Seneca, Moral Letters 30.1

Letter 30: On conquering the conqueror 

 

I have beheld Aufidius Bassus, that noble man, shattered in health and wrestling with his years. But they already bear upon him so heavily that he cannot be raised up; old age has settled down upon him with great—yes, with its entire, weight. 

 

You know that his body was always delicate and sapless. For a long time he has kept it in hand, or, to speak more correctly, has kept it together; of a sudden it has collapsed. 

 

Just as in a ship that springs a leak, you can always stop the first or the second fissure, but when many holes begin to open and let in water, the gaping hull cannot be saved; similarly, in an old man's body, there is a certain limit up to which you can sustain and prop its weakness. But when it comes to resemble a decrepit building—when every joint begins to spread and while one is being repaired another falls apart—then it is time for a man to look about him and consider how he may get out. 

 

But the mind of our friend Bassus is active. Philosophy bestows this boon upon us; it makes us joyful in the very sight of death, strong and brave no matter in what state the body may be, cheerful and never failing though the body fail us. 

 

A great pilot can sail even when his canvas is rent; if his ship be dismantled, he can yet put in trim what remains of her hull and hold her to her course. This is what our friend Bassus is doing; and he contemplates his own end with the courage and countenance which you would regard as undue indifference in a man who so contemplated another's. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 30 

 

People sometimes ask me why the Stoics seem so concerned with death, and I can only suggest that genuine living requires coming to terms with the inevitability of dying. Our mortality itself is not the focus, but rather a means by which we can properly attend to those precious things that are truly our own. 

 

Just as Stoicism will point to the vanity of wealth, pleasure, or fame, so it squarely confronts the finality of this existence. Perhaps I am uncomfortable with such candor, though I suspect that says more about my own insecurities than any shamelessness on the part of the Stoics.

 

I become nervous about death because I fear it so deeply, as a culmination of all my anxieties about vulnerability and loss. The best remedy is to move past an obsession with the things beyond my power to finding peace through the things within my power. 

 

Not only can Fortune take all my circumstances from me, in the end she will most certainly do so, whether sooner or later. Whatever may happen, I can retain the dignity of my thoughts and my will, for which any condition can become an opportunity to act with understanding and with love. 

 

I stare Death in the face as a reminder of how he may strip away everything except my virtues for the time I am given. 

 

I had only heard of Aufidius Bassus as a Roman historian, and just a few fragments of his writings have survived. It is a joy to learn something so personal about him from Seneca, to see him as a model for remaining strong in spirit as the body starts to fail. 

 

That time has not quite come for me yet, though I have closely observed it arriving for others, and I have long struggled with the emotional disintegration than accompanies the Black Dog. I know a bit of what it means to have broken parts, to feel the vitality seeping out, and to be painfully aware of how the condition is terminal. 

 

My passions are worn down now, and soon my limbs will be as well, and yet Bassus shows me why this need not be a cause for despair—he continued to cherish and appreciate every moment. It is a deliberate attitude that makes this possible, a state of mind that measures happiness by what can be done, not by what is done to me. 

 

A Stoic indifference is often confused with not caring at all, when it really involves caring in the proper context, grasping how the lesser is in service to the greater. Bassus did not believe his decaying body was a hindrance to living well, just as I do not have to believe that a melancholic state is a hindrance to living well. Where I choose to make something good of it, serenity will follow. 

 

The moral courage behind such a stand is not one of brute force, but finds its strength in flowing harmoniously with the order of Nature. I hold it together for myself by perceiving when it is right to let it go. Nothing is ever wasted if it inspires character. 

—Reflection written in 11/2012 

IMAGE: John Payne, The Mirror Which Flatters Not (frontispiece for the book by Jean Puget de la Serre), (1639)