You know the taste of wine and cordials. It makes no difference whether a hundred or a thousand measures pass through your bladder; you are nothing but a wine strainer.
You are a connoisseur in the flavor of the oyster and of the mullet; your luxury has not left you anything untasted for the years that are to come; and yet these are the things from which you are torn away unwillingly.
What else is there which you would regret to have taken from you? Friends? But who can be a friend to you?
Country? What? Do you think enough of your country to be late to dinner?
The light of the Sun? You would extinguish it, if you could; for what have you ever done that was fit to be seen in the light?
Confess the truth; it is not because you long for the senate chamber or the forum, or even for the world of nature, that you would fain put off dying; it is because you are loth to leave the fish market, though you have exhausted its stores.
You are afraid of death; but how can you scorn it in the midst of a mushroom supper? You wish to live; well, do you know how to live? You are afraid to die. But come now: is this life of yours anything but death?
You are a connoisseur in the flavor of the oyster and of the mullet; your luxury has not left you anything untasted for the years that are to come; and yet these are the things from which you are torn away unwillingly.
What else is there which you would regret to have taken from you? Friends? But who can be a friend to you?
Country? What? Do you think enough of your country to be late to dinner?
The light of the Sun? You would extinguish it, if you could; for what have you ever done that was fit to be seen in the light?
Confess the truth; it is not because you long for the senate chamber or the forum, or even for the world of nature, that you would fain put off dying; it is because you are loth to leave the fish market, though you have exhausted its stores.
You are afraid of death; but how can you scorn it in the midst of a mushroom supper? You wish to live; well, do you know how to live? You are afraid to die. But come now: is this life of yours anything but death?
—from Seneca, Moral Letters 77
We are inclined to cling to our pleasures as a reason for making this life worth living, and yet they have an uncanny way of leaving us jaded. I have now been spinning around on this little rock for long enough to know how the craving for the perfect high will inevitably lay you low.
I affectionately describe these sorts of passages as Seneca’s “rants”, though I hardly believe he is just speaking out of rage. I also don’t imagine that his disapproval is directed at Lucilius, who, while still green behind the ears, is very much a kindred spirit. I take them rather as stern warnings, somber reminders of what any one of us can all too easily become.
On one level, when the appetites are in harmony with the understanding, the enjoyment of food, drink, or sex should be a marvelous thing, yet on another, when our passions enslave our judgments, such blessings are twisted into curses. A creature that was made to stand tall in mastery can now merely grovel in submission.
Only those who find nothing at all to be shameful will be offended by a proper scolding. I was told often enough how drunkenness, gluttony, or lust would reduce me to a quivering wreck, and I didn’t listen because I permitted my feeling to run ahead of my thinking. If you haven’t been there, I do not wish it upon you, but the fool must first hit bottom before he can raise himself up.
To recall how pathetic I may have been yesterday is a calling to finally choosing some dignity for today. How fitting that joy will come at that very moment when compulsion is left behind: the peace is in the liberty of awareness, not in a bondage to the impressions.
It is more than symbolic to say that a man should be guided by his head and his heart, not by his gullet, his belly, and his crotch. What then remains of me but a bundle of instincts, which makes me no better than a jellyfish? I maintain that the difference between a “classical” and a “modern” view of human nature is whether we decide to be rational or to be randy.
How can I love my friends if I limit myself to gratification? How can I serve my neighbors if my loyalty depends upon a fat belly? How can I claim to be satisfied, when I am constantly demanding more and more amusements? It turns out that my fear of death is actually a fear of becoming responsible for myself.
I have spent too much time pretending at having “fun”, while in the clutches of my soul’s emptiness. The alternative is to learn a lesson from Seneca’s censure, to grow up before I am debased into that bitter, old hedonist at the end of the bar.
We are inclined to cling to our pleasures as a reason for making this life worth living, and yet they have an uncanny way of leaving us jaded. I have now been spinning around on this little rock for long enough to know how the craving for the perfect high will inevitably lay you low.
I affectionately describe these sorts of passages as Seneca’s “rants”, though I hardly believe he is just speaking out of rage. I also don’t imagine that his disapproval is directed at Lucilius, who, while still green behind the ears, is very much a kindred spirit. I take them rather as stern warnings, somber reminders of what any one of us can all too easily become.
On one level, when the appetites are in harmony with the understanding, the enjoyment of food, drink, or sex should be a marvelous thing, yet on another, when our passions enslave our judgments, such blessings are twisted into curses. A creature that was made to stand tall in mastery can now merely grovel in submission.
Only those who find nothing at all to be shameful will be offended by a proper scolding. I was told often enough how drunkenness, gluttony, or lust would reduce me to a quivering wreck, and I didn’t listen because I permitted my feeling to run ahead of my thinking. If you haven’t been there, I do not wish it upon you, but the fool must first hit bottom before he can raise himself up.
To recall how pathetic I may have been yesterday is a calling to finally choosing some dignity for today. How fitting that joy will come at that very moment when compulsion is left behind: the peace is in the liberty of awareness, not in a bondage to the impressions.
It is more than symbolic to say that a man should be guided by his head and his heart, not by his gullet, his belly, and his crotch. What then remains of me but a bundle of instincts, which makes me no better than a jellyfish? I maintain that the difference between a “classical” and a “modern” view of human nature is whether we decide to be rational or to be randy.
How can I love my friends if I limit myself to gratification? How can I serve my neighbors if my loyalty depends upon a fat belly? How can I claim to be satisfied, when I am constantly demanding more and more amusements? It turns out that my fear of death is actually a fear of becoming responsible for myself.
I have spent too much time pretending at having “fun”, while in the clutches of my soul’s emptiness. The alternative is to learn a lesson from Seneca’s censure, to grow up before I am debased into that bitter, old hedonist at the end of the bar.
—Reflection written in 11/2013
IMAGE: Jan Steen, The Wine is a Mocker (1664)
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