Wait for me but a moment, and I will pay you from my own account; meanwhile, Epicurus will oblige me with these words: "Think on death," or rather, if you prefer the phrase, on "migration to heaven."
The meaning is clear—that it is a wonderful thing to learn thoroughly how to die. You may deem it superfluous to learn a text that can be used only once; but that is just the reason why we ought to think on a thing. When we can never prove whether we really know a thing, we must always be learning it.
"Think on death." In saying this, he bids us think on freedom. He who has learned to die has unlearned slavery; he is above any external power, or, at any rate, he is beyond it. What terrors have prisons and bonds and bars for him? His way out is clear.
There is only one chain which binds us to life, and that is the love of life. The chain may not be cast off, but it may be rubbed away, so that, when necessity shall demand, nothing may retard or hinder us from being ready to do at once that which at some time we are bound to do. Farewell.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 26
In my usual contrary way, I always preferred John Drake from Danger Man to any of the James Bond stories, though there are still moments from the Bond films that have made an impression on me. One of these was the theme song from Timothy Dalton’s first appearance in 1987’s The Living Daylights, performed by the Norwegian synth-pop band A-ha, who were quite popular at the time.
As with most Bond songs, the lyrics were sufficiently cryptic to have them mean whatever you liked, but there was one line that has remained stuck in my head now for over twenty years:
Set your hopes up way too high
The living's in the way we die
Quite unintentionally, so many of my philosophical musings have returned right back to that point. For all the magnificent goals of fame and fortune, what will any of it matter when I can’t come to terms with the fact that it must all go away? Where I fail to be happy with the way I die, I fail to be happy with the way I live.
What a clever question: if I only have to die once, but I have to live every day, why bother preparing for my departure?
What a thoughtful reply: the value of the whole can only be put to the test as it arrives at its completion, and that will only happen once. It is best to practice daily, since there will be no do-overs; all the training is for the sake of a single mission.
My happiness is my own when I possess myself, and I possess myself when my thoughts and deeds are not subject to any circumstances beyond my control. I must be wary, therefore, of being ruled by my cravings for pleasure or popularity, and most of all I must master my fear of death. Where I do not determine myself by the presence or absence of things, I do not allow myself to be alarmed by the possibility of their loss.
Mere survival is not the point of living—living with responsibility and integrity is the point of living. An indifference to dying is a requisite for an exercise of the virtues, because otherwise the virtues will readily submit to the lure of comfort and convenience.
True freedom comes from within, and if my mind and will are not bound to those petty anxieties about the trappings of the body or the duration of its existence, then no one else can make me a slave.
In telling us to be ready for death at any moment, the Stoics are calling us to embrace a complete liberty of the soul.
—Reflection written in 10/2012
A-ha, "The Living Daylights", 1987
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aXM4eIoPZUU
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