Seneca, Moral Letters 30.5

But it is superfluous at the present time to plead Nature's cause; for she wishes our laws to be identical with her own; she but resolves that which she has compounded, and compounds again that which she has resolved.

 

Moreover, if it falls to the lot of any man to be set gently adrift by old age—not suddenly torn from life, but withdrawn bit by bit—oh, verily he should thank the gods, one and all, because, after he has had his fill, he is removed to a rest which is ordained for mankind, a rest that is welcome to the weary. 

 

You may observe certain men who crave death even more earnestly than others are wont to beg for life. And I do not know which men give us greater courage—those who call for death, or those who meet it cheerfully and tranquilly—for the first attitude is sometimes inspired by madness and sudden anger, the second is the calm which results from fixed judgment. 

 

Before now men have gone to meet death in a fit of rage; but when death comes to meet him, no one welcomes it cheerfully, except the man who has long since composed himself for death. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 30  

 

I’m going about it the wrong way if I think of Nature as trying to impose herself on me, somehow forcing me to become something I’m not. Who I am is already interwoven with the order of Nature, and it only remains for me to understand how I am called to freely flow with her, not against her. 

 

I sympathize with an Existentialist when he wonders why he has no given essence, and I can only offer that his wondering is itself an instance of that essence; the Stoic does not isolate the subject from the object. 

 

From a Stoic perspective, death, like any other facet of life, need not a be a source of anxiety, dread, or despair. If it has come to pass, it urges cooperation over conflict: how will I fulfill the good which Providence intended from the beginning?

 

Note how some people cling desperately to survival, as if everything hinged upon a continued existence, while others are eager to be destroyed, distressed by the pressure of pain and loss. I have known both, so I can hardly condemn. My own error has been in confusing quantity with quality, the dignity of my actions with the lay of the land. 

 

Is the fellow who charges headlong into battle really as brave as he believes himself to be, or is he possibly, however pure of will, finding a way around his deeper responsibility to both himself and to others? I know how often my conscience has lagged behind my passions, and so I end up doing more rationalizing than reasoning. 

 

Whenever I have been scared of dying, I permitted a frantic instinct to overrule my careful judgment. Whenever I have been tired of living, I allowed the burden of heartache to blind my awareness. This only sounds ridiculous to someone who has not yet pondered the Stoic Turn, that deeply counter-cultural reversal of priorities from the passive to the active. 

 

It would be a shame if I died from anger, or if I lived out of craving. It should be a treasure for me to exist, for the time I am given to exist, with peace of mind. 

—Reflection written in 11/2012 

IMAGE: Elihu Vedder, Prayer for Death in the Desert (c. 1867)