Dear Seneca,
You've been a good friend to me for a couple years, and now, more than ever I have need of your advice. Late at night, with my guts churning with anxiety and stress, I open the little red book, volume one of your letters to Lucilius, Epistle 50; on our blindness and its cure.
You know Harpaste, my wife's female clown; she has remained in my house, a burden from a legacy. I particularly disapprove of these freaks; whenever I wish to enjoy the quips of a clown, I am not compelled to hunt far; I can laugh at myself. Now this clown suddenly became blind. She keeps asking her attendant to change her quarters; she says that her apartments are too dark.
You can see clearly that that which makes us smile in the case of Harpaste happens to all the rest of us; nobody understands that he is himself greedy, or that he is covetous. Yet the blind ask for a guide, while we wander without one, saying: “I am not self-seeking; but one cannot live at Rome in any other way. I am not extravagant, but mere living in the city demands a great outlay. It is not my fault that I have a choleric disposition, or that I have not settled down to any definite scheme of life; it is due to my youth.” Why do we deceive ourselves? The evil that afflicts us is not external, it is within us, situated in our very vitals; for that reason we attain soundness with all the more difficulty, because we do not know that we are diseased.
Suppose that we have begun the cure; when shall we throw off all these diseases, with al their virulence? At present, we do not even consult the physician, whose work would be easier if he were called in when the complaint was in its early stages. The tender and the inexperienced minds would follow his advice if he pointed out the right way. No man finds it difficult to return to nature, except the man who has deserted nature. We blush to receive instruction in sound sense; but, by Heaven, if we think it base to seek a teacher of this art, we should also abandon any hope that so great a good could be instilled into us by mere chance.
No, we must work. To tell the truth, even the work is not great, if only, as I said, we begin to mould and reconstruct our souls before they are hardened by sin. But I do not despair even of a hardened sinner. There is nothing that will not surrender to persistent treatment, to concentrated and careful attention; however much the timber may be bent, you can make it straight again. Heat unbends curved beams, and wood that grew naturally in another shape is fashioned artificially according to our needs. How much more easily does the soul permit itself to be shaped, pliable as it is and more yielding than any liquid! For what else is the soul that air in a certain state? And you see that air is more adaptable than any other matter, in proportion as it is rarer than any other.
There is nothing, Lucilius, to hinder you from entertaining good hopes about us, just because we are even now in the grip of evil, or because we have been possessed thereby. There is no man to whom a good mind comes before an evil one. It is the evil mind that gets first hold on all of us. Learning virtue means unlearning vice. We should therefore proceed to the task of freeing ourselves from faults with all the more courage because, when once committed to us, the good is an everlasting possession; virtue is not unlearned.
So, the bit about the elderly clown living in your house is fantastic. The general image we moderns have of you is one of your high society life, both austere and extravagant (contradictory as that image is), but to know that you had a retired clown living with you complicates and completes the picture in my mind. There is something so casual about the lessons you deliver, and it separates you from the other philosophers in an important way.
It is easier to admit your wisdom into my life, when you deliver it to me as a friend.
But the lesson, Seneca, is what is most important.
Your recommendation for seeking therapy, or at least, wise guidance in life, is exactly what I needed to hear. For we are not born with all the knowledge necessary to live well and easily. We must seek elders to lead the way, we must seek assistance, or we will fall into every hole the road presents us with. For a long time I have avoided therapists, for a variety of reasons that have all seemed rational at the time, but which now seem like the brittle armour of a fragile ego.
Not any more.
I have reached a point where I need more than what dead philosophers can offer. The evil in my soul has festered long enough, and now I must seek the help I should have sought when I was young.
But, today, in my fortieth year, it is the dead who convinced me to make this transition.
So, thank you Seneca. Your friendship is so important to me, and your wisdom is always of benefit.
With Gratitude and Respect,
Morgan.
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