Seneca on Despising Death

Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. In this letter Seneca writes about why we should not get upset about future problems by making them a problem of the present. Go to tim.blog/seneca to get the PDF for free. Get Letters From a Stoic from the Painted Porch. As a member of Daily Stoic Life, you get all our current and future courses, 100+ additional Daily Stoic email meditations, 4 live Q&As with bestselling author Ryan Holiday (and guests), and 10% off your next purchase from the Daily Stoic Store. Sign up at https://dailystoic.com/life/ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more. Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info. 📢 Share | ⚙️ Manage Subscription

Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:03Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to the weekend edition of The Daily Stoic. Each weekday, we bring you a meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics, something to help you live up to those four Stoic virtues of courage, justice, temperance, and wisdom. And then here on the weekend, we take a deeper dive into those same topics. We interview Stoic philosophers. We explore at length how these Stoic ideas can be applied to our actual lives and the challenging issues of our time. Here on the weekend, when you have a little bit more space, when things have slowed down, be sure to take some time to think, to go for a walk, to sit with your journal,

• 0:46Ryan Holiday?

  and most importantly, to prepare for what the week ahead may bring. You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the stoa, the stoa pokile, the painted porch in ancient Athens. Obviously, we can't all get together in one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space. But we have made a special digital version of the stoa. We're calling it Daily Stoic Life. It's an awesome community. You could talk about, like today's episode, you could talk about the emails, ask questions. That's one of my favorite parts is interacting with all these people who are using Stoicism to be better in their actual, real lives. You get more Daily Stoic meditations over the weekend just for the Daily Stoic Life members.

• 1:29Ryan Holiday?

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• 1:53Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome to a Sunday episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. I'm talking to a friend of mine who is dealing with like a negative news article that's going to come out about him. He's got a good sense that it's going to be negative. Could come out tomorrow, could come out three weeks from now, could come out three months from now. He didn't do anything wrong. It's sort of being blindsided or set up for this. That's not important. But I was, I was talking to them about it and I was saying, look, it's going to happen. You're going to get hit by this train. But is it going to be tomorrow? Is it going to be three weeks from now? Is it going to be three months from now? That you do not know. But I was cribbed a little of Seneca's advice, which is, don't suffer

• 2:36Ryan Holiday?

  before your time. Don't, don't torture yourself in anticipation of how bad it's going to be. Because not only is it not going to affect anything, it's really just adding the amount of time you're going to suffer for this thing. And that's what today's episode is about. We have an excerpt of one of Seneca's letters that my friend Tim Ferriss was kind enough to provide from his wonderful audiobook, The Tao of Seneca, which you can get as a PDF totally for free at tim.blog/seneca. And you can also buy the audiobook on Audible. Click the link below to get the link directly to that. But most of this letter is about

• 3:19Ryan Holiday?

  our greatest fear, the fear of death. But it's really about not getting upset about future problems, making them a problem here in the present. Don't worry about things ahead of time, right? Don't suffer in imagination as well as reality. This is a wonderful little episode, and I'm proud to bring it to you. Thanks to Tim. Do check out The Tao of Seneca. There's not many great audiobooks from the Stoics out there, unfortunately. But Tim put together a great one here. And as I said, you can get the audiobook totally for free at tim.blog/seneca. Or if you want to get Seneca's letters in physical form, you can check that out at thepaintedporch.com, where we carry them and some different translations

• 4:04Ryan Holiday?

  as well. So, talk to you soon.

• 4:09Speaker 01

  Letter 24, on despising death.

• 4:16Speaker 01

  You write me that you are anxious about the result of a lawsuit, with which an angry opponent is threatening you, and you expect me to advise you to picture to yourself a happier issue, and to rest in the allurements of hope. Why indeed is it necessary to summon trouble, which must be endured soon enough when it has once arrived, or to anticipate trouble and ruin the present through fear of the future? It is indeed foolish to be unhappy now, because you may be unhappy at some future time. But I shall conduct you to peace of mind by another route. If you would put off all worry, assume that what you fear may happen, will certainly happen in any event.

• 5:00Speaker 01

  Whatever the trouble may be, measure it in your own mind, and estimate the amount of your fear. You will thus understand that what you fear is either insignificant or short-lived, and you need not spend a long time in gathering illustrations which will strengthen you; every epoch has produced them. Let your thoughts travel into any era of Roman or foreign history, and there will throng before you notable examples of high achievement or of high endeavour. If you lose this case, can anything more severe happen to you than being sent into exile or led to prison? Is there a worse fate than any man may fear than being burned or being killed?

• 5:43Speaker 01

  Name such penalties one by one, and mention the men who have scorned them. One does not need to hunt for them; it is simply a matter of selection. Sentence of conviction was borne by Rutilius, as if the injustice of the decision were the only thing which annoyed him. Exile was endured by Muteulus with courage, by Rutilius even with gladness, for the former consented to come back only because his country called him; the latter refused to return when Sulla summoned him, and nobody in those days said no to Sulla. Socrates, in prison, discoursed and declined to flee when certain persons gave him the opportunity. He remained there, in order to free mankind

• 6:27Speaker 01

  from the fear of two most grievous things: death and imprisonment. Mukius put his hand into the fire. It is painful to be burned, but how much more painful to inflict such suffering upon oneself! Here was a man of no learning, not primed to face death and pain by any words of wisdom, and equipped only with the courage of a soldier, who punished himself for his fruitless daring. He stood and watched his own right hand falling away piecemeal on the enemy's brazier, nor did he withdraw the dissolving limb with its uncovered bones until his foe removed the fire.

