Seneca, On the Happy Life 25: A Merry Madness

"They are ill at ease," he replies, "because many things arise which distract their thoughts, and their minds are disquieted by conflicting opinions."

I admit that this is true. Still, these very men, foolish, inconsistent, and certain to feel remorse as they are, do nevertheless receive great pleasure, and we must allow that in so doing they are as far from feeling any trouble as they are from forming a right judgment, and that, as is the case with many people, they are possessed by a merry madness, and laugh while they rave.

The pleasures of wise men, on the other hand, are mild, decorous, verging on dullness, kept under restraint and scarcely noticeable, and are neither invited to come nor received with honor when they come of their own accord, nor are they welcomed with any delight by those whom they visit, who mix them up with their lives and fill up empty spaces with them, like an amusing farce in the intervals of serious business. . . .

—Seneca the Younger, On the happy life, Chapter 12 (tr Stewart)

Seneca’s adversary suggests that the pleasure seeker may be ill at ease simply because he is sometimes distracted or confused.  Seneca agrees, though he considers that the confusion is much deeper, and arises precisely because people have chosen to pursue a completely misguided end, which in turn arises from completely misguided judgment.

If I had read this passage as a much younger man, I would probably have scoffed at Seneca’s colorful distinction between those who seek pleasure and those who seek virtue. I might even have said that I would prefer to be the crazed buffoon than the uptight stick-in-the-mud, because at the very least the raving pleasure seeker might get a bit of fun out of the whole thing.

Seneca never minces his words, of course, which hardly makes him a writer who will appeal to the young and brash. With all the extreme images aside, experience has come to teach me precisely what he means.

I have now seen it all too often. Drunks sit in the bar, pretending to enjoy a happy hour, their faces devoid of any reflection or contentment. Junkies grasp violently at anything and everything as they come off of their high. Philanderers drive themselves insane in the pursuit of their prey. The captains of industry are obsessed with increasing their assets. The politicians struggle to be more liked. The proper professionals run around wildly in the hopes of improving their power and position. It happens in every walk of life, and it is indeed a form of madness. We ignore our better judgment in favor of gratification, though if we are given all the pleasures we seek, we are still ill at ease.

In contrast, the wise man, the man who pursues virtue as his end, will certainly appear to be bland, cold and unfeeling. He will certainly appear this way to the sensualist. I imagine that, seen from the outside in, this is why Stoicism is considered a philosophy without any emotion.

I must always remember, however, that the Stoic does not reject pleasure. He will receive it, he will enjoy it with calm and with moderation, but he will not make it his purpose or pursue it for its own sake. It is an addition to the value of his living, not the measure of his living. He will seem dull and boring because he is at peace with what is within himself, never frantic for acquiring what is outside of himself.

The wise man will hardly care if he is found amusing or interesting, and certainly not by the sort of people who follow a slavishness to externals. He will be happy to be himself, in the peace of his own nature, and he will immediately recognize and welcome any who are one the same path.

Happiness is not a frenzied rat race, not the struggle to gain more and more. It is the peace of living well, with however much or little Fortune may have given us. 

Written in 2/2006