“What?” you say, “shall it come to me without any little offering?”
Be not afraid; it brings something—no, more than something, a great deal. For what is more noble than the following saying of which I make this letter the bearer:
“It is wrong to live under constraint; but no man is constrained to live under constraint.”
Of course not. On all sides lie many short and simple paths to freedom; and let us thank God that no man can be kept in life. We may spurn the very constraints that hold us.
“Epicurus,” you reply, “uttered these words; what are you doing with another's property?”
Any truth, I maintain, is my own property. And I shall continue to heap quotations from Epicurus upon you, so that all persons who swear by the words of another, and put a value upon the speaker and not upon the thing spoken, may understand that the best ideas are common property. Farewell.
We don’t have the letters Lucilius wrote back to Seneca, so I can only speculate if the young man expressed his frustration with these constant references to Epicurus. Regardless, Seneca continues to drive home that truth matters more than tribalism. It is an important lesson, in any time or place, and it warrants regular reminders.
The habit of ending the letter with a short quote fondly reminds me of my father leaving little sheets from a German calendar on my desk every morning, which included a helpful literary reference for the day. For many years, I would then do something similar by regularly writing out a passage on the dry erase board outside my office. Such little practices can be surprisingly inspirational.
A central tenet of Stoicism is that, though I might feel like the world is always closing in on me, it remains within my power to be free. I must first understand that while it is impossible for me to rule the world, it is always possible for me to rule myself; the circumstances of my body, my possessions, or my standing with others will come and go, even as my thoughts are my own.
That may seem like very little at first, until I realize that the way anything is present to me will be interpreted through those very judgments, and I will decide how I shall make use of it. Whatever comes my way, I have the opportunity to do the right thing, and that can, if I stand firm, make my conscience inviolable.
Have I grown tired of people pushing me around and threatening me with force? Let me remember the limits of what is actually under their command. They can chain the body, but they can’t chain the soul.
Now I might think that this only works with the little things, and not with the big things. Maybe I can put up with my bosses cheating me, or the government taking my money, or getting shunned at the Church social, but what can I do if I face the prospect of overwhelming suffering?
If it truly is overwhelming, then it will surely have to destroy me. Yet even the threat of death itself now becomes another chance to be fully myself, to face my end with peace of mind. The Stoic Turn always puts the ball back in my court.
Another may choose to do me wrong, to the point of killing me, but he can never make me choose to do any wrong. While I still live, I can always live well, where there is never any constraint on my happiness.
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