Seneca on Worldliness and Retirement

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0:49Welcome to the weekend edition of the Daily Stoic Podcast. On Sundays, we take a deeper dive into these ancient topics with excerpts from the Stoic texts. audiobooks that we like here or recommend here at Daily Stoic and other long-form wisdom that you can chew on on this relaxing weekend. We hope this helps shape your understanding of this philosophy and most importantly that you're able to apply it to your actual life. Thank you for listening.

1:27hey it's ryan holiday welcome to another sunday episode of the daily stoic podcast and uh today let's uh let's hear it directly from the horse's mouth from seneca's mouth that is well not actually from seneca's mouth i don't know if you know this but seneca's dead and there's no there's no audio of him. There's no audio of Seneca, unfortunately. We do have a fascinating statue of Seneca talking to Nero and him not listening. But unfortunately, his voice does not survive to us. John Malkovich did an interesting job portraying Seneca. Let me let me play you a little clip of John Malkovich as Seneca.

2:10Let's see if you think that's what sounds like. However you go, even if it is a ghastly thing, at least you die fast. How can you not be embarrassed? Having dreaded something your entire life, which, bam, is over in a second. Far better to imagine and embrace doom before it arrives so that it ceases to terrify and kids drink up. It's later than you think. So I don't know. That's not how I read Seneca in my head. And I guess my other voice for Seneca is the voice we have here. This is my friend, Tim Ferriss, did an audiobook edition of Seneca that he brought out. He calls it The Tao of Seneca. And it's the complete Seneca's letters in audiobook form.

2:58You can get a PDF of it for free also at tim.blog slash Seneca. But Tim Ferriss Audio is also who published the audiobook Book of the Obstacles of the Way and Daily Stoic and Ego is the Enemy. So after a run of those Stoic books, he did Seneca directly. And I wanted to bring you letter 19 today. This is Seneca on worldliness and retirement. It's basically Seneca talking about pulling back from the craziness of the world, from the spotlight, from the arena, so to speak, because the world was falling apart, because it was crazy, because he'd experienced some setbacks. I don't know. It feels like a very apropos message for the world today.

3:38Seneca would have been familiar with what we're seeing today. He worked for Nero after all. He would have known that pit in the stomach, the dread, the worry, the shaking of the head, what is going on out there? You know, he didn't retire completely, but he did turn inward. And we're lucky that he did because some of his best philosophical writings came out of that. So let's hear it from Seneca today. Thanks to Tim Ferriss and Tim Ferriss audio providing this. As I said, you can get a free PDF of Seneca's letters at tim.blog.seneca, or you can just grab this book on Audible, and I will link to that for you.

4:16Letter 19. On Worldliness and Retirement.

4:24I leap for joy whenever I receive letters from you, for they fill me with hope. There are now not mere assurances concerning you, but guarantees. And I beg and pray you to proceed in this course. For what better request could I make of a friend than one which is to be made for his own sake? If possible, withdraw yourself from all the business of which you speak. And if you cannot do this, tear yourself away. We have dissipated enough of our time already. Let us in old age begin to pack up our baggage. Surely there is nothing in this that men can begrudge us. We have spent our lives on the high seas.

5:06Let us die in harbor. Not that I would advise you to try to win fame by your retirement. One's retirement should neither be paraded nor concealed. Not concealed, I say, for I shall not go so far in urging you as to expect you to condemn all men as mad, and then seek out for yourself a hiding place and oblivion. Rather, make this your business, that your retirement be not conspicuous, though it should be obvious. In the second place, while those whose choice is unhampered from the start will deliberate on that other question, whether they wish to pass their lives in obscurity, in your case there is not a free choice.

5:49Your ability and energy have thrust you into the work of the world. So have the charm of your writings and the friendships you have made with famous and notable men. Renown has already taken you by storm. You may sink yourself into the depths of obscurity and utterly hide yourself, yet your earlier acts will reveal you. You cannot keep lurking in the dark. Much of the old gleam will follow you wherever you fly. Peace you can claim for yourself without being disliked by anyone, without any sense of loss, and without any pangs of spirit. For what will you leave behind you that you can imagine yourself reluctant to leave?

