Seneca, Moral Letters 83.7

Lucius Piso, the Director of Public Safety at Rome, was drunk from the very time of his appointment. He used to spend the greater part of the night at banquets, and would sleep until noon. That was the way he spent his morning hours. 
 
Nevertheless, he applied himself most diligently to his official duties, which included the guardianship of the city. Even the sainted Augustus trusted him with secret orders when he placed him in command of Thrace. Piso conquered that country. 
 
Tiberius, too, trusted him when he took his holiday in Campania, leaving behind him in the city many a critical matter that aroused both suspicion and hatred.
 
I fancy that it was because Piso’s drunkenness turned out well for the Emperor that he appointed to the office of city prefect Cossus, a man of authority and balance, but so soaked and steeped in drink that once, at a meeting of the Senate, whither he had come after banqueting, he was overcome by a slumber from which he could not be roused, and had to be carried home. 
 
It was to this man that Tiberius sent many orders, written in his own hand—orders which he believed he ought not to trust even to the officials of his household. Cossus never let a single secret slip out, whether personal or public. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 83 
 
I have a huge supply of shocking stories about drinking, some from my own time as a boozer, and others from my later attempts at helping others to kick the habit. The vast majority of them will remain locked in the vault, because I have never found much use in embarrassing anyone, but a very few, made suitably anonymous, can serve as cautionary tales, which have an uncanny way of reminding us how easy it is to go over the edge. 
 
Every year or so, an old bar companion will call me to reminisce about our inane attempts at making it to an exclusive house party, where we knew the top-shelf liquor would flow freely and there would be a mountain of cocaine on the coffee table. His car ended up abandoned in a field, while I somehow walked across six lanes of the interstate, and when we finally stared at each other in the fancy kitchen, we suddenly knew we had both hit rock bottom. 
 
And why do we go through this annual ritual of digging up the past? It actually restores our shared commitment to self-restraint, because there are times when being scared straight is the best remedy. Sarcastically saying “Yeah, good times!” is a way of restoring our supply of fortitude; I oddly find myself looking forward to the next recounting. 
 
The accounts of Piso and Cossus as “functional alcoholics” leave me with mixed feelings. On the one hand, their exploits appear harmless enough, perhaps even eccentric and charming, while on the other hand, I am all too aware that these can never be the ways of decent men. I do not think that Seneca is trying to absolve them of their sins, but he is rather cautioning us against the hysteria of the pearl-clutchers, who find it so easy to cast someone aside by attaching a cheap stigma. 
 
That fellow who accompanied me on the ridiculous quest to fry our brains? He was already someone of importance back then, and he holds a position of even greater responsibility now. There is no evasion in saying that he was extremely good in some ways, though also extremely bad in others. 
 
Don’t always believe the moral caricatures painted by the prigs and the prudes, who will gladly throw out the baby with the bathwater. For there to be something wrong does not mean that there can be nothing right; if they were correct, it would be impossible for any of us to ever improve. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Drunken Hercules (c. 1616) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 82.3

Some men flatter themselves that they have checked these evils by themselves even without the aid of philosophy; but when some accident catches them off their guard, a tardy confession of error is wrung from them. Their boastful words perish from their lips when the torturer commands them to stretch forth their hands, and when death draws nearer! 
 
You might say to such a man: “It was easy for you to challenge evils that were not nearby; but here comes pain, which you declared you could endure; here comes death, against which you uttered many a courageous boast! The whip cracks, the sword flashes: 
 
“Ah now, Aeneas, thou must needs be stout 
And strong of heart!” 
 
This strength of heart, however, will come from constant study, provided that you practice, not with the tongue but with the soul, and provided that you prepare yourself to meet death. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 82 
 
We are prone to lying far more often than we are willing to admit to ourselves, and some of the most extensive falsehoods are the tall tales we tell about our righteousness and our happiness. Even the biggest scoundrel acts deeply offended if you question his integrity, and the poor fellow drowning in his misery feels the urge to put on a phony smile for the camera. 
 
