Seneca and I stood in the corner of the large open balcony. The full moon shone brightly overhead. The large trees around us gently swayed in the cool breeze. Mild voices floated towards us from the party inside the hall.
The balcony door swung open and a middle-aged potbellied banker stepped out with a glass of wine. He stretched, spotted us and came over.
Banker – Hey, what are you guys doing here? The party is not that boring.
I – Just a breather.
Banker – Hello, who is this? That’s a strange dress
Seneca – I am Seneca and this is a toga
Banker – Toga…from Ancient Rome? Are you The Seneca?
S – Yes
B – How did you land up here? Time-machine?
S – Our friend here wanted a chat.
B – And you just appeared? This is weird
S – Not really. I live in the past, and am available whenever you want to look me up.
B – Well, well…thats interesting. What are you guys talking about?
S – The shortness of life
B – I remember reading that essay of yours some time ago, though what you said in it escapes me now.
S – Ah, the distractions of life
B – Distractions bring joy. They make us forget the worries and emptiness of life.
S – Distractions also shorten life.
B – Really?
S – If you are too busy, preoccupied and distracted, the finest days of your life flee from you. Old age overtakes you while you are still mentally childish, and you face it unprepared and unarmed.
B – That’s too strong. Look at the crowd inside. They are all busy and preoccupied. Sometimes distracted too, I admit. Are you saying they lead short lives?
S – Yes, short, unsatisfactory lives.
B – You don’t know them, do you? They are rich & powerful.
S – I was one of them in my time. I know even they pray for leisure, praise it and rate it higher than all their blessings. The preoccupied find life very short and become aware of life only when it is over.
B – Well, they all look happy and pleased with themselves. I envy them and even look up to some of them as role models.
S – Examine how all these people spend their time – how long they devote to their accounts, to laying traps for others or fearing those laid for themselves, to paying court to others or being courted themselves, to giving or receiving bail, to banquets (which now count as official business): you will see how their activities, good or bad, do not give them even time to breathe.
B – Ah, if you put it that way…yes, they are busy. And many do complain they don’t have enough time.
S – When at last some illness has reminded them of their mortality, how terrified do they die, as if they were not just passing out of life but being dragged out of it. They exclaim that they were fools because they have not really lived, and that if only they can recover from this illness they will live in leisure. Then they reflect how pointlessly they acquired things they never would enjoy, and how all their toil has been in vain.
B – Who doesn’t have regrets?
S – Living well is the least important activity of the preoccupied man.
B – But, we need to work. We need money. Poverty is anxiety.
S – There will always be causes for anxiety, whether due to prosperity or to wretchedness.
B – The alternative?
S – Learn to be content and say ‘its enough’. The sooner you do this, the more time you will have to live well. Nothing can be taken from a contended life, and you can only add to it as if giving to a man who is already full and satisfied food which he does not want but can hold.
B – Easy to say. You were rich yourself.
S – I made mistakes.
B – Fair enough. But, how much is enough?
S – You need less than what you think
B – Hmm, again easy to say, difficult to practice.
S – Do you get sufficient leisure, time for yourself, to introspect, to pursue what you really want to?
B – That’s a struggle
S – No activity can be successfully pursued by those who are always busy and pre-occupied, since the mind when distracted absorbs nothing deeply, but rejects everything which is, so to speak, crammed into it.
B – That makes sense
S – You possibly allow others to encroach on your life…enslave you and your time.
B – I guess so. I got customers, bosses, family, friends, many others clamouring for my time.
S – Be stingy when giving your time to others. It’s limited and precious.
B – Is that possible?
S – Audit how you spend your time. You will realize how wasteful you are.
B – That’s a good idea
S – You are frail, a mere mortal and today could be your last day. Don’t waste your time.
B – That’s a frightening thought
S – Don’t count on a long life. Esp. avoid grand fantasies of a post-retirement life. It may not happen at all.
B – Scary
S – It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.
B – How exactly?
S – Even if you were granted a 1000-year lifespan, your vices will swallow it up. And you will still complain of lack of time. We invariably assume time is superfluous and replaceable.
B – What vices?
S – Greed, luxury, power, fame, wealth, big ambitions…
B – Being ambitious shortens life?
S – Those into whose lives the public have made great inroads inevitably have too little time for themselves.
B – You mean the celebrities, the rich and famous?
S – Yes
B – Because they are too preoccupied?
S – Its not just the busy who are pre-occupied. Some men are preoccupied even in their leisure: in their country house, on their couch, in the midst of solitude, even when quite alone, they are their own worst company. You could not call theirs a life of leisure, but an idle preoccupation, or indolent occupation.
B – Time flies
S – The present is short, the future is doubtful, the past is certain. The past is the period of our time which is sacred and dedicated, which has passed beyond all human risks and is removed from Fortune’s sway, which cannot be harassed by want or fear or attacks of illness. It cannot be disturbed or snatched from us: it is an untroubled, everlasting possession. In the present we have only one day at a time, each offering a minute at a time. But all the days of the past will come to your call: you can detain and inspect them at your will – something which the preoccupied have no time to do
B – Introspect?
S – Yes, and pursue wisdom. Postponing it to old age is stupid. Do it when you are young, vigorous and possibly have a longer life ahead of you.
B – And withdraw from a busy social and economic life?
