Seneca, On Peace of Mind 3.9

“But if we give up all society, turn our backs upon the whole human race, and live communing with ourselves alone, this solitude without any interesting occupation will lead to a want of something to do: we shall begin to build up and to pull down, to dam out the sea, to cause waters to flow through natural obstacles, and generally to make a bad disposal of the time which Nature has given us to spend.

“Some of us use it grudgingly, others wastefully; some of us spend it so that we can show a profit and loss account, others so that they have no assets remaining, than which nothing can be more shameful. Often a man who is very old in years has nothing beyond his age by which he can prove that he has lived a long time."

It should never be a question of being “in” society or “out” of society; this is the excuse of the one in despair, the one who sees only the extremes instead of the mean, a state in which I have often found myself. That mean doesn’t come from nervously balancing my fiery instincts, but rather comes from having the proper aim.

There are times to engage, and there are times to retire. Through it all, philosophy, as a sense of the true and the false, of the right and the wrong, will be my only guide. Through it all, whatever the circumstances may be, I can know why I am here.

What will happen if I only run away from all of it, from the fact that it sometimes hurts, that it sometimes hurts mightily? It isn’t just that I will feel bored by my isolation, as that is a function of my passions. No, what will strike at my being is that I am no longer a creature of action.

I was made to act, and I was made to act in cooperation with my neighbors, who are simply other expressions of the very same nature I possess. They may be right next to me, or they may be a thousand miles away, but I was made for them, and they were made for me.

If I fail to act at all, I fail to be human at all. Life is itself a principle of action, and the life of a man is a principle of action through judgment. I will always be driven to do something, and the trick is in learning what it is that I should do.

I if deprive myself of right action, I will find myself seeking out other things to do, simply for the sake of doing them, only to give myself a sense of purpose, however misguided it may be. I will occupy myself with busywork, not with meaningful work. Here we have the misery of those who slave at their work, but have no idea why they do what they do.

Here we have the lives that are wasted away, constantly occupied, while still achieving nothing at all. People will look to the supposed results on the outside, forgetting that the true rewards are on the inside. They tear this down, and then they build something else in its place, and then what they have built is torn down in turn. It doesn’t seem to end.

Back during my last days living in Boston, the whole city was in turmoil because of what they called the “Big Dig”. I can no longer even remember all the gory details, but it involved rebuilding all the major highways, and bridges, and tunnels that were supposed to keep traffic flowing in the city.

So for many years the traffic got far worse, since thousands of people were busy spending billions of dollars working to make it all better, tearing up everything that was already there.

By the time they were done, it was all obsolete, and it would now take thousands more people, and billions more dollars, to update it again. That, my friends, is the very definition of busywork.

Now imagine if we had spent all that time, and money, and effort in learning to care for one another, instead of yelling at one another while stuck in traffic.

Yes, many politicians, corporations, contractors, and lawyers made it big from the Big Dig. They used their time, as so many fools do, to spend, and to waste, and to borrow when they are broke, and to spend and waste again. When they die, they are thought successful, because of how much they spent, wasted, and borrowed.

I must never confuse doing anything at all with doing something well. If I deprive myself of moral merit, I deprive myself of my own worth.

Written in 6/2011