Seneca, On Peace of Mind 14.7

Do you think that Canius played upon that draught-board? No, he played with it. His friends were sad at being about to lose so great a man.

"Why," asked he, "are you sorrowful? You are enquiring whether our souls are immortal, but I shall presently know."

Nor did he, up to the very end cease his search after truth, and raised arguments upon the subject of his own death. His own teacher of philosophy accompanied him, and they were not far from the hill on which the daily sacrifice to Caesar our god was offered, when he said, "What are you thinking of now, Canius? Or what are your ideas?"

"I have decided," answered Canius, "at that most swiftly-passing moment of all to watch whether the spirit will be conscious of the act of leaving the body."

What is the difference between playing with the board or playing on the board? There’s the rub!

Some people make the game all of who they are, defining themselves by their wins and losses. When they win, they shout it out from the mountaintops; when they lose, they say it was all a part of a clever restructuring plan.

Others will play, and they care nothing for the actual outcome of the game; they care if they played it well. Their satisfaction is in what we used to call sportsmanship, a crusty old value, concerned with the building of character.

Like Socrates, Canius had his many friends, who were devastated by the prospect of losing him. I don’t know what that feels like, as I have rarely had any true friends beyond my own family. I have my parents, and I have my wife, and I have my young children. They are the circle of my world. They are the only people who would ever notice if I was gone.

Well, let me work with that. If they asked me about dying, what would I say? Exactly what Canius said, with exactly the same sense of dry humor.

“Will there be anything left of me? I have no idea! It will be fascinating, however, to find out how all of that works out!”

I was raised as a Catholic, and I will certainly die as a Catholic. I know that there is a God, and I know that He loves me. I know that I am made for something, and I do my best to follow that calling. My love of Stoicism is not in contradiction to my love of God, but rather a complement to it.

Now what will happen to me when I die? I used to think in terms of a paradise for me, and a hell for my enemies. Then I started growing up.

I will not fight with the theologians, and I will not bicker with those who claim to know the will of the Almighty. I will judge no one, and I will never condemn anyone to the fires of Gehenna.

I will do one thing, and one thing only: I will do my best to live with virtue, and I will open myself to any grace that is sent my way.

What will God do with me when I die? I honestly don’t know, and it really isn’t my business. It’s His business.

Perhaps He will erase me completely, though my faith tells me that I am immortal. But how will I be immortal? There are many ways I might continue in this Universe, and most of them are not at all what I might expect. God’s ways are bigger than my ways.

Perhaps He will send me to Heaven or to Hell. I actually don’t know what that means anymore, at least not in the way that the simplistic ideologues mean it.

I do grasp that the greatest happiness would be to know and to love the greatest good, and so Heaven would be knowing and loving God, the presence of all Being. By extension, Hell would be the lack of God, the absence of all Being.

And none of that is within my power. Let God express His power. He is not merely above all things; He is the very measure of all things. He is Being, and I am a being. He is perfect existence, and perfect awareness, and perfect love. I am a creature who is nothing without my Creator.

Sorry, most Modern Stoics, the trendy secularists, hate talk like that. They like the power over self part, but not how the power over self is a part of a greater Providence. That’s not Stoicism as a whole, as I understand it, but they have their own paths.

I love what Canius says here. I will die, and I will treat it all like any other experience. I will soon find out how it works. Will I still have a conscious spirit after the body dies? I can’t say. It will be fun to learn about that one last thing!

And seriously, should I live my life any differently, whether or not there is an afterlife? A good life is a good life. If all you want is some reward after the fact, then it wasn’t really a good life, was it?

Are you playing now to get your booty later? We used to have a name for you, but good manners tell me to not throw stones. Be who you must be. I will be who I must be. God will sort us out.

Written in 12/2011