Reflections

Primary Sources

Thursday, December 8, 2022

Seneca, Moral Letters 38.2


Words should be scattered like seed; no matter how small the seed may be, if it has once found favorable ground, it unfolds its strength and from an insignificant thing spreads to its greatest growth. 
 
Reason grows in the same way; it is not large to the outward view, but increases as it does its work. Few words are spoken; but if the mind has truly caught them, they come into their strength and spring up. 
 
Yes, precepts and seeds have the same quality; they produce much, and yet they are slight things. Only, as I said, let a favorable mind receive and assimilate them. Then of itself the mind also will produce bounteously in its turn, giving back more than it has received. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 38 
 
Bigger budgets, flashier manifestos, and the multiplication of words are not going to make us any wiser or better. Nor should I even think that one person can “make” someone else, beyond the sense of offering him assistance in making himself. An education that seeks quantity over quality, and treats people as objects instead of as subjects, merely ends up breeding lethargy and bitterness. 
 
Whenever I open my mouth, I must learn to speak sparingly, always aware of how the little bit I propose might be received and transformed by another into something substantial, for better or for worse. Sometimes the best conversations will have long pauses, and I should feel no need to fill them with noise. The analogy of planting a seed is an old one, but it is still a good one, simply because the grandest things do indeed develop from the humblest beginnings. 
 
When I think of those who influenced my life for the better, where I latched onto the suggestions they offered and cultivated them as my own, it usually took place in the most unassuming circumstances, and the words were always scarce and precious. The big productions, where important people spoke at length about important things, have left no mark on me, yet a single sentence uttered by my uncle while we were watching birds through the window has stuck to me like glue. 
 
We seem to expect someone to hand us a finished product, when what we really need are just a few small fragments of insight, which we must then assemble for ourselves. Unless we do our own work with what we are offered, there can be no learning, only mimicry. A teacher may plant the tiny seed, but it is now my job to nurture it—if I complain about how I wasn’t given the skills to “succeed”, it is because I overlooked the suggestions on becoming my own master, and I sadly starved myself of any water and sunlight. 
 
Very often, that growth will take time, such that I won’t recognize the value of what I was granted until long after the giver has moved on. I may suddenly feel guilty for not having shown my thanks, and then I remember how the good teacher, the best sort of friend, does not demand any gratitude. The brief phrase, the gentle nudge, the kind encouragement was offered without conditions, in the hope that my eventual self-improvement could be the reward. 
 
The best of people will take heed of the most modest conversations. 

—Reflection written in 1/2013 



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