; nor is it necessary for you to scour the seas, or go campaigning; nature’s needs are easily provided and ready to hand. It is the superfluous things for which men sweat,—the superfluous things that wear our togas threadbare, that force us to grow old in camp, that dash us upon foreign shores. That which is enough is ready to our hands. He who has made a fair compact with poverty is rich."
He's saying you already have everything you need, and the universe has already supplied it. Don't forget that everything else you're suffering for is superfluous, unnecessary, extra.
Our selves are roles, the preferences of those selves are there to try to shape the world in a way that our future selves and our children might enjoy, but whether or not that's at the expense of our current experience is totally up to us. Farewell!