Seneca, Moral Letters 19.2

In the second place, while those whose choice is unhampered from the start will deliberate on that other question, whether they wish to pass their lives in obscurity, in your case there is not a free choice. 

 

Your ability and energy have thrust you into the work of the world; so have the charm of your writings and the friendships you have made with famous and notable men. Renown has already taken you by storm. 

 

You may sink yourself into the depths of obscurity and utterly hide yourself; yet your earlier acts will reveal you. You cannot keep lurking in the dark; much of the old gleam will follow you wherever you fly.

 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 19

The retirement Seneca speaks of requires a change of attitude and not necessarily a change of place, an independence of mind and will as opposed to an isolation from the world. 

 

I could, in this sense, be a hermit in the middle of a big city, because it is my attachments that are at stake, the way I go about relating to my circumstances, and whether or not I put any value in being important and revered. Couldn’t it be enough just to do good, and leave the rest to be what it may? 

 

For some it might be possible to dodge these diversions and entanglements altogether, and while the go-getters will consider them to be failures for shunning the vanity of status, the prudent and the unassuming will recognize them as the real human success stories. 

 

For others, however, it will not be so easy to drop everything and retire into peaceful obscurity. Perhaps their extraordinary gifts make the attention unavoidable, or the degree of their previous involvement in public life makes it impossible to ever shed an appearance of prominence. 

 

If the latter happens to be the case, it need hardly be an obstacle, as long as the temptation toward self-glorification is consciously managed. Indeed, a decent man will not shun his place in other people’s lives, and he will consider it a responsibility and a privilege to follow through for the needs of his neighbors. He will only be wary of losing his virtues for the sake of such a prominence. 

 

The point, then, will not be so much in escaping the renown, but rather in not being ruled by the renown. 

 

Fleeing from any situation, as refreshing as it might feel for a time, never addresses the deeper difficulty, that I must make myself more resilient and flexible in facing both the painful as well as the pleasant. 

 

They say your past always comes back to haunt you, though I add a little footnote for myself, that it is my estimations of the past, my longings, fears, disappointments, or resentments, that are ultimately getting in the way. The best sort of retirement is the act of abandoning my own hang-ups. 

—Reflection written in 8/2012

IMAGE: Arnold Böcklin, The Hermit (1884)