How To Read Seneca (The World’s Most Interesting Stoic)

we suffer more in imagination than reality if it does happen you know what you're gonna do if it doesn't happen you keep doing what you're doing so where do we start with seneca i get this question all the time i've heard about seneca from my writings or i saw some quote on instagram and i want to read more about seneca i was introduced to seneca when i was 19 or so years old maybe 20. i got really lucky i feel like i bought the right translation at the right time in my life my life hasn't been the same since reading seneca and so in this episode i want to talk to you about who this amazing complicated fascinating figure was why you should read him what you should read of him and how you should read seneca hopefully by the end of it you will know the right place to start such a beautiful fascinating wise thinker [Music] seneca is actually born most scholars think the same year as jesus christ they're actually both born in provinces of the roman empire and they both become immensely influential philosophers in their own time seneca's father is a wealthy man a bit of a writer himself he has his young children tutored in philosophy did he want them to be philosophers no he was probably planning for seneca to become a lawyer and that's the track that seneca's on as an early young man until what we think is a tuberculosis diagnosis sends him all the way to egypt he's he's forced to travel to egypt where they think the climate will be better for his health right as his legal career is about to take off he's forced to take almost a 10 year break way out far away from rome early on seneca is learning as he talks about a lot in letters uh in his essays that fortune is not fair that fortune is full of reversals that fortune surprises us that it it lands these blows upon us all we can do is choose how we respond seneca makes his way back to rome and his political career picks up where he left off and he climbs his way back to the top of roman political life but again just as seneca's political career is beginning to take off he runs afoul of the emperor caligula and then claudius and he's exiled he sent away from rome the place that he had just come back to he sent away again we're told that seneca was superior to all of the senators in rome he's the wisest most brilliant most admired guy and this is probably why he is sent away and he goes to corsica an island in the mediterranean where he would spend the next seven or eight years so twice now in seneca's life he's been sent away for no fault of his own and this is where we think seneca begins writing seneca does not take this exile well it's hard on him although he does console his mother at the loss of her son you can tell we can tell he's feeling really sorry for himself he's struggling he's not talking about these ideas in the abstract but really struggling with them as a human being imagine you're just as your career is taking off you're forced to go move to a rock in the middle of the ocean none of your friends none of the things you hold here that would be so hard and that's what stoicism is it's not just a philosophy in theory it's a philosophy for hard adversity just like that seneca is given a reprieve when he is brought back to rome to tutor a young boy who is in line to be emperor and the boy's about 16 years old he takes to seneca seneca to the boy and he begins to tutor this boy just as he had been tutored in philosophy and then this boy does become emperor this all sounds like a very happy story but it gets really complicated because that boy is nero seneca the stoic philosopher is a tutor and then works in the court and holds positions of leadership during the administration of one of the worst roman emperors becomes this really provocative question was seneca complicit in nero's crime or was seneca the adult in the room the first couple years of nero's reign go really well seneca is credited for that but then as nero spins into insanity uh seneca is also implicated in that so it's this tension right did seneca live up to his teachings was seneca selfless or was seneca part of the problem seneca was rich he was wealthy is this a contradiction some people thought so even in seneca's time they did but seneca says we should cease to forbid philosophers from the possession of money no one has condemned wisdom to poverty the philosopher can own ample wealth he said but it should have been rested from no man nor should it be stained with another man's blood wealth acquired without harm to any man without base dealing is no less honorable and it should make no man grown except the spiteful and this is true the problem is you know seneca did get bloodstained money he got it from nero but his point was that a philosopher could be rich what mattered is were you indifferent to the wealth did the if you had the wealth you should enjoy it and in fact marx really says this about his stepfather antoninus he says what makes antoninus great is that while he had abundance he enjoyed it but when it was gone or when it wasn't there he didn't miss it but in the end nero turns on seneca or seneca turns on nero and seneca is driven from public life one more time and this is i think where he spends uh the rest of his life doing his most important work he says the duty of a man is to be useful to his fellow man if possible to be the useful to many failing this to be useful to a few failing this to be useful to his neighbors and failing this to himself when he helps others he advances the general interests of mankind i think seneca's most important work is not his political work it's his writing his writing is what survives to