I need not assume any malice, however, since I know full well how tempting it is to lay down a smokescreen when confronted by doubt and fear. A show of cockiness is frequently a sign of the deepest insecurity, and the know-it-all is desperately hoping that no one will call him out on his ignorance. 
 
A common trait of the V.I.P.’s is their belief that they can do no wrong, and an insistence that their good fortune is a reward for their many personal merits. Yet what happens to them once their luck has changed, and the odds are no longer stacked in their favor? The elaborate façade collapses, and the smug complacency is replaced by outrage and recrimination. 
 
If I depend on a clever arrangement of the circumstances, stacked precariously like a house of cards, I will no doubt look down my nose at philosophy, since I can see no way for it to serve my vanity. Yet once I learn how pointless it was to rely upon trinkets and titles, I will cry out for some deeper meaning and value to this life—though I fear it may well be too late. 
 
It is easy to coach a game, or to run a business, or to wage a war from a cozy recliner; the true test comes on the field, at the factory, or in the trenches. When the grand theory meets the gritty practice, it is prudence that defines what is true and good, fortitude that forms commitment, temperance that breeds discipline, and justice that ensures solidarity. Such virtues demand the constant exercise of philosophy, for which lofty words or deep pockets are no substitute. 
 
When Aeneas must descend into the underworld, the Sibyl reminds him why only his inner strength of character can allow him to fulfill his destiny. When the comforts of the world have fallen away, there is no other way to stand against the pain, and yes, even against the power of death itself. 

—Reflection written in 12/2013 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Aeneas in the Underworld (c. 1610) 

Defeat

"Defeat"

Kahlil Gibran (1883-1931) 

Defeat, my Defeat, my solitude and my aloofness; 

You are dearer to me than a thousand triumphs, 

And sweeter to my heart than all world-glory. 

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my self-knowledge and my defiance, 

Through you I know that I am yet young and swift of foot 

And not to be trapped by withering laurels. 

And in you I have found aloneness 

And the joy of being shunned and scorned. 

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my shining sword and shield, 

In your eyes I have read 

That to be enthroned is to be enslaved, 

And to be understood is to be leveled down, 

And to be grasped is but to reach one’s fullness 

And like a ripe fruit to fall and be consumed. 

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my bold companion, 

You shall hear my songs and my cries and my silences, 

And none but you shall speak to me of the beating of wings, 

And urging of seas, 

And of mountains that burn in the night, 

And you alone shall climb my steep and rocky soul. 

 

Defeat, my Defeat, my deathless courage, 

You and I shall laugh together with the storm, 

And together we shall dig graves for all that die in us, 

And we shall stand in the sun with a will, 

And we shall be dangerous. 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, The Defeat of Sennacherib (c. 1614) 

Cain and Abel

Claude-Joseph Vernet, Cain and Abel Bringing Their Sacrifices (c. 1750) 

Peter Paul Rubens, Cain Slaying His Brother Abel (c. 1609) 

William Blake, The Body of Abel Found by Adam and Eve (c. 1826) 

Benedetto Luti, Cain Fleeing from the Sight of God after the Death of Abel (1692) 

Maxims of Goethe 63

Faith is private capital, kept in one's own house. 

There are public savings banks and loan offices, which supply individuals in their day of need; but here the creditor quietly takes his interest for himself. 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Praying Hands (c. 1600) 

Sayings of Publilius Syrus 168

The fiercer the contention, the more honorable the reconciliation. 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, The Reconciliation of Esau and Jacob (1624) 

Xenophon, Memorabilia of Socrates 34

Again I may cite, as known to myself, the following discussion; the arguments were addressed to Diodorus, one of his companions. Socrates said: 

"Tell me, Diodorus, if one of your slaves runs away, are you at pains to recover him?" 

