Letter 76: On learning wisdom in old age
You have been threatening me with your enmity, if I do not keep you informed about all my daily actions. But see, now, upon what frank terms you and I live: for I shall confide even the following fact to your ears. I have been hearing the lectures of a philosopher; four days have already passed since I have been attending his school and listening to the harangue, which begins at two o’clock.
“A fine time of life for that!” you say.
Yes, fine indeed! Now what is more foolish than refusing to learn, simply because one has not been learning for a long time?
“What do you mean? Must I follow the fashion set by the fops and youngsters?”
But I am pretty well off if this is the only thing that discredits my declining years. Men of all ages are admitted to this classroom.
You retort: “Do we grow old merely in order to tag after the youngsters?”
But if I, an old man, go to the theater, and am carried to the races, and allow no duel in the arena to be fought to a finish without my presence, shall I blush to attend a philosopher’s lecture?
You should keep learning as long as you are ignorant—even to the end of your life, if there is anything in the proverb. And the proverb suits the present case as well as any: “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
For all that, there is also something which I can teach in that school. You ask, do you, what I can teach? That even an old man should keep learning.
You have been threatening me with your enmity, if I do not keep you informed about all my daily actions. But see, now, upon what frank terms you and I live: for I shall confide even the following fact to your ears. I have been hearing the lectures of a philosopher; four days have already passed since I have been attending his school and listening to the harangue, which begins at two o’clock.
“A fine time of life for that!” you say.
Yes, fine indeed! Now what is more foolish than refusing to learn, simply because one has not been learning for a long time?
“What do you mean? Must I follow the fashion set by the fops and youngsters?”
But I am pretty well off if this is the only thing that discredits my declining years. Men of all ages are admitted to this classroom.
You retort: “Do we grow old merely in order to tag after the youngsters?”
But if I, an old man, go to the theater, and am carried to the races, and allow no duel in the arena to be fought to a finish without my presence, shall I blush to attend a philosopher’s lecture?
You should keep learning as long as you are ignorant—even to the end of your life, if there is anything in the proverb. And the proverb suits the present case as well as any: “As long as you live, keep learning how to live.”
For all that, there is also something which I can teach in that school. You ask, do you, what I can teach? That even an old man should keep learning.
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 76
I recall that point in the 1990’s when the university executives realized there was a quick buck to be made in “continuing education”, by convincing working adults to pay their hard-earned money for questionable programs, with the specious promise of ever-greater worldly success. It was pure marketing genius, because now the grown-ups were being told that learning wasn’t just for the kids anymore.
It never had been, of course, unless you were tricked into treating a school as a sort of training program for a job, a tedious process where you escaped from the prison of the classroom into the prison of the office or the factory floor. Though I say it for a very different reason than the suits, the fact remains that learning is indeed a lifelong endeavor.
Much will depend upon what we consider to be worth learning. If the goal is only to produce an obedient laborer, who operates the machines and fills out the paperwork, then a few years is more than sufficient. If, however, man was made for a more noble purpose, then his formation is an ongoing process, which continue as long as he can increase in wisdom and in virtue.
I find it admirable when an older fellow seeks out a new trade, but I find it most impressive when a fellow of any age is willing to admit his own ignorance. Similarly, it is quite useful to master the three R’s for getting ahead in life, but it is absolutely necessary to master our own souls for living the best life. This demands the practice of philosophy, understood as a daily commitment to the true and the good, not merely as a haughty career.
What could be more important than a guiding measure of right and wrong? Should I not be improving my conscience above all else? It is only through such a standard that any other condition or circumstance becomes beneficial or harmful, and I have yet to meet anyone who has no more work to do in perfecting the powers of understanding and of love.
I am cautious around those who label themselves as experts, and I feel sadness when I see those who claim that learning is simply a chore for children. Such hasty assumptions come from confusing skill with wisdom, and efficiency with virtue; the man of character doesn’t have to go back to school, since he was always aware that he never left it.
While we make a start of it when we are young, the most profound insights will often not arrive until we are old.
I recall that point in the 1990’s when the university executives realized there was a quick buck to be made in “continuing education”, by convincing working adults to pay their hard-earned money for questionable programs, with the specious promise of ever-greater worldly success. It was pure marketing genius, because now the grown-ups were being told that learning wasn’t just for the kids anymore.
It never had been, of course, unless you were tricked into treating a school as a sort of training program for a job, a tedious process where you escaped from the prison of the classroom into the prison of the office or the factory floor. Though I say it for a very different reason than the suits, the fact remains that learning is indeed a lifelong endeavor.
Much will depend upon what we consider to be worth learning. If the goal is only to produce an obedient laborer, who operates the machines and fills out the paperwork, then a few years is more than sufficient. If, however, man was made for a more noble purpose, then his formation is an ongoing process, which continue as long as he can increase in wisdom and in virtue.
I find it admirable when an older fellow seeks out a new trade, but I find it most impressive when a fellow of any age is willing to admit his own ignorance. Similarly, it is quite useful to master the three R’s for getting ahead in life, but it is absolutely necessary to master our own souls for living the best life. This demands the practice of philosophy, understood as a daily commitment to the true and the good, not merely as a haughty career.
What could be more important than a guiding measure of right and wrong? Should I not be improving my conscience above all else? It is only through such a standard that any other condition or circumstance becomes beneficial or harmful, and I have yet to meet anyone who has no more work to do in perfecting the powers of understanding and of love.
I am cautious around those who label themselves as experts, and I feel sadness when I see those who claim that learning is simply a chore for children. Such hasty assumptions come from confusing skill with wisdom, and efficiency with virtue; the man of character doesn’t have to go back to school, since he was always aware that he never left it.
While we make a start of it when we are young, the most profound insights will often not arrive until we are old.
—Reflection written in 10/2013
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