Seneca
Practical Insights From The World’s Most Controversial Stoic
Treat This Day As If It Was The Last Day Of Your Life
Seneca - Introduction
Overview
Seneca [or Lucius Annaeus Seneca to give him his full title] lived from 4 BCE to 65 CE and was a stoic philosopher, rhetorician, mentor to an emporer, politician and businessman.
He is highly regarded as a teacher and author of Stoic teachings, wisdom and insights and yet is regarded as a controversial figure of his time for his long association with the infamous emperor Nero to whom he was initially a tutor and mentor when Nero was a boy and then as a Roman senator and eventually as political advisor to Nero when he became emperor.
Seneca The Politician
Seneca experienced the ups and downs of political
life and whilst in service to Nero's predecessor Claudius, and
following allegations of sexual impropriety with Julia Livilla
[Claudius's niece], Seneca was exiled to the island of Corsica for 8
years.
Following his recall to Rome, and on the ascendancy of Nero, Seneca became one of the most powerful and wealthy people in the Roman empire at that time and [temporarily] second only to Nero himself.
Whilst helping Nero he most certainly helped himself and become one of the richest people in the Roman Empire at that time, until he sailed too close to the political wind, was out-manoeuvred by Nero and "invited" to commit suicide.
Seneca's Inconsistencies and Apparent Hypocrisy
Historians have considered and debated the
inconsistencies and apparent hypocrisy between Seneca's Stoic teachings
and ideals and his worldly political and financial success in the service
of one of the most venal and vicious Roman emporers.
In her review "Seneca: A Life by Emily Wilson review – temptation and virtue in imperial Rome" Emily Gowers writes:
Since Miriam Griffin’s Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics (1976), historians have wondered how Seneca could reconcile being a millionaire courtier and Nero’s adviser with his Stoic principles.
"...the more interesting question is why he preached what he did, when he knew his integrity was so compromised..."
She concludes that Seneca's "...urgent, fortifying self-analysis became a literary habit."
and that Seneca "...presents two split halves of himself..."
and "...contorts himself to argue that wealth and virtue are not always incompatible..."
and concludes that Seneca's "...solution was retreat into a world he could more easily control: his own writings."
Modern Stoic apologists such as Massimo Pigliucci have addressed the question and concluded "Seneca Was a Man, Not a Sage"
Seneca The Stoic - Writings
# Epistulae Morales - Letters from a Stoic — A collection of short moral letters addressed to Lucilius and discussing a wide range of philosophical topics, such as grief, wealth, anger, success, failure, and jealousy.
Book Summary, Key Lessons and Best Quotes from "The Daily Stoic"
# De Brevitate Vitae - On the Shortness of Life — This might be the quickest introduction to Seneca, covering a topic many of us feel we understand but don’t: time.
In Seneca on The Shortness of Time Shane Parrish of Farnham Street explains how "...time is one of the most under-appreciated mental models that we all encounter,
and yet it’s the most ubiquitous. When employed correctly, time becomes
an amplifier. When spent without consideration, it becomes a persistent
source of regret."
# De Clementia - On Mercy — A treatise, written to Nero, on blood, happiness, and anger.
Seneca - The Happy Life
A Life Worth Living
Letter 92 of "Letters from A Stoic" is a good summary of the Stoic philosophy and is still a relevant practical guide for living.
Seneca wrote
these letters towards the end of his life, and unlike Marcus Aurielius
who wrote his "Meditations" as an exercise in stoic journaling soley for
his own benefit, clearly with a view to posthumous publication and
establishing his philosophical legacy.
The word "happy" has a deeper and richer meaning in the original Greek word eudaimonia which more literally means "human flourishing" or "blessedness" and can be paraphrased as "a life worth living".
The stoics believed that the practice of virtue [arete - literally meaning excellence] was the route to a life worth living.
Seneca expands on this theme in book twenty "Of A Happy Life" and sets out the following "seven commandments" to himself:
Seneca - Resources
Other Articles On This Site Aligned With Seneca
Supporting Material From Third Party Sources
Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy [Stanford University]:
From "The Daily Stoic":
- Who Is Seneca? Inside The Mind of The World's Most Interesting Stoic
- Letters From a Stoic by Seneca: Book Summary, Key Lessons and Best Quotes
From Massimo Pigliucci:
- A Series Of Short Audio Meditations On Seneca's Writings
- A Selection Of Essays and Articles On Seneca
Return To: The Stoics
LATEST ARTICLES
-
Your Relationship With Failure Is Critical To Your Success
Just Because You Have A Spectacular Failure Doesn’t Mean The Game Is Over. The thought that you could fail can really slow you down. But the problem is not the failure, the problem is your relationshi… -
Lost, Stuck & Going Round In Circles?
Are You Lost In Transition? To be in an alien North African city, late in the evening, in the dark, completely lost in transition from the main market square back to the obscure location of our Riad… -
Seeing Is Believing Or Is It?
Do You Believe What You See Or Do You See What You Believe? Like the characters in "The Matrix" we are fooled by the illusion that what we see is how things really are. Why? Because this is the mind's… -
What Difference Did You Make?