"More than that," Diodorus answered, "I summon others to my aid and I have a reward cried for his recovery." 

Socrates: "Well, if one of your domestics is sick, do you tend him and call in the doctors to save his life?" 

Diodorus: "Decidedly I do." 

Socrates: "And if an intimate acquaintance, who is far more precious to you than any of your household slaves, is about to perish of want, you would think it incumbent on you to take pains to save his life? 

"Well! Now you know without my telling you that Hermogenes is not made of wood or stone. If you helped him he would be ashamed not to pay you in kind. And yet—the opportunity of possessing a willing, kindly, and trusty assistant well fitted to do your bidding, and not merely that, but capable of originating useful ideas himself, with a certain forecast of mind and judgment—I say such a man is worth dozens of slaves. 

"Good economists tell us that when a precious article may be got at a low price we ought to buy. And nowadays when times are so bad it is possible to get good friends exceedingly cheap." 

Diodorus answered: "You are quite right, Socrates; bid Hermogenes come to me." 

Socrates: "Bid Hermogenes come to you!—not I, indeed! Since for aught I can understand you are no better entitled to summon him than to go to him yourself, nor is the advantage more on his side than your own." 

Thus Diodorus went off in a trice to seek Hermogenes, and at no great outlay won to himself a friend—a friend whose one concern it now was to discover how, by word or deed, he might help and gladden Diodorus. 

—from Xenophon, Memorabilia 2.10 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Self-Portrait in a Circle of Friends at Mantua (1602) 

Delphic Maxims 55

Λαβὼν ἀπόδος 

Give back what you have received 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, The Tribute Money (c. 1615) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 66.13

We therefore find mentioned, even by Epicurus, those goods which one would prefer not to experience; which, however, because circumstances have decided thus, must be welcomed and approved and placed on a level with the highest goods. We cannot say that the good which has rounded out a happy life, the good for which Epicurus rendered thanks in the last words he uttered, is not equal to the greatest.
 
Allow me, excellent Lucilius, to utter a still bolder word: if any goods could be greater than others, I should prefer those which seem harsh to those which are mild and alluring, and should pronounce them greater. For it is more of an accomplishment to break one's way through difficulties than to keep joy within bounds.
 
It requires the same use of reason, I am fully aware, for a man to endure prosperity well and also to endure misfortune bravely. That man may be just as brave who sleeps in front of the ramparts without fear of danger when no enemy attacks the camp, as the man who, when the tendons of his legs have been severed, holds himself up on his knees and does not let fall his weapons; but it is to the blood-stained soldier returning from the front that men cry: "Well done, thou hero!" And therefore I should bestow greater praise upon those goods that have stood trial, and show courage, and have fought it out with fortune.
 
Should I hesitate whether to give greater praise to the maimed and shriveled hand of Mucius than to the uninjured hand of the bravest man in the world? There stood Mucius, despising the enemy and despising the fire, and watched his hand as it dripped blood over the fire on his enemy's altar, until Porsenna, envying the fame of the hero whose punishment he was advocating, ordered the fire to be removed against the will of the victim. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 66 
 
Even those of my peers who were willing to work hard were mainly interested in an effort now for the sake of the luxuries later; I was met with blank stares if I ever suggested how character could be an end in itself, and they could not bring themselves to conceive of a good life that wasn’t also accompanied by prosperity and comfort. 
 
The rigorous studying was for the perfect grades, and the perfect grades were for the top law school, and the top law school was for getting a job with the best firm, since the best firm paid the highest salary and brought the greatest renown. They would then pass these same values on to their children, so the cycle might continue. 
 
Now I would not complain if I had a fatter wallet, and I would even put in the extra hours if it were in the cards, but I have found that each and every time such a carrot was dangled in front of me, I was also being asked to sell just a little bit of my integrity. While your mileage may vary, I am not willing to pay that kind of price. We sadly cling to a rather sinister model of success. 
 