S – For those whose life is far removed from all business it must be amply long. None of it is frittered away, none of it scattered here and there, none of it committed to fortune, none of it lost through carelessness, none of it wasted on largesse, none of it superfluous: the whole of it, so to speak, is well invested. So, however short, it is fully sufficient, and therefore whenever his last day comes, the wise man will not hesitate to meet death with a firm step.
B – And what exactly is wisdom?
S – Learning how to live and how to die. That takes a whole life.
B – Are you sure?
S – Some of the finest men have renounced everything to exclusively pursue the question of ‘how to live and die well’. Yet, most of these died confessing that they did not yet know – still less can those others know.
B – So, there is no guarantee I’ll ever know. So, why pursue it?
S – Wisdom is not a destination, it is a journey.
B – So, you recommend leisure & philosophy?
S – Yes, of all people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only those are really alive.
B – And philosophy is wisdom?
S – Yes, the study of the grand mysteries of life
B – Like what?
S – Take up these sacred and lofty studies, from which you will learn the substance of god, and his will, his mode of life, his shape; what fate awaits your soul; where nature lays us to rest when released from our bodies; what is the force which supports all the heaviest elements of this world at the centre, suspends the light elements above, carries fire to the highest part, and sets the stars in motion with their proper changes – and learn other things in succession which are full of tremendous marvels? You really should leave the ground and turn your thoughts to these studies.
B – Theology and science?
S – Labels don’t matter. Ponder the mysteries that fascinate you.
B – And, do it now?
S – Don’t postpone or plan for the distant future. The whole future lies in uncertainty; live immediately.
B – How will it help?
S – Now while the blood is hot you should make your way with vigour to better things. In this kind of life you will find much that is worth your study: the love and practice of the virtues, forgetfulness of the passions, the knowledge of how to live and die, and a life of deep tranquillity.
B – But, I have a job. I have obligations.
S – Indeed the state of all who are preoccupied is wretched, but the most wretched are those who are toiling not even at their own preoccupations, but must regulate their sleep by another’s, and their walk by another’s pace, and obey orders in those freest of all things, loving and hating. If such people want to know how short their lives are, let them reflect how small a portion is their own.
B – Well, well, that’s scathing…
S – Extract yourself from the crowd and retire into a peaceful harbour.
B – And do what?
S – Take some of your own time for yourself too. I am not inviting you to idle or purposeless sloth, or to drown all your natural energy in sleep and the pleasures that are dear to the masses. That is not to have repose. When you are retired and enjoying peace of mind, you will find to keep you busy more important activities than all those you have performed so energetically up to now.
B – What exactly?
S – It is better to understand the balance-sheet of one’s own life. You had promised higher and greater things of yourself.
B – Ok, where and how do I begin?
S – Annex every age to yours. All the years that have passed before you can be added to your own. Unless we are very ungrateful, all those distinguished founders of holy creeds were born for us and prepared for us a way of life. By the toil of others we are led into the presence of things which have been brought from darkness into light. We are excluded from no age, but we have access to them all; and if we are prepared in loftiness of mind to pass beyond the narrow confines of human weakness, there is a long period of time through which we can roam. We can argue with Socrates, express doubt with Carneades, cultivate retirement with Epicurus, overcome human nature with the Stoics, and exceed its limits with the Cynics. Since nature allows us to enter into a partnership with every age, why not turn from this brief and transient spell of time and give ourselves wholeheartedly to the past, which is limitless and eternal and can be shared with better men than we?
B – That’s a wonderful idea
S – You can have daily as your closest friends Zeno, Pythagoras, Democritus and all the other high priests of liberal studies, and Aristotle and Theophrastus. None of these will be too busy to see you, none of these will not send his visitor away happier and more devoted to himself, none of these will allow anyone to depart empty-handed. They are at home to all mortals by night and by day. None of these will force you to die, but all will teach you how to die. None of them will exhaust your years, but each will contribute his years to yours. With none of these will conversation be dangerous, or his friendship fatal, or attendance on him expensive. From them you can take whatever you wish: it will not be their fault if you do not take your fill from them.
B – Why did I not think of this before?
S – What happiness, what a fine old age awaits the man who has made himself a client of these! He will have friends whose advice he can ask on the most important or the most trivial matters, whom he can consult daily about himself, who will tell him the truth without insulting him and praise him without flattery, who will offer him a pattern on which to model himself.
B – That’s a vast landscape.
S – You can choose whose children you would like to be. There are households of the noblest intellects: choose the one into which you wish to be adopted, and you will inherit not only their name but their property too. Nor will this property need to be guarded meanly or grudgingly: the more it is shared out, the greater it will become. These will offer you a path to immortality and raise you to a point from which no one is cast down. This is the only way to prolong mortality – even to convert it to immortality.
B – That’s inspiring
S – The life of the philosopher extends widely: he is not confined by the same boundary as are others. He alone is free from the laws that limit the human race, and all ages serve him as though he were a god. Some time has passed: he grasps it in his recollection. Time is present: he uses it. Time is to come: he anticipates it. This combination of all times into one gives him a long life.
B – Life doesn’t look short anymore
S – It is not
B – Thanks for your time
S – Thank our mutual friend here
B – I better head back
S – To the party?
B – No, home.
Let's Muse.. 