Seneca on the Quality of Life

     Although my posts on Stoic philosophy are not as popular as those on lifting (or drinking beer, or good literature), I am going to continue with them nonetheless.

     For those interested in lifting weights – whether you’re a bodybuilder, powerlifter, or just casual lifter (or, hell, even for you Crossfitters) – Stoicism is the philosophy par excellence.  Lifting weights, particularly hard and heavy lifting, can teach us a lot about how to live our lives, but we have to learn to listen to what our lives have to tell us.  For some, the art of listening is a little more difficult.  This is where philosophy comes in.

     This particular piece comes from Seneca.  Seneca has long been my favorite of the Roman writers on Stoicism.  Perhaps this is because he is not just a Stoic, for he borrows on other philosophies of antiquity when they serve his purpose.

     This piece on death, and how it’s one thing to live a life, and it’s another thing to just exist, is also one of my favorite writings from Seneca.  I have edited it from Stoics.com, and I have changed some of the wording to (hopefully) make it more readable.

On the Quality, as Contrasted with the Length, of Life

     WHILE reading the letter in which you were lamenting the death of the philosopher Metronax, as if he might have, and indeed ought to have, lived longer, I missed the spirit of fairness which abounds in all your discussions concerning men and things, but is lacking when you approach one single subject, as is indeed the case with us all.  In other words, I have noticed many who deal fairly with their fellow-men, but none who deals fairly with God.  We rail every day at Fate, saying "Why has A. been carried off in the very middle of his career?  Why is not B. carried off instead?  Why should he prolong his old age, which is a burden to himself as well as to others?" But tell me, pray, do you consider it fairer that you should obey Nature, or that Nature should obey you?  And what difference does it make how soon you depart from a place which you must depart from sooner or later?  We should strive, not to live long, but to live rightly for to achieve long life you have need of Fate only, but for right living you need the soul.  A life is really long if it is a full life; but fullness is not attained until the soul has rendered to itself its proper Good, that is, until it has assumed control over itself.  What benefit does this older man derive from the eighty years he has spent in idleness?  A person like him has not lived; he has merely tarried awhile in life.  Nor has he died late in life; he has simply been a long time dying.  He has lived eighty years, has he?  That depends upon the date from which you reckon his death! Your other friend, however, departed in the bloom of his manhood.  But he had fulfilled all the duties of a good citizen, a good friend, a good son; in no respect had he fallen short.  His age may have been incomplete, but his life was complete.  The other man has lived eighty years, has he? Nay, he has existed eighty years, unless perchance you mean by "he has lived" what we mean when we say that a tree "lives."
     Pray, let us see to it, my dear Lucilius, that our lives, like jewels of great price, be noteworthy not because of their width but because of their weight.   Let us measure them by their performance, not by their duration.  Would you know wherein lies the difference between this hardy man who, despising Fortune, has served through every campaign of life and has attained to life's Supreme Good, and that other person over whose head many years have passed?  The former exists even after his death; the latter has died even before he was dead.
     We should therefore praise, and number in the company of the blessed, that man who has invested well the portion of time, however little, that has been allotted to him; for such a one has seen the true light.  He has not been one of the common herd.   He has not only lived, but flourished.  Sometimes he enjoyed fair skies; sometimes, as often happens, it was only through the clouds that there flashed to him the radiance of the mighty star." Why do you ask: "How long did he live?" He still lives!  At one bound he has passed over into posterity and has consigned himself to the guardianship of memory.  And yet I would not on that account decline for myself a few additional years; although, if my life's space be shortened, I shall not say that I have lacked aught that is essential to a happy life.  For I have not planned to live up to the very last day that my greedy hopes had promised me; nay, I have looked upon every day as if it were my last.  Why ask the date of my birth, or whether I am still enrolled on the register of the younger men?   What I have is my own.  Just as one of small stature can be a perfect man, so a life of small compass can be a perfect life.  Age ranks among the external things.   How long I am to exist is not mine to decide, but how long I shall go on existing in my present way is in my own control.  This is the only thing you have the right to require of me – that I shall cease to measure out an inglorious age as it were in darkness, and devote myself to living instead of being carried along past life.
     And what, you ask, is the fullest span of life?  It is living until you possess wisdom.  He who has attained wisdom has reached, not the furthermost, but the most important, goal.  Such a one may indeed exult boldly and give thanks to the gods - aye, and to himself also - and he may count himself Nature's creditor for having lived.  He will indeed have the right to do so, for he has paid her back a better life than he has received.  He has set up the pattern of a good man, showing the quality and the greatness of a good man.  Had another year been added, it would merely have been like the past. And yet how long are we to keep living?  We have had the joy of learning the truth about the universe.  We know from what beginnings Nature arises; how she orders the course of the heavens; by what successive changes she summons back the year; how she has brought to an end all things that ever have been, and has established Herself as the only end of her own being.   We know that the stars move by their own motion, and that nothing except the earth stands still, while all the other bodies run on with uninterrupted swiftness.   We know how the moon outstrips the sun; why it is that the slower leaves the swifter behind; in what manner she receives her light, or loses it again; what brings on the night, and what brings back the day. To that place you must go where you are to have a closer view of all these things. "And yet," says the wise man, "I do not depart more valiantly because of this hope -because I judge the path lies clear before me to my own gods. I have indeed earned admission to their presence, and in fact have already been in their company; I have sent my soul to them as they had previously sent theirs to me.  But suppose that I am utterly annihilated, and that after death nothing mortal remains; I have no less courage, even if, when I depart, my course leads - nowhere." "But," you say, "he has not lived as many years as he might have lived.  There are books which contain very few lines, admirable and useful in spite of their size; and there are also the Annals of Tanusius[1] - you know how bulky the book is, and what men say of it.  This is the case with the long life of certain persons, - a state which resembles the Annals of Tanusius!  Do you regard as more fortunate the fighter who is slain on the last day of the games than one who goes to his death in the middle of the festivities?  Do you believe that anyone is so foolishly covetous of life that he would rather have his throat cut in the dressing-room than in the amphitheatre?  It is by no longer an interval than this that we precede one another.  Death visits each and all; the slayer soon follows the slain.  It is an insignificant trifle, after all, that people discuss with so much concern.  And anyhow, what does it matter for how long a time you avoid that which you cannot escape?  Farewell.

---

[1] This is what the “Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biographies and Mythology” has to say about Tanusius: a Roman historian who seems to have lived about the time of Cicero. The exact nature of his work is uncertain, although we know that in it he spoke of the time of Sulla. (Suet. Jul. 9.) Plutarch (Plut. Caes. 22) mentions an historian whom he calls Γανύσιος, and whom Vossius (de Hist. Lat. 1.12) considers to be the same as our Tanusius. Seneca (Epist. 93) speaks of one Tamusius as the author of annals; and it is not improbable that this is merely a slight mistake in the name, for Tanusius; and if this be so, Tanusius Geminus wrote annals of his own time, which are lost with the exception of a fragment quoted by Suetonins.