I do not prefer hardship—let this cup pass from me. Yet if I am torn between conscience and convenience, I know what I should do, and I must do so gladly, without harboring any resentment. Far too often, we take happiness to be in conflict with the practice of the virtues, when the reality is that happiness is the very practice of the virtues. What else could any man desire than being most fully human? 
 
There is a world of difference between the nobility of sacrificing the lesser for the greater, and the treachery of bartering the greater for the lesser. Compromise can only make sense when we have our priorities in order. I am pleased that Epicurus also understood this, that it is more than merely a Stoic eccentricity. 
 
If I am to stick with an indifference to circumstances. I must be careful not to romanticize suffering, just as I should not admire a life of ease; sound minds with good hearts are all equal. Nevertheless, I understand why Seneca has a special place for those who face the more difficult challenges, because they reflect such a dignity in the most remarkable of ways. There is a greater glory on the outside when an adversity is resisted from the inside. 
 
For myself, I know how exceptional fortitude inspires me to increase my own constancy all the more, and how I find myself roused to a regimen of temperance when I am provided with less rather than with more. Perhaps the truly vigorous instances of virtue are so noteworthy precisely because they are too rare. 
 
I do not believe Mucius was a better man for thrusting his right hand into the fire to deny Porsenna the power to harm him, but I do believe he was a more exemplary man for his choice. At the very least, he was certainly not in a worse state than some senator pushing paper back behind the walls of Rome. 

—Reflection written in 7/2013 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Mucius Scaevola before Porsenna (c. 1628) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 66.4

"What then," you say, "is there no difference between joy and unyielding endurance of pain?" 
 
None at all, as regards the virtues themselves; very great, however, in the circumstances in which either of these two virtues is displayed. In the one case, there is a natural relaxation and loosening of the soul; in the other there is an unnatural pain. 
 
Hence these circumstances, between which a great distinction can be drawn, belong to the category of indifferent things, but the virtue shown in each case is equal. Virtue is not changed by the matter with which it deals; if the matter is hard and stubborn, it does not make the virtue worse; if pleasant and joyous, it does not make it better. 
 
Therefore, virtue necessarily remains equal. For, in each case, what is done is done with equal uprightness, with equal wisdom, and with equal honor. Hence the states of goodness involved are equal, and it is impossible for a man to transcend these states of goodness by conducting himself better, either the one man in his joy, or the other amid his suffering. 
 
And two goods, neither of which can possibly be better, are equal. For if things which are extrinsic to virtue can either diminish or increase virtue, then that which is honorable ceases to be the only good. If you grant this, honor has wholly perished. 
 
And why? Let me tell you: it is because no act is honorable that is done by an unwilling agent, that is compulsory. Every honorable act is voluntary. Alloy it with reluctance, complaints, cowardice, or fear, and it loses its best characteristic—self-approval.
 
That which is not free cannot be honorable; for fear means slavery. The honorable is wholly free from anxiety and is calm; if it ever objects, laments, or regards anything as an evil, it becomes subject to disturbance and begins to flounder about amid great confusion. For on one side the semblance of right calls to it, on the other the suspicion of evil drags it back. 
 
Therefore, when a man is about to do something honorable, he should not regard any obstacles as evils, even though he regards them as inconvenient, but he should will to do the deed, and do it willingly. For every honorable act is done without commands or compulsion; it is unalloyed and contains no admixture of evil. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 66 
 
This is the sort of passage that can only make sense in the context of a profound Stoic insight, that the human good depends in essence upon the excellence of our own thoughts and deeds, whatever the accidents of circumstance might be. Yet once this truth is grasped, one cannot help but undergo a remarkable transformation, a “Stoic Turn” of character, where the priorities of value are forever altered. 
 
It may initially seem odd to say that all virtues are equal, when one man is being virtuous while playing with his children, and another man is being virtuous while resisting torture. Surely both men are good in kind, but is not the latter superior to the former in degree? The bearing of pain is seen to be so much nobler than finding rest in pleasure. 
 
