Seneca, Moral Letters 25.2

But do you yourself, as indeed you are doing, show me that you are stout-hearted; lighten your baggage for the march. None of our possessions is essential. Let us return to the law of Nature; for then riches are laid up for us. 

 

The things which we actually need are free for all, or else cheap; nature craves only bread and water. No one is poor according to this standard; when a man has limited his desires within these bounds, he can challenge the happiness of Jove himself, as Epicurus says. 

 

I must insert in this letter one or two more of his sayings: "Do everything as if Epicurus were watching you." There is no real doubt that it is good for one to have appointed a guardian over oneself, and to have someone whom you may look up to, someone whom you may regard as a witness of your thoughts. 

 

It is, indeed, nobler by far to live as you would live under the eyes of some good man, always at your side; but nevertheless, I am content if you only act, in whatever you do, as you would act if anyone at all were looking on; because solitude prompts us to all kinds of evil.

 

And when you have progressed so far that you have also respect for yourself, you may send away your attendant; but until then, set as a guard over yourself the authority of some man, whether your choice be the great Cato, or Scipio, or Laelius—or any man in whose presence even abandoned wretches would check their bad impulses. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 25

 

Let me help a man to help himself, but let me firmly resist the temptation of trying to twist him into becoming my creature. If I love him, I will wish for him to find his own good, not make him subject to my beck and call. 

 

Yet if I can’t simply tell him how to live his life, what can I possibly do to light his way? 

 

I have often pondered what the trick is to being a better friend, and if there is perhaps some secret wisdom I must unravel, some profound teaching I have overlooked. 

 

And as with so many other aspects of life, I then remember how I have a knack for making things far more difficult for myself than they have to be. 

 

When I wanted to pray or to meditate, for example, I sought out all sort of mind tricks, breathing techniques, or artsy accessories to give me some advantage, and then I realized I just needed to want it enough to go ahead and do it. 

 

So it is with being a friend. There are no arcane mysteries or intricate riddles. Simply put, where there is love, there is only an offering from myself, and that love is incomplete whenever I have attached conditions centered around my own selfish gratification. The profit is itself the act of investment, the gain lies in the giving. 

 

Now what precisely can I offer? Are there certain things I must provide? No, the things are entirely peripheral, acquiring benefit or harm through the spirit in which they are presented. The true prize is in the grant of a human essence. 

 

This isn’t fluffy poetry—it insists upon a critical and precise self-awareness, where I come to understand why all I have is all that I am, and all that all I am is embodied in the totality of my thoughts, words, and deeds. When I go straight to the center of it, I grasp how my worth derives from what is within my power, and, as any good Stoic knows, only my character is ultimately within my power. 

 

Again, what can I offer to a friend? There is that moment of sudden insight, where I see that the best I can do for him is to be the best person that I can be, how only by improving my own virtues do I have any chance of enriching his life. Change the estimation of where the rewards lie, and I change the measure of what it means to love. 

 

I need to be a good man first, and thereby I can start to assist another in being a good man. Where the good is in the qualities of the soul, that is the way to pass on blessings. Don’t dictate, don’t bully, don’t point fingers from the pulpit: if I think it the best way to live, I must prove it by a precedent. 

 

I admit I can be a bit slow sometimes, and so I puzzled for a while over why this letter shifted from the problem of reforming another to the problem of reforming oneself, until it dawned on me why it is the very answer to the question. Once Lucilius masters himself, he is best prepared to become a teacher. 

 

In this context, Seneca submit a succinct account of a Stoic self-reliance, for it is through such a proficiency that anyone can improve the whole world by means of improving himself. 

 

Become strong not by demanding more, but rather by finding peace with less. As much as popular culture tells us otherwise, property and prestige are merely accidents of happiness, not its cause. Modify the desire by conscious choice, and the slavery to circumstances gives way to liberation. 

 

That sounds quite difficult, and so Providence had the foresight to give us the guidance of our betters. Sometimes I believe I can “get away” with a sin, only to find that the thought of being perceived by a role model makes me hang my head in shame. It isn’t the ideal solution, but it’s a start. Contrary to what the libertines might claim, there is a proper place for a sense of shame. 

 

Lately, I find too many of my mentors to be too far away, or to have departed this world, and then it can suffice to imagine as if they were here. Left to myself, with no one to watch over me, I am inclined to get myself into mischief. As man is a rational animal, man must also be a social animal. 

 

Will there come a time when I no longer require such support? Hope springs eternal, but until then I reach out for guidance. It is a good thing for us to lean on one another. 

 

The heroes I find most inspiring are not presidents or rock stars, but simple people who find joy in the plainest of occupations. As much as I admire Cato, a Roman senator, I feel closer to Franz Jägerstätter, an Austrian peasant. When I picture him standing next to me, I seem quite incapable of acting like a spoiled brat. 

 

A reformed life is a simple life. Discard the clutter. Excise the vanities. 

—Reflection written in 10/2012 

IMAGE: Jean-Francois Millet, The Walk to Work (1857)