Seneca, Moral Letters 6.3

You cannot conceive what distinct progress I notice that each day brings to me. And when you say: "Give me also a share in these gifts which you have found so helpful," I reply that I am anxious to heap all these privileges upon you, and that I am glad to learn in order that I may teach. 
 
Nothing will ever please me, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must retain the knowledge of it to myself. And if wisdom were given me under the express condition that it must be kept hidden and not uttered, I should refuse it. No good thing is pleasant to possess, without friends to share it.
 
I knew I was running with the wrong crowd when someone once told me, in all seriousness, that the virtue of Stoicism was that she didn’t have to give a crap about anyone else. Needless to say, my suggestion that this sounded more like the vice of selfishness did not go over too well. 
 
I would respectfully argue that the self-reliance of Stoicism can only really make sense within the larger context of a Nature ordered by Providence, where I must always remain acutely aware that all things are made to work together, and quite meaningless on their own, as parts of a greater Unity. My responsibility for myself exists as a service to the whole. 
 
In daily practice, this should reveal itself in how I treat my neighbors and my friends; we all share a common rational nature, and so we are joined to the same purpose, even when it may seem that we are at odds with one another. 
 
In mastering my own good, I am now also called to ask myself how I can pass that good on to others. There never need be any tension between “me” and “you”, “us” and “them”, because we are all one. The illusion of division must fall away, something like what is taught by the Chandogya Upanishad: “Thou art that.”
 
There can be no wisdom and virtue in a man who does not also share his wisdom and virtue. If I happen to possess money, or good food and drink, or comfortable shelter, there will be little joy in having any of it if I cannot give of it freely. How much more important it is, then, that I spread the wealth when it comes to the far more precious commodities of understanding and love. 
 
We hopefully all know that wonderful excitement of having learned something new, and then being so eager to explain it to someone else. I must always remind myself to listen attentively when my children ramble on about a new book or toy, since this is their way of offering me a bit of themselves. 
 
The true and the good are surely meant to be shared, not locked away. If a friend is truly a second self, then whatever is mine must also be his, and that starts with the gift of my dearest thoughts. 

Written in 3/2012