And yet we are failing to distinguish between the act itself, which proceeds from within, and the conditions for the act, which are offered from without. However different those circumstances, my choice to respond with integrity and conviction is always the same in merit, and so I have acted to the fullness of my humanity whenever and wherever I take my stand; I can’t make this any “more” virtuous, since it already perfects my nature at that time and place. 
 
Yes, going for a walk is a mundane deed, and going to war is an extraordinary deed, and there is certainly a vast difference of degree in the weight of such events. Nevertheless, these acts share an identical inner dignity if they proceed from a knowledge of the true and a love of the good. It is high time I reevaluate my measure of the greater and the lesser, finding worth in the depth of my commitment rather than in the breadth of the setting. 
 
This will seem quite ridiculous to some, though that is because they continue to define character by its trappings. The trick is to stop believing that bigger is always better, and to discover how the best is often to be found in the humblest of packages. The strength of conscience is the only benchmark, and the limit is reached when understanding and love are pure and simple. 
 
While people will often speak of certain actions as being more or less important in this life, each choice, regardless of its sweep, expresses the totality of a particular person, and each choice is also equally necessary to the workings of the whole—the smallest nail is as significant as the mightiest king. 
 
Like some highbrow historian, I can stack up all kinds of consequences to an action, and I can argue its effects on countless other lives. Still, the only thing that can make the action good or bad, virtuous or vicious, is the individual freedom with which it was done, and that makes a lowly herdsman on the Asian steppes as noteworthy as a Caesar or a Napoleon. Scholars should pay more attention to morality than to economics. 
 

I know an elderly woman who has spent the last thirty years in silent mourning for the loss of her husband. She showed me why this is no less of an achievement than enduring the brutal torture of Prometheus. There is the same nobility in both the common and the uncommon. 

—Reflection written in 7/2013 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Prometheus Bound (c. 1612) 

Delphic Maxims 51

Φόνου ἀπέχου 

Abstain from murder 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Cain Slaying Abel (c. 1609) 

Stoic Snippets 231

Consider what men are when they are eating, sleeping, generating, easing themselves, and so forth. 

Then what kind of men they are when they are imperious and arrogant, or angry and scolding from their elevated place. 

But a short time ago to how many they were slaves and for what things; and after a little time consider in what a condition they will be. 

—Marcus Aurelius, Meditations 10.19 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, A Roman Triumph (c. 1630) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 64.1

Letter 64: On the philosopher’s task 
 
Yesterday you were with us. You might complain if I said "yesterday" merely. This is why I have added "with us." For, so far as I am concerned, you are always with me. Certain friends had happened in, on whose account a somewhat brighter fire was laid—not the kind that generally bursts from the kitchen chimneys of the rich and scares the watch, but the moderate blaze which means that guests have come.
 
Our talk ran on various themes, as is natural at a dinner; it pursued no chain of thought to the end, but jumped from one topic to another. We then had read to us a book by Quintus Sextius the Elder. He is a great man, if you have any confidence in my opinion, and a real Stoic, though he himself denies it.
 
Ye Gods, what strength and spirit one finds in him! This is not the case with all philosophers; there are some men of illustrious name whose writings are sapless. They lay down rules, they argue, and they quibble; they do not infuse spirit simply because they have no spirit.
 
But when you come to read Sextius, you will say: "He is alive; he is strong; he is free; he is more than a man; he fills me with a mighty confidence before I close his book."
 