us today what i hope you will start reading he knew what it was like to be successful and he knew that the real purpose was doing this philosophical work he spent the last three years of his life completing his books and letters and towards the end he reflects he says my days have this one goal as do my nights he says this is my daily task and my study to do away with old evils before i came old i took care to live well in an old age i take care to die well and that is ultimately one of the most prevalent themes in all of seneca's writings is is death seneca says the time that passes belongs to death says like for me i shouldn't think of death as as something that might come 40 years from now if i'm 34 right now that maybe i'm lucky to live to be 80 so i got you know 45 or so years i should think of death as something that's already happened to me i've already died 33 years and so how we spend our time is what makes death either a tragedy or simply the final chapter on a wonderful life and in the end seneca is forced to make good on all of his teachings nero suspects that seneca has conspired against him puts to death some of seneca's closest family members and friends and ultimately comes for seneca too seneca has been out of power for several years when nero's goons come for him and demand his suicide and seneca now has to meet death bravely because he's written about it so much and so he goes bravely to his death first he slits his wrist but he's too old and and lean for this to work then he takes poison that doesn't work and finally he's smothered to death in the bath he meets this death as something that he had been in effect preparing for his entire life because it's true and it becomes his greatest moment it's captured in many beautiful paintings it becomes sort of an inspiration of resistance to to tyrants everywhere kind of a the idea that we can be dignified even in our last moments and he said look yes nero is taking my life but in the end evil drinks the largest of its own poison and he knew that ultimately it was better to be him than to be nero [Music] i think seneca is one of the most accessible and readable of all the stoics in part because he's not writing these like complicated philosophy texts in fact his best writing comes to us in the form of letters hundreds of letters from seneca to his friend lucillius survive the second letter i think captures a great way to think about seneca he says you should be extending your stay among writers whose genius is unquestionable deriving constant nourishment from them if you wish to gain anything from your reading that will find a place in your mind to be everywhere is nowhere people who spend their whole lives traveling abroad end up having plenty of places where they can find hospitality but no real friendships basically what seneca is saying is that you have to linger on the works of these master thinkers that you read them not just once but many many times i find that i i can dip in and out of seneca but every time i read him i take away something else and i think that's because seneca's writings are informed again not just by his thinking but also his deep experiences with loss with pain with grief with power with greed with money right seneca is one of the richest people in rome so as he talks about money or finances as he talks about wealth you know he's he's speaking about this really from experience one of the things that really struck me reading seneca in my early 20s is he talks about choosing yourself a cato right picking an example somebody whose life you're gonna model yourself against he says choose yourself a cato choose someone whose way of life as well as words and whose very face mirrors the character that lies behind it pick someone who has won your approval be always pointing to him as your guardian or as your model he said there is a need in my view for someone as a standard against which our characters can measure themselves without a ruler to do this against you cannot make crooked straight so i love this idea of picking a model picking someone who you are checking yourself against you'd say what would cato do in this situation what would seneca do in this situation what would my grandfather my grandmother do in this situation what would jesus do doesn't matter what it is but he was really talking about philosophy as a way of picking your heroes choosing your heroes and then modeling yourself against them one of the reasons i have this seneca statue in my office is a reminder of of just to see uh what seneca would do in a situation sometimes i want to do it sometimes i want to do the opposite of that one of the things i think is most fascinating about seneca is the wide breadth of philosophy and ideas that he draws from yes seneca is a stoic philosopher but you'd be surprised the philosopher he quotes most in this book is actually epicurus right if you've heard of epicureanism it's a rival school to the stoics but seneca says i'll quote a bad author if the line is good he says i read the other philosophers like a spy in the enemy's camp he's trying to learn from everyone and everything to be a better wiser kinder smarter human being and i to me that captures the essence of the philosophical lens that seneca is coming from seneca really talks beautifully about how we are spin thrifts with time that we don't value our most precious resource and we should and it's tragic that we don't he says look if your neighbor came over and uh parked their car on your property if your neighbor built a shed on your property you say what what is this get off you can't do this but if your neighbor wasted an hour of your time you would let them which is