What Impact Will You Leave In The Lives Of Others? If you knew you were going to die tonight and you were given a few minutes to reflect before that happened, what would you say was the meaning of yo… -
Compassion Is Selfish And You Need It
If You Want Others To Be Happy, Practice Compassion. If You Want To Be Happy, Practice Compassion. Compassion is derived from the Latin words "com pati" meaning to suffer with. It has been defined as… -
The Placebo Effect - 2 Key Takeaways
The Power Of Expectation Of An Outcome Regardless Of The Lack Of Any Substance To That Expectation. Traditionally, the placebo effect occurs when false, or dummy, treatments of inert substances [that… -
The Red Pill
This Is What Will Happen After You Take It.
"This is your last chance," rebel leader Morpheus tells Neo, holding a coloured pill in each hand. “You take the blue pill, the story ends, you wake up in y… -
Transformational Life Hacks
This Has To Be One Of The Best Ways For Living The Best Life You Can Possibly Live. An online search on life hacks will invariably provide you with multiple links to ways of increasing your productivi… -
This Too Shall Pass
The Blessing And The Curse Of Impermanence. There is a story of a king who sought wisdom. Eventually he heard of a man living in a remote part of the kingdom who had a reputation for great wisdom. The… -
The Stories We Tell Ourselves
The Stories That We Tell Ourselves Are A Matter Of Choice. The stories we tell ourselves form the backcloth and the tapestry of our lives. These narratives shape and define our sense of self and how a… -
Who Do You Trust?
Trust Is A Choice And It Creates Your Reality. Nothing in life is permanent and nothing lasts forever. Every relationship ends in tears. Somebody leaves or somebody dies. This is how things are. This… -
How Positive Asymmetry Can Transform Your Life
Finding This Hidden Value Is The Key To A Huge Upside. Most of us spend our lives working to linear rules where there is an equal relationship between effort and result. Work hard you get a result. Wo… -
5 Tips For Developing A Growth Mindset
How To Be There When Preparation Meets Opportunity. The growth mindset holds the core belief that your intelligence and personality is something you can develop and that you can expand and grow. The p… -
Lost For Words? Experience Truth
If you can't think of the right thing to say, say nothing.
The concepts we employ, the categorizations we apply and the words we choose and use to articulate a direct experience put us in a double bi… -
Belief - A Terrible Tyrant Or An Empowering Servant
To Believe Or Not To Believe - That Is The Question. Nothing has inflicted more suffering on humanity than its beliefs and dogmas. The religious and cultural beliefs that sanction and allow or impose… -
How To Avoid Herd Mentality
How To Stay Far From The Madding Crowd. Herd mentality describes how we make decisions based on what everyone else is thinking and doing. It is also known as a mob or crowd mentality. We follow the he… -
Are You Trying To Teach A Cat To Bark?
We Suffer Every Time We Believe A Thought That Argues With What Is. When your mind is perfectly clear, what is, is what you want. If you want reality to be different than it is, you might as well try… -
The Value Of Slack
Slack Is The Capacity To Effect Change And The Resource To Deal With The Unexpected. Many organizations are obsessed with efficiency and try to ensure that every resource is fully utilized to its full… -
6 Tips To Help You Stop Trying Too Hard
Less and less do you need to force things, until you arrive at non-action. We are brought up to believe that we get what we want in life as a result of what we do, by the actions that we take, that ha… -
Your Point Of Focus
Is It Helping You Or Hindering You? Your point of focus is the central point of your attention. Your point of focus is a binary choice and the result of that choice is critical to your happiness, your… -
Your Secret For Success
To accomplish any success in life, you must identify accurately what it is that you hunger for, thirst for and long for. The purpose of this article is to look at the foundation of the secret for succ… -
Can You Stop Thinking?
Discover The Joy Of A Quiet Mind Can you stop thinking? According to Zen Buddhist priest Shunmyo Masuno the art of not thinking about anything is not easy to achieve. Even practising monks find it dif… -
How To Build Self Confidence
What Is Holding You Back From Pursuing Your Dreams? Your self confidence is based on ability. Your self confidence is all about your level of trust, faith and belief in your abilities [your power] and… -
How To Overcome Fear And Perform Powerfully
Learning how to overcome fear and perform powerfully is a skill that we all need to acquire as fear of failure affects most of us at some point in our lives. Whilst it is natural to feel a level of fe… -
Dance Into The Light And Stop Chasing Your Tail
You are creating hell on earth when you are too subsumed within your underlying and deeply embedded negative energetic states. To counter your dissatisfactions and misery you initially go unconscious… -
Change Your Language To Change How You Feel
How you mentally characterize a situation has a profound impact on how you respond to it emotionally. There is a direct causal link between how you think about a situation, the words you use to articu… -
How To Live In A Participatory Universe
What good is a universe without somebody around to look at it? What Conclusions Can We Draw About Living In A Participatory Universe? The inescapable conclusion is that the world and the universe (wit… -
4 Keys To Working With The Energy Of Life
The journey home to the energy of life does not consist in arriving at a new destination it is a coming home to one’s self. [1] How are you feeling, what is your dominant emotion right now? [2] Where… -
How To Deal With The Challenges Of Playing The Long Game
You have to be willing to suffer today in order to reap enormous rewards tomorrow. The long game is so hard to play because it involves taking a series of very small steps, that people rarely see, per… -
If You Don't Take Care Of You, Who Will?
How To Build Self Esteem In my early life and until my early twenties I suffered from a deep inferiority complex and low self esteem. Forty years later and, said in sincerity and with humility, I have…