Dear Seneca,
I've been going
back over the first hundred or so pages of your Epistles, looking
for a quote that I've had stuck in my head for week....yet, I can't
find it...I wonder now if I didn't read it somewhere else. No
matter, I'll share it with you and maybe later I can confirm the
author...yet, you have said that the words of great poets and
philosophers belong to us all....
When you loose
something, do not say, it has been taken from me, rather, say that
you have given it back. Has your sight been taken from you? Nay, I
have given it back to the source. Has your child died? Nay, I have
given her back. For all that we have is a gift, and all of it must
one day be given back.
So,
I'm quoting from memory, but that's the gist of it.
Seneca,
you're having such an impact on me. I carry your book with me
everywhere, I sit in cafe's reading, I sit in taverns making notes, I
sit in bed holding up my heavy eyes to read just a little more.
My
hunger for wisdom grows with every meal.
And
so it was that I came upon this....you are quoting as you so often
do, from Epicurus. (I love that you quote from Epicurus so much. It
is a reminder that if an idea is good, it is good, regardless of it's
philosophical source.)
If you wish to
make Pythoclese rich, do not add to his store of money, but subtract
from his desires.
I
ask myself, am I being greedy for wisdom? Am I over-reaching? Every
day I read the ancient authors, searching for the secrets that will
bring me happiness, or help me solve the problems of my daily life.
I read history, poetry, drama, tragedy and comedy and as much as I am
fed by them and feel their continuous influence upon my life....I can
say guiltily, that it is never enough.
I
am greedy for wisdom. I want the answers to my problems, I want the
solutions, I want to be a better writer, a better thinker, a better
husband, father, friend, musician, artist...I am greedy for dignitas.
There is no limit to the extent of my desires it seems.
I
think, Seneca, that you understand.
Epistle
VIII : On the philosopher's seclusion
I never spend
a day in idleness; I appropriate even a part of the night for study.
I do not allow time for sleep, but yield to it when I must, and when
my eyes are wearied with waking and ready to fall shut, I keep them
at their task. I have withdrawn not only from men, but from affairs,
especially from my own affairs; I am working for later generations,
writing down some ideas that may be of assistance to them. There are
certain wholesome counsels, which may be compared to prescriptions of
useful drugs; these I am putting into writing; for I have found them
helpful in ministering to my own sores, which if not wholly cured,
have at any rate ceased to spread.
In
reading this epistle to your friend Lucilius, I find that I might
quote all of it as you warn against being lured into danger by the
gifts of fortune, and as you praise the middle path of simple living
and simple desires.
Eat merely to
relieve your hunger, drink merely to quench your thirst; dress merely
to keep out the cold; house yourself merely as a protection against
personal discomfort.
Despise
everything that useless toil creates as an ornament and an object of
beauty. And reflect that nothing except the soul is worthy of
wonder; for to the soul, if it be great, naught is great.
...actually
Seneca, I disagree with that last bit. I think that if the soul be
great, then all is great.
The greatness of a soul is in the measure with which it may contain
all the world in acceptance, compassion, wisdom and wonder. I don't
side with the Stoic precept, Nil Admirandum.
I say instead, find wonder in everything.
But
it is in the space between these contradictions that life exists.
Between desire and contentment, between striving and humility. They
aren't polarities to be reached, but weights to keep in balance.
There are no definitions or borders separating each part, like the
left hand and right hand are both part of the same body.
The
day is still young, and this morning the birds cluster in their
floating orchestras along the creek, singing their morning hymns in
the canopy of green and shimmering leaves. Rain is on its way.
Yesterday the hot wind blew red dust from the north, apocalyptic and
wearying, but today there is a still before the storm. The air is
warm and wet, the flowers open themselves to the sunlight and the
grass grows greenest in the valleys. (I wrote this letter during
Spring, now in Summer the whole country is on fire, it is quite
stressful, waiting for the evacuation warning.)
If you would
enjoy real freedom, you must be the slave of philosophy.
Then,
Seneca, call me slave, call me a lover, call me a devotee, a mad
priest, a wandering mendicant with my begging bowl held out, walking
the middle path, my crooked middle path.
Or,
as the Buddha says. Everything in moderation, including
moderation.
No comments:
Post a Comment