Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.39

M. Away, then, with those follies, which are little better than the old women’s dreams, such as that it is miserable to die before our time. What time do you mean? That of nature? But she has only lent you life, as she might lend you money, without fixing any certain time for its repayment. 

 

Have you any grounds of complaint, then, that she recalls it at her pleasure? For you received it on these terms. They that complain thus allow that if a young child dies, the survivors ought to bear his loss with equanimity; that if an infant in the cradle dies, they ought not even to utter a complaint; and yet nature has been more severe with them in demanding back what she gave. 

 

They answer by saying that such have not tasted the sweets of life; while the other had begun to conceive hopes of great happiness, and, indeed, had begun to realize them. 

 

Men judge better in other things, and allow a part to be preferable to none. Why do they not admit the same estimate in life? Though Callimachus does not speak amiss in saying that more tears had flowed from Priam than his son; yet they are thought happier who die after they have reached old age. 

 

It would be hard to say why; for I do not apprehend that anyone, if a longer life were granted to him, would find it happier. There is nothing more agreeable to a man than prudence, which old age most certainly bestows on a man, though it may strip him of everything else. But what age is long, or what is there at all long to a man? Does not

 

“Old age, though unregarded, still attend

On childhood’s pastimes, as the cares of men?”

 

But because there is nothing beyond old age, we call that long: all these things are said to be long or short, according to the proportion of time they were given us for. 

 

Aristotle says there is a kind of insect near the river Hypanis, which runs from a certain part of Europe into the Pontus, whose life consists but of one day; those that die at the eighth hour die in full age; those who die when the sun sets are very old, especially when the days are at the longest. Compare our longest life with eternity, and we shall be found almost as short-lived as those little animals. 

—from Cicero, Tusculan Disputations 1.39

 

The anxiety that comes from wanting to live longer, like all of life’s troubles, is only resolved by working in harmony with human nature. The varieties of politics, economics, or psychology I encounter will always take for granted certain philosophical points of view, and it is my responsibility to be certain that these principles are sound for me. 

 

Mock philosophy as much as you wish, but understand that there can never be meaningful action without a solid grasp of ultimate purpose. 

 

If living longer is my priority, I am failing to discern that more is not always better, and that Nature has clearly marked us with an expiration date. I will trust that she has done so for a perfectly good reason, instead of insisting on my own thoughtless demands. 

 

The Stoics knows how life, and all its circumstances, are merely borrowed, and we can be called to return them at any moment. Keeping this in mind, I will not be disappointed or caught unawares. 

 

To live is then not a right, but a privilege; no one owes me an existence, even as I have an obligation to make the most of what is given, whatever the context or the duration. 

 

Now it is easy to say this to others, and far more difficult to embrace it for myself, so the proof will be in my practice, not in my preaching. When I can manage it, I find that a stubborn sense of entitlement gives way to a peaceful sense of gratitude; the glass is now half full, no longer half empty. 

 

Nevertheless, I can grow angry about how unfair it seems, how cruel it feels that an innocent child should die before he has a chance to most fully be himself, while a selfish and bitter man outlives us all. 

 

I temper that passion, and I redirect its force: there is no room for resentment to begin with, so transform it into pity for the old miser, not for the child, and transform it into admiration for the child, not for the old miser. One did more with less, the other did less with more. A year of awareness with innocence is greater than a century of brooding with malice. 

 

Youth and old age, however far apart they may appear, are merely blips in the bigger picture. We are not all given the same conditions, though we are all given the same opportunities to experience and act as best we can, given those conditions. There are so many cases when dying young can become a blessing, and so many cases when dying old can become a curse. 

 

The recent fashion for moral relativism is nonsense, since the relative must be relative to something constant. It will pass away, as every shallow fad must pass away. Still, a broader perspective recognizes how concepts like the long and the short, the big and the small, or the strong and the weak are flexible. The branches sway, the trunk stands firm. 

 

Do I think my life too short? Consider the mayfly, whose adult life is about a day. Mayflies do what they must do in their time, and I must do what I can in mine. More is not always better. 

—Reflection written in 5/1996