I shall acknowledge to you the state of mind I am in when I read his works: I want to challenge every hazard; I want to cry: "Why keep me waiting, Fortune? Enter the lists! Behold, I am ready for you!" I assume the spirit of a man who seeks where he may make trial of himself, where he may show his worth:
 
“And fretting 'mid the unwarlike flocks he prays
Some foam-flecked boar may cross his path, or else
A tawny lion stalking down the hills." 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 64 
 
Of all the things I find myself missing, I have a special longing for a good conversation. I once assumed that I simply had to go out and find one, but the unfortunate fact is that an engaging dialogue requires genuine friends, and both sometimes seem to be as rare as hen’s teeth. 
 
The Stoic stress on self-reliance can mislead me into believing that I should be content to go it alone, and yet the equal Stoic stress on fellowship then reminds me how we are all made for one another. For all the grief that comes with struggling to love, there are still those redeeming moments when the human bond expresses itself precisely as it should. 
 
As elusive as it may feel, some excellent company is a powerful inspiration to the formation of an excellent character. If those of us gathered around the table are hardly the wisest or most virtuous of men, we can at least aspire to become so, for even the slightest step forward is moving us in the right direction. And if the topic of conversation is the example of some better man, then we may participate vicariously. 
 
I don’t know any surviving texts by Quintus Sextius, but the way Seneca describes the effects of his teachings reminds of the handful of fine folks who have offered me profound hope and strength through the many years of doubt and hesitation. 
 
Almost all of those who advertised themselves as “philosophers” may have had a knack for playing about with words, and yet I would walk away from their fancy speeches with only a headache and an urge to sleep. In contrast, the true philosophers, who never claimed the title, fired me up with the urgency of becoming a kinder and braver man, right now, before it is too late. 
 
No, they didn’t just take a hold of my passions, for that is merely a fleeting power; instead, they challenged me to think for myself, and to see myself for who I truly was, behind all the intellectual posturing. By presenting me with the sharp contrast between who I could be and how I managed to fall so terribly short, I suddenly had the wind behind my sails. 
 

The lovers or the politicians might ask you to die for them, while the sages can explain why you should be willing to die for yourself. When the dignity of the soul is at stake, no trifling threat to the body can stand in the way. 

—Reflection written in 7/2013 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Samson Killing the Lion (1628) 

Justus Lipsius, On Constancy 1.1

(1584) 

A preface and introduction; also a complaint of the troubles of the Low Countries. 

A few years past, as I traveled toward Vienna in Austria, I turned aside, not without God's direction, to the town of Liege, being not far out of my way, and where I had some friends, whom both for custom and good will I was persuaded to salute. 

Among whom was Charles Langius, a man, simply and without boasting be it spoken, for virtue and learning the chief of the Flemings. Who having received me into his house, tempered my entertainment, not only with courtesy and good will, but also with such communication as was profitable unto me, and will be while I live. 

For he was the man that opened my eyes by driving away the clouds of some vulgar opinions: he showed me the pay-way whereby I might directly come, as Lucretius says,

To the lofty temples of Sages right,

By the clear beams of Learning's light. 

For, as we walked in the porch of his house after noon, the hot sun toward the end of June, being in his full force, he asked me friendly of my journey, and the causes thereof. 

To whom when I had spoken much of the troubles of the Low Countries, of the insolence of the government and soldiers, I added lastly that I pretended other excuses, but this in truth was the cause of my departure. 

"For," said I, "who is of so hard and flinty a heart that can any longer endure these evils? We are tossed, as you see, these many years with the tempest of civil wars: and like sea-faring men are we beaten with sundry blasts of troubles and sedition. 

"If I love quietness and rest, the trumpets and rattling of armor interrupts me. If I take solace in my country gardens and farms, the soldiers and murderers force me into the town. Therefore, Langius, I am resolved, leaving this unfortunate and unhappy Flanders—pardon me my dear country—to change land for land, and to fly into some other part of the world, where I may neither hear of the name, nor facts of a Pelops brood."

Hereat Langius much marveling and moved: "Yea, friend Lipsius, and will you thus leave us?"

"Yes truly," said I, "I will either leave you, or this life. How can I fly from these evils but only by flight? For to see and suffer these things daily as heretofore, I cannot, Langius, neither have I any plate of steel about my heart."