insane because you can get more property you cannot get more time and so you know he talks about how we we had this unsatiable appetite for accomplishments at the cost of time i have this quote actually up in my office that comes from this essay he says the one thing fools all have in common is that they're always beginning to live right they're always putting things off um and he says you know some of us we lack the courage to change he says we we lack the courage to live as we should and instead simply live as we have begun we just stay we're afraid of challenging the status quo i would say one of the most powerful essays that seneca writes is his essay on anger and it's sort of written to his brother that's who it's dedicated to but in fact it's written to nero he's trying to advise nero and all romans about the importance of being in control of oneself because this is what leaders have to do he says anger is a kind of madness and he says that delay is the greatest remedy for anger he says to get angry is like returning a bite to a dog or a kick to a mule the point of stoicism is to be unperturbed to not be riled up to not be at the mercy of your great passions one of seneca's most famous exercises he talks about pre-meditation he says practice anticipate all the things that could happen it says exile war torture shipwreck all the lots all the terms of the human condition should be before our eyes and as i said it's good that he thought this way because he does suffer shipwrecks he is exiled he is tortured ultimately he's executed right seneca does not live an easy life despite his privilege and success seneca is prepared for this he says the unexpected blow lands heaviest what we anticipate we take the bite out of it so seneca is always thinking about what could happen not to become anxious but to prepare for it and i know sometimes people think well if i'm thinking about the worst case scenario always isn't that going to make me depressed or scared or anxious seneca says no because this actually is not what we're talking about it's about preparation and he says look to suffer in advance is the wrong way to do it too he talks about how how often the things we imagine that we're worried about are honestly worse than whatever happens he says we suffer more in imagination than reality so part of this for seneca is also being present it's this balance it's like how do you think about the worst case scenario prepare for it have a plan and then you can be fully present because if it does happen you know what you're going to do if it doesn't happen you keep doing what you're doing and this is a really important balance in letter 107 seneca talks about adversity and again we know he's talking from experience because life has kicked this guy's ass he says life is no soft affair it's a long road you've started on you can't but expect to have slips and knocks and falls and and so we have to be prepared for these things we have to be tough and seneca says it's good to experience this he says there's no one i pity more in this world than a person who has not experienced adversity because they don't know what they're capable of they're not ready as you're reading seneca you're seeing all the tough things that happens you shouldn't be like oh i hope that doesn't happen to me you should think well how have i been tested what adversity have i dealt with what do i know that i'm capable of right that's what we're trying to cultivate stoics practice training right the stoics prepare for adversity so when stuff happens we're ready in one of seneca's plays i think he talks about this he says this is a beautiful line he says if the breaking day sees someone proud the ending day sees them brought low no one should put too much trust in triumph no one should give up hope of trials improving clotho is the god of chance mixes with the other and stops fortune from resting spinning every fate around no one has had so much divine favor that they could guarantee themselves tomorrow god keeps our lives hurtling on spinning in a whirlwind and i think seneca's life embodies this right moments of triumph moments of trial and adversity moments of great good fortune moments of profound misfortune but he endures all of it he soldiers through all of it he does his best which is all we can do we absorb the blows of fate we keep going we don't get discouraged i guess one last theme to think about for seneca is the theme of friendship right his letters to vasilius are filled with all sorts of affection and kindness to his friend you shouldn't think that the stoics were without joy and i think of all the stoics seneca seemed like he lived the happiest most interesting life the most filled with friends you know seneca reportedly and this is what people were critical of it he had 300 tables he would throw these gatsby-esque parties for all his friends and there is a criticism to that but it's also you know to me evidence that he wasn't just some dour philosopher seneca had friends he said nothing delights the mind so much as loving and loyal friendship right and my favorite part of seneca he says how do i know i'm making progress as i study philosophy how do i know i'm getting better he says i know i'm becoming a better friend to myself as i've said before the way to read especially a book that can change your life is with a pen with paper you could use highlight flags but you want to read it and really digest what you have as you read him i want you to read not just once but many times read over and over and over again my favorite translation of seneca's letters is this one seneca's letters from a stoic by penguin classics the penguin translation is