Seneca, Moral Letters 12.1

Letter 12: On old age

 

Wherever I turn, I see evidences of my advancing years. I visited lately my country place, and protested against the money which was spent on the tumble-down building. My bailiff maintained that the flaws were not due to his own carelessness; “he was doing everything possible, but the house was old.” And this was the house which grew under my own hands! 

 

What has the future in store for me, if stones of my own age are already crumbling?

 

I was angry, and I embraced the first opportunity to vent my spleen in the bailiff's presence. 

 

“It is clear,” I cried, “that these plane-trees are neglected; they have no leaves. Their branches are so gnarled and shriveled; the boles are so rough and unkempt! This would not happen, if someone loosened the earth at their feet, and watered them.” 

 

The bailiff swore by my protecting deity that “he was doing everything possible, and never relaxed his efforts, but those trees were old.” 

 

Between you and me, I had planted those trees myself, I had seen them in their first leaf.

 

Then I turned to the door and asked: “Who is that broken-down dotard? You have done well to place him at the entrance; for he is outward bound. Where did you get him? What pleasure did it give you to take up for burial some other man's dead?” 

 

But the slave said: “Don't you know me, sir? I am Felicio; you used to bring me little images. My father was Philositus the steward, and I am your pet slave.”

 

“The man is clean crazy,” I remarked. “Has my pet slave become a little boy again? But it is quite possible; his teeth are just dropping out.” 

 

I am now only in what they call middle age, and yet I can’t help but relate to many of the observations Seneca makes about his old age. I suspect that some of this has to do with my overly sensitive disposition, which makes me feel things a hundred times more powerfully than I need to, and my vivid sense of memory, which makes me subject to overwhelming bouts of nostalgia. 

 

Combine this with the melancholic nipping, and sometimes mauling, from the Black Dog, and I can find myself with a volatile combination, the perfect storm. 

 

Though I can offer no reasonable explanation for it, I have long had the nagging sense that my life would be short. Maybe there is something to it, or more likely it is just the result of my romantic musings, but it has always left me with a distinct awareness that things can wind down before I know it, and so I have an urgent need to live well now, before it is too late. 

 

While it may be the consequence of a tangled psychological mess, I can nevertheless make some good use of it, by appreciating each day for its own sake, and not relying on any expectation of what may still come. 

 

I notice that we often laugh the most about the things that burden us the most, and so it is perhaps no accident that Seneca chooses to joke about how he is growing long in the tooth. Many readers will smile along with him, even if the young Lucilius might wonder what all the fuss is about. 

 

The list of grievances is timeless: Why is this falling apart? What do you mean, it’s old? I just bought it the other day! You’re telling me it can’t be fixed? Why, in my day, we would have fixed it without any problems. Who are you, again? Don’t be silly, you look nothing like him. 

 

It only seems ridiculous until it starts happening, and it starts happening far sooner than we think. I found it enlightening that when I started teaching, in my early twenties, students only a few years younger already thought of me as a pitiable dinosaur, and I, in turn, was already completely out of touch with their popular culture. 

 

The context of age allows us to realize that time is fleeting, and that what we take as permanent is always passing. 

 

This is, of course, precisely as it should be, though it may not seem so on the spot. There can be a moment of panic, that everything is crumbling, and yet that is precisely the opportunity to find joy in what truly matters in this life. Aging, and dying, are inevitable, so it is necessary to find peace in acceptance or to be consumed by resentment. 

 

Each instance can be a complete expression of happiness, in good thoughts, good feelings, and good actions. There is no need to restore what is gone, and no need to rely on what is yet to come. 

 

Teeth grow in when we are babies, and they are likely to fall out once the warranty has expired. We end up in much the same place we started, from dust to dust, and what we do with the tiny span of time in between is the measure of excellence. My mortality isn’t within my power, but my character most certainly is. 

Written in 6/2012