Langius sighed at these words, and therewithal said unto me, "O fond youth, what childishness is this? Or what mind you to seek safety by flying away? This country, I confess, is tossed and turmoiled grievously: What part of Europe is at this day free? So as you may conjecture that saying of Aristophanes to prove true:

Thundering Jupiter will turn all things upside down. 

"Wherefore, Lipsius, you must not forsake your country, but the affections. Our minds must be so confirmed and conformed, that we may be at rest in troubles, and have peace even in the midst of war." 

Hereto I, rashly enough, replied: "Nay surely, I will forsake my country, knowing that it is less grief to hear report of evils than to be an eyewitness unto them. Besides that, thereby we ourselves shall be without danger of the lists: Mark you not what Homer wisely warns? Be out of the weapon's reach; lest that happily some man add one wound unto another." 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, Portrait of Justus Lipsius (c. 1616) 

Seneca, Moral Letters 58.10

Few have lasted through extreme old age to death without impairment, and many have lain inert, making no use of themselves. How much more cruel, then, do you suppose it really is to have lost a portion of your life, than to have lost your right to end that life?
 
Do not hear me with reluctance, as if my statement applied directly to you, but weigh what I have to say. It is this: that I shall not abandon old age, if old age preserves me intact for myself, and intact as regards the better part of myself; but if old age begins to shatter my mind, and to pull its various faculties to pieces, if it leaves me, not life, but only the breath of life, I shall rush out of a house that is crumbling and tottering.
 
I shall not avoid illness by seeking death, as long as the illness is curable and does not impede my soul. I shall not lay violent hands upon myself just because I am in pain; for death under such circumstances is defeat. 
 
But if I find out that the pain must always be endured, I shall depart, not because of the pain but because it will be a hindrance to me as regards all my reasons for living. 
 
He who dies just because he is in pain is a weakling, a coward; but he who lives merely to brave out this pain, is a fool. 
 
But I am running on too long; and, besides, there is matter here to fill a day. And how can a man end his life, if he cannot end a letter? So, farewell. This last word you will read with greater pleasure than all my deadly talk about death. Farewell. 

—from Seneca, Moral Letters 58 

 
Some people treat life so cheaply that they will casually buy and sell it for convenience or gratification. Other people are so obsessed with merely existing that they cannot ever permit anyone to die with dignity. Somewhere in between we might recover the sanity to judge a life not by the weight of the circumstances, or by the number of years, but by the measure of the virtues. 
 
As Marcus Aurelius said, if the pain remains tolerable, however intense or lasting, we retain our capacity to live well, for the suffering is still a chance to do good. If, however, the pain is now intolerable, having overwhelmed our reason, then we have already lost our power to act freely, and a man should first possess the right to depart on his own terms. If his conscience is sound, he will make the right choice for himself. 
 
And as Epictetus said, if the house is too full of smoke, then this is a sign that it is time to leave. When only the appearance of life remains, the presence of breath without the guidance of thought, it is both foolish and vain to linger. 
 
Lucilius was still young, and perhaps did not yet need to dwell upon the question, while Seneca was already old, and he knew why he had to prepare himself. Though we might not initially see it, the accumulation of years often demands the greater courage. 
 
I regularly hear people of a rather gruff disposition assume that anyone who freely chooses to die must be a coward; they are usually the same folks who refuse to walk in another man’s shoes, and so they will not offer mercy. What they do not understand is that, as Socrates said, it is wiser to fear the threat of one’s own vices than the approach of death. 
 
What began as a profound reflection on the various senses of “being” did indeed end up as an eminently practical lesson. Knowing how to think is a condition for knowing how to live. That sort of philosophy can’t steer us wrong. 

—Reflection written in 5/2013 

IMAGE: Peter Paul Rubens, The Dying Seneca (c. 1613)