really a best of seneca on some core stoic topics grief wealth poverty success education temper right the things that human beings struggle with particularly ambitious busy people in the world you can also get the loeb classical library has all the letters this is only a selection of the letters you can get all of them here these are also available for free online but i prefer physical this one's cool if you can read latin which i can't there's also a latin translation but this is all the letters this is like 50 or 60 of the letters i think ultimately there's like 200 letters you can get all of them with with loeb seneca's moral essays he's written a ton of different essays one is called on providence one is called on anger one is called on the happy life there's one called on the tranquility of the mind on the shortness of life which is actually my favorite of seneca's essays penguin has a little translation called on the shortness of life which has not just that title it has consolation to helvia which is telling you about earlier which is seneca's letter to his mother and on tranquility the mind this one's awesome i actually saw on my bookstore the painted porch if you want to check that one out this is another good one by moses sadas it's a bunch of different of seneca's essays james rahm who wrote my favorite biography of seneca this is called dying every day seneca has this beautiful quote about how we are dying every day that death isn't this thing in the future but it's something we're that we're moving towards it's something that's happening right now so this is a really beautiful biography it's haunted and moving i've had them on the podcast a couple times but if you haven't read this book you absolutely should this is another little translation of seneca that i like this is called how to keep your cool by james rom i actually blurbed it i wrote few have written more eloquently and profoundly on the perils of anger than seneca and this is just a collection of some of seneca's best stuff on anger james rom has this translation of seneca which i love called how to die and it's an illustration of just how often seneca speaks of this that a selection not even the entirety of his works on this theme could surpass 230 pages but i love this little translation from the princeton university press and and definitely suggest it and of course i have a chapter on seneca in my book lives of the stoics here's the chapter on him which you can check out there's a fascinating statue of seneca in nero uh by the artist uh eduardo barone and it i think it captures the tragic relationship between the wise patient seneca and the petulant egotistical undisciplined nero you know nero is sort of thrown as he's got a hood over his head he's the quintessential indifferent uninterested student and seneca's there he's got this book spread out before him he's trying to teach and nero is having none of it and i think it captures where seneca was it's that expression you can lead a horse to water but you can't make them drink but i think it applies to all of us seneca has provided all this wisdom was he the perfect teacher was he a little bit of a hypocrite are there some cautionary elements to him yes there's so much writing are we gonna take the time to read it though are we gonna avail ourselves of are we going to apply the wisdom are we going to turn the wisdom into works that's what that's on us seneca put it all out there he lived it by experience right and then the question is are we going to take advantage of it are we going to be a nero we're going to be a hero are we going to apply the ideas are we going to ignore them and i think that's to me what that statue represents i think it's a powerful image i think about it always and look there's a reason i have these busts of seneca in my office this is one we actually sell in the daily stokes store but it's interesting you know seneca's image is of himself this way and this is what we thought seneca looked like but they've come to discover that this is not seneca this is a sculpture they now refer to as pseudo seneca right seneca sees himself and presents himself in his writing as this haggard thin you know lean figure but in fact he looked more like this there's the only actual bust of seneca that survives is this bust and it's actually on the back his a cicero is coming out um but but actually you know this was more seneca and to me the the difference of the image and the reality is also an important philosophical concept and it ties into one of my favorite quotes from marcus release who says don't waste your time talking about what a good man is like you should be one seneca didn't get there he wasn't perfect none of us are but we can nevertheless learn from him be inspired by him and hopefully be made better because of him every day now for five years i have written an email about stoicism it's been a wonderful experience sharing with all of you and if you haven't signed up i would love to have you join us it's the largest community of stoics not just in the world right now but i think ever before in history you can sign up at dailystoke.com daily email it's totally free no spam you can unsubscribe whenever you want but i'd love to have you join us and i'd love for you to be on this journey with me [Music] you

Channel: Daily Stoic

Views: 378,494

Keywords: Stoic, Stoicism, Ryan Holiday, Ryan Holiday Stoicism, Daily Stoic, Ryan Holiday Interview, Ryan Holiday Stoic, Ryan Holiday Daily Stoic, Stoicism TED talk, marcus aurelius, marcus aurelius meditations, ryan holiday podcast

Id: waq9S6kaTlU

Length: 23min 40sec (1420 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 13 2022