Seneca, Moral Letters 19.6

"But," you say, "how can I take my leave?" 

 

Any way you please. 

 

Reflect how many hazards you have ventured for the sake of money, and how much toil you have undertaken for a title! You must dare something to gain leisure, also—or else grow old amid the worries of procuratorships abroad and subsequently of civil duties at home, living in turmoil and in ever fresh floods of responsibilities, which no man has ever succeeded in avoiding by unobtrusiveness or by seclusion of life. 

 

For what bearing on the case has your personal desire for a secluded life? Your position in the world desires the opposite! What if, even now, you allow that position to grow greater? But all that is added to your successes will be added to your fears.

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 19

 

But won’t it be terribly difficult to disengage from all those layers of involvement? If I have commitments, I am bound by duty to gladly fulfill them, but let me be certain I am not confusing a commitment with an attachment. Where I prefer the limelight, I can just as easily choose not to prefer it. Where I have become accustomed to fineries, I can decide to redirect my tastes, to return to something purer and simpler. 

 

For all the obstacles that can stand in the way of the body, there is nothing to hinder the mind and the will except their own movements. As that timeless line from Lawrence of Arabia, one of my favorite films, has it: “Aqaba is over there. It’s only a matter of going.” 

 

If I dedicate myself to understanding with fullness, the right way to live will also present itself to me as the most desirable way to live, and so I will not hesitate to pass over any number of lesser prizes in order to win the greatest. My motivation only wanes when I think I see something more enticing over there, and then I allow myself to be diverted from the task. 

 

If I bother to reflect with honesty and clarity, I discover that those shiny trinkets are never as satisfying as they at first appear, much like the toys children crave for months and months, only to find them a letdown when they are finally out of the package. There is the frantic rushing about in coveting them, the edgy nervousness in keeping a hold of them, and the baffled confusion when they don’t live up to the exaggerated expectations. 

 

If it’s so good, why am I still restless? If it’s so fulfilling, why do I continue to want more? There is no profound mystery to this, just an awareness that human nature can never be perfected by piling up things that have no direct bearing on the content of character. It should not surprise me that the more I mess about with trivialities, the more meaningless and frustrating my life becomes. 

 

It hardly makes sense to deliberately suffer further grief by taking on ever more petty titles and pointless burdens. The worries will diminish where the focus remains on managing what is properly my own. 

—Reflection written in 8/2012

IMAGE: Carl Spitzweg, The Hermit in front of His Retreat (1844)