• 7:09Speaker 01

  He might have accomplished something more successful in that camp, but never anything more brave. See how much keener a brave man is to lay hold of danger than a cruel man is to inflict it. Porcena was more ready to pardon Mukius for wishing to slay him, than Mukius to pardon himself for failing to slay Porcena. Oh, say you, those stories have been droned to death in all the schools. Pretty soon, when you reach the topic on despising death, you will be telling me about Cato. But why should I not tell you about Cato? How he read Plato's book on that last glorious night with a sword laid at his pillow?

• 7:52Speaker 01

  He had provided those two requisites for his last moments. The first, that he might have the will to die, and the second, that he might have the means. So he put his affairs in order, as well as one could put in order that which was ruined and near its end, and thought that he ought to see to it that no one should have the power to slay or the good fortune to save Cato. Drawing the sword, which he had kept unstained from all bloodshed against the final day, he cried: "Fortune, you have accomplished nothing by resisting all my endeavors. I have fought till now for my country's freedom, and not for my own. I did not strive so doggedly to be free, but only to live among the free.

• 8:37Speaker 01

  Now, since the affairs of mankind are beyond hope, let Cato be withdrawn to safety."

• 8:45Speaker 01

  So saying, he inflicted a mortal wound upon his body. After the physicians had bounded up, Cato had less blood and less strength, but no less courage. Angered now not only at Caesar, but also at himself, he rallied his unarmed hands against his wound and, expelled, rather than dismissed, that noble soul which had been so defiant of all worldly power. I am not now heaping up these illustrations for the purpose of exercising my wit, but for the purpose of encouraging you to face that which is thought to be most terrible. And I shall encourage you all the more easily,

• 9:26Speaker 01

  by showing that not only resolute men have despised that moment, when the soul breathes its last, but that certain persons, who were craven in other respects, have equaled in this regard the courage of the bravest. Take, for example, Cipio, the father-in-law of Naus Pompeius. He was driven back upon the African coast by a headwind, and saw his ship in the power of the enemy. He therefore pierced his body with a sword, and when they asked where the commander was, he replied, "All is well with the commander." These words brought him up to the level of his ancestors, and suffered not the glory which fate gave to the Cipios in Africa to lose its continuity.

• 10:10Speaker 01

  It was a great deed to conquer Carthage, but a greater deed to conquer death. "All is well with the commander." Ought a general to die otherwise, especially one of Cato's generals? I shall not refer you to history, or collect examples of those men who throughout the ages have despised death, for they are very many. Consider these times of ours, whose enervation and over refinement call forth our complaints. They nevertheless will include men of every rank, of every lot in life, and of every age, who have cut short their misfortunes by death.

• 10:51Speaker 01

  Believe me, Lucilius, death is so little to be feared, that through its good offices nothing is to be feared. Therefore, when your enemy threatens, listen unconcernedly. Although your conscience makes you confident, yet, since many things have weight which are outside your case, both hope for that which is utterly just, and prepare yourself against that which is utterly unjust. Remember, however, before all else, to strip things of all that disturbs and confuses, and to see what each is at bottom. You will then comprehend that they contain nothing fearful, except the actual fear.

• 11:32Speaker 01

  That you see happening to boys, happens also to ourselves, who are only slightly bigger boys. When those whom they love, with whom they daily associate, with whom they play, appear with masks on, the boys are frightened out of their wits. We should strip the mask, not only from men, but from things, and restore to each object its own aspect. Why dost thou hold up before my eyes swords, fires, and a throng of executioners raging about thee? Take away all that vain show, behind which thou lurkest and scarkest fools, ah, thou art not but death, whom only yesterday a man servant of mine and a maid servant did

• 12:16Speaker 01

  despise. Why dost thou again unfold and spread before me with all that great display, the whip and the rack? Why are those engines of torture made ready, one for each several member of the body, and all the other innumerable machines for tearing a man apart piecemeal? Away with all such stuff, which makes us numb with terror! And thou, silence, the groans, the cries, and the bitter shrieks, ground out of the victim, as he is torn on the rack! Forsooth, thou art not but pain, scorned by yonder gout-ridden wretch, endured by yonder dyspeptic in the midst of his dainties, borne bravely by the girl in travail.

• 12:59Speaker 01

  Slight thou art if I can bear thee, short thou art if I cannot bear thee.

• 13:07Speaker 01

  Ponder these words which you have often heard and often uttered. Moreover, prove by the result whether that which you have heard and uttered is true. For there is a very disgraceful charge often brought against our school, that we deal with the words and not with the deeds of philosophy. What, have you only at this moment learned that death is hanging over your head? At this moment exile, at this moment grief? You were born to these perils. Let us think of everything that can happen as something which will happen. I know that you have really done what I advise you to do.