6:31Your clients? But none of these men courts you for yourself. They merely court something from you. People used to hunt friends, but now they hunt pelf. If a lonely old man changes his will, the morning caller transfers himself to another door. Great things cannot be bought for small sums. So reckon up whether it is preferable to leave your own true self or merely some of your belongings. Would that you had had the privilege of growing old amid the limited circumstances of your origin and that fortune had not raised you to such heights. You were removed far from the sight of wholesome living by your swift rise to prosperity.

7:15by your province, by your position as procurator, and by all that such things promise. You will next acquire more important duties, and after them still more. And what will be the result? Why wait until there is nothing left for you to crave? That time will never come. We hold that there is a succession of causes from which fate is woven. Similarly, you may be sure there is a succession in our desires, for one begins where its predecessor ends. You have been thrust into an existence which will never of itself put an end to your wretchedness and your slavery. Withdraw your chafed neck from the yoke.

7:58It is better that it should be cut off once and for all than galled forever. If you retreat to privacy everything will be on a smaller scale but you will be satisfied abundantly.

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9:55In your present condition, however, there is no satisfaction in the plenty which is heaped upon you on all sides. Would you rather be poor and sated or rich and hungry? Prosperity, is not only greedy, but it also lies exposed to the greed of others. And as long as nothing satisfies you, you yourself cannot satisfy others. But, you say, how can I take my leave? Any way you please. Reflect how many hazards you have ventured for the sake of money, and how much toil you have undertaken for a title. You must dare something to gain leisure, also, or else grow old amid the worries of procuratorships abroad, and subsequently of civil duties at home, living in turmoil and in ever-fresh floods of responsibilities, which no man has ever succeeded in avoiding by unobtrusiveness or by seclusion of life.

10:52For what bearing on the case has your personal desire for a secluded life? Your position in the world desires the opposite. What if, even now, you allow that position to grow greater, but all that is added to your successes will be added to your fears? At this point I should like to quote a saying of Mycanus, who spoke the truth when he stood on the very summit. There is thunder, even on the loftiest peaks. If you ask me in what book these words are found, they occur in the volume entitled Prometheus. He simply meant to say that these lofty peaks have their tops surrounded with thunderstorms. But is any power worth so high a price that a man like you would ever, in order to obtain it, adopt a style so debauched as that?

11:43Mycanus was indeed a man of parts, who would have left a great pattern for Roman oratory to follow had his good fortune not made him effeminate, nay, had it not emasculated him. An end like his awaits you also, unless you forthwith shorten sail and, as my canis was not willing to do until it was too late, hug the shore. This saying of my canises might have squared my account with you, but I feel sure, knowing you, that you will get out an injunction against me and that you will be unwilling to accept payment of my debt in such crude and debased currency. However that may be, I shall draw on the account of Epicurus.

12:27He says, You must reflect carefully beforehand with whom you are to eat and drink, rather than what you are to eat and drink. For a dinner of meats without the company of a friend is like the life of a lion or a wolf. This privilege will not be yours unless you withdraw from the world. Otherwise, you will have as guests only those whom your slave secretary sorts out from the throng of callers. It is, however, a mistake to select your friend in the reception hall or to test him at the dinner table. The most serious misfortune for a busy man who is overwhelmed by his possessions is that he believes men to be his friends when he himself is not a friend to them, and that he deems his favors to be effective in winning friends, although, in the case of certain men, the more they owe, the more they hate.

13:25A trifling debt makes a man your debtor. A large one makes him an enemy. What, you say, do not kindnesses establish friendships? They do, if one has had the privilege of choosing those who are to receive them, and if they are placed judiciously instead of being scattered broadcast. Therefore, while you are beginning to call your mind your own, meantime apply this maxim of the wise. Consider that it is more important who receives a thing than what it is he receives. Farewell.

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