• 13:49Speaker 01

  I now warn you not to drown your soul in these petty anxieties of yours. If you do, the soul will be dulled, and will have too little vigor left when the time comes for it to arise. Remove the mind from this case of yours to the case of men in general. Say to yourself that our petty bodies are mortal and frail. Pain can reach them from other sources than from wrong or the might of the stronger. Our pleasures themselves become torments. Banquets bring in digestion, carousals, paralysis of the muscles and palsy, sensual habits affect the feet, the hands, and every joint of the body.

• 14:32Speaker 01

  I may become a poor man, I shall then be one among many. I may be exiled, I shall then regard myself as born in the place to which I shall be sent. They may put me in chains. What then, am I free from bonds now? Behold, this clogging burden of a body, to which nature has fettered me. "I shall die," you say. You mean to say, "I shall cease to run the risk of sickness, I shall cease to run the risk of imprisonment, I shall cease to run the risk of death."

• 15:10Speaker 01

  I am not so foolish as to go through at this juncture the arguments which Epicurus harps upon, and say that the terrors of the world below are idle, that Ixion does not whirl round on his wheel, that Sisyphus does not shoulder his stone uphill, that a man's entrails cannot be restored and devoured every day. No one is so childish as to fear Cerberus, or the shadows, or the spectral garb of those who are held together by naught but their unfleshed bones. Death either annihilates us, or strips us bare. If we are then released, there remains the better part after the burden has been withdrawn.

• 15:50Speaker 01

  If we are annihilated, nothing remains; good and bad are alike removed.

• 15:58Speaker 01

  Allow me at this point to quote a verse of yours, first suggesting that, when you wrote it, you meant it for yourself no less than for others. It is ignoble to say one thing and mean another, and how much more ignoble to write one thing and mean another. I remember one day you were handling the well-known commonplace, that we do not suddenly fall on death, but advance towards it by slight degrees; we die every day. For every day, a little of our life is taken from us. Even when we are growing, our life is on the wane. We lose our childhood, then our boyhood, and then our youth.

• 16:41Speaker 01

  Counting even yesterday, all past time is lost time. The very day which we are now spending is shared between ourselves and death. It is not the last drop that empties the water clock, but all that which previously has flowed out. Similarly, the final hour when we cease to exist does not of itself bring death; it merely of itself completes the death process. We reach death at that moment, but we have been a long time on the way. In describing the situation, you said in your customary style, for you are always impressive, but never more pungent than when you are putting the truth in appropriate words,

• 17:25Speaker 01

  "Not single is the death which comes; the death which takes us off is but the last of all."

• 17:35Speaker 01

  I prefer that you should read your own words rather than my letter, for then it will be clear to you that this death, of which we are afraid, is the last, but not the only, death.

• 17:48Speaker 01

  I see what you are looking for. You are asking what I have packed into my letter, what inspiriting saying from some mastermind, what useful precept. So I shall send you something dealing with this very subject, which has been under discussion. A pachyrus upbraids those who crave as much as those who shrink from death. "It is absurd," he says, "to run towards death because you are tired of life, when it is your manner of life that has made you run towards death." And in another passage, "What is so absurd as to seek death, when it is through fear of death that you have robbed your life of peace?"

• 18:31Speaker 01

  And you may add a third statement of the same stamp. "Men are so thoughtless, nay, so mad, that some, through fear of death, force themselves to die." Whichever of these ideas you ponder, you will strengthen your mind for the endurance alike of death and of life. For we need be warned and strengthened in both directions, not to love or to hate life overmuch. Even when reason advises us to make an end of it, the impulse is not to be adopted without reflection or at headlong speed. The grave and wise man should not beat a hasty retreat from life; he should make a becoming exit.

• 19:13Speaker 01

  And above all, he should avoid the weakness which has taken possession of so many: the lust for death. For, just as there is an unreflecting tendency of the mind towards other things, so, my dear Lucilius, there is an unreflecting tendency towards death. This often seizes upon the noblest and most spirited men, as well as upon the craven and the abject: the former despise life, the latter find it irksome.

• 19:44Speaker 01

  Others are also moved by a satiety of doing and seeing the same things, and not so much by hatred of life as because they are cloyed with it. We slip into this condition while philosophy itself pushes us on and we say, "How long must I endure the same things? Shall I continue to wake and sleep? Be hungry and be cloyed? Shiver and perspire? There is an end to nothing. All things are connected in a sort of circle. They flee and they are pursued. Night is close at the heels of day, day at the heels of night, summer ends in autumn, winter rushes after autumn, and winter softens into spring.

• 20:26Speaker 01

  All nature in this way passes, only to return. I do nothing new. I see nothing new. Sooner or later, one seconds of this also." There are many who think that living is not painful, but superfluous. Farewell.

• 20:50Ryan Holiday?

  Hey, it's Ryan. Thank you for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. I just wanted to say we so appreciate it. We love serving you. It's amazing to us that over 30 million people have downloaded these episodes in the couple of years we've been doing it. It's an honor. Please spread the word, tell people about it. And this isn't to sell anything, I just wanted to say thank you.