Seneca on Philosophy and Friendship

Today’s episode is an excerpt from The Tao Of Seneca produced by Tim Ferriss’ Audio. Get the free PDF at tim.blog/seneca. In this letter Seneca examines the common bases upon which friendships are formed and explains the value that friendship adds to existence.✉️ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemail🏛 Check 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.

• 0:04Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome 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.

• 0:45Ryan Holiday?

  I've talked about this before, but of all the Stoics, Seneca seems like he had the most fun. He certainly had the most friends. There's a thing we hear about Seneca, actually, from one of his critics, that he had over 600 tables for some of the parties he would throw. 600 tables, I mean, that's a lot of friends, right? I couldn't fill 600 tables. That's almost Gatsby-esque, I've said before. Maybe that's too much. Maybe it's a knock against Seneca. But I guess what we're saying is that Seneca was a social guy. He was friends. Marcus Aurelius is famously seen at the Colosseum, you know, writing down philosophy notes or reading, and more importantly, was writing those notes to himself, right? Marcus Aurelius doesn't publish any work, doesn't give any lectures.

• 1:29Ryan Holiday?

  For him, philosophy is this private affair. But Seneca, as we see in Letters from a Stoic, which, if you haven't read, you absolutely should, Seneca is writing letters to his friend, to his friend Lucilius. And I like that idea. I like the idea of the Stoic as a friend, the Stoic as a person with relationships, the Stoic person who's connected to others, who cares about others, who has fun with others. And that's what we're going to talk about in today's episode, actually, straight from the horse's mouth, straight from Seneca. Sort of. Tim Ferriss published this audiobook a few years ago called The Tao of Seneca. It's a compilation of Seneca's letters. The Penguin edition physical that I love is Letters of a Stoic. That's the one I carry at the Painted Porch, which I'll link in today's

• 2:13Ryan Holiday?

  episode. Tim actually has a PDF of the book for free at tim.blog/seneca and you can get his audiobook on Audible, which I've recommended to many, many people and we've talked about here before. I'll link to that in today's show notes. Thanks to Tim for sharing this. But in today's letter, we're going to be talking about Seneca. Some of Seneca's letters will be read to us about the basis upon which friendship is formed and the value that friendship adds to our existence and why we should not use friends but be a great friend. Marcus himself talks about the dangers of false friendship. Well, Seneca is talking about how to be a true friend, how to be a good friend, and how Stoicism can make

• 2:57Ryan Holiday?

  us a great friend. And hopefully, Seneca's life is an illustration to us of that as well. So here is an excerpt from The Tao of Seneca, produced by Tim Ferriss. You can get that free PDF at tim.blog/seneca. You can get the audiobook version of it. I'll link to it in today's show notes. And then you can pick up Letters from a Stoic if you want to read it at the Painted Porch. The Penguin edition is the one that I love, although there's several different ones. Loeb has all the letters. I like the Penguin one because it's a collection of the best ones. But enjoy this excerpt and let's meditate on friendship today.

• 3:40Speaker 01

  Letter nine, on philosophy and friendship.

• 3:48Speaker 01

  You desire to know whether Epicurus is right when, in one of his letters, he rebukes those who hold that the wise man is self-sufficient and for that reason does not stand in need of friendships. This is the objection raised by Epicurus against Stilbo and those who believe that the supreme good is a soul which is insensible to feeling.

• 4:12Speaker 01

  We are bound to meet with a double meaning if we try to express the Greek term "lack of feeling" summarily in a single word, rendering it by the Latin word "impatientia", for it may be understood in the meaning the opposite to that which we wish it to have. What we mean to express is a soul which rejects any sensation of evil. But people will interpret the idea as that of a soul which can endure no evil. Consider therefore whether it is not better to say "a soul that cannot be harmed", or "a soul entirely beyond the realm of suffering". There is this difference between ourselves and the other school.

• 4:54Speaker 01

  Our ideal wise man feels his troubles but overcomes them. Their wise man does not even feel them. But we and they alike hold this idea that the wise man is self-sufficient. Nevertheless, he desires friends, neighbors and associates, no matter how much he is sufficient unto himself. And mark how self-sufficient he is, for on occasion he can be content with a part of himself. If he lose a hand through disease or war, or if some accident puts out one or both of his eyes, he will be satisfied with what is left, taking as much pleasure in his impaired and maimed body as he took when it was sound.

• 5:39Speaker 01

  But while he does not pine for these parts if they are missing, he prefers not to lose them. In this sense, the wise man is self-sufficient, that he can do without friends, not that he desires to do without them. When I say "can", I mean this: he endures the loss of a friend with equanimity. But he need never lack friends, for it lies in his own control how soon he shall make good a loss.

• 6:10Speaker 01

  Just as Phidias, if he lose a statue, can straightway carve another, even so our master in the art of making friendships can fill the place of a friend he has lost. If you ask how one can make oneself a friend quickly, I will tell you, provided we are agreed that I may pay my debt at once and square the account, so far as this letter is concerned. Hicato says: "I can show you a filter, compounded without drugs, herbs, or any which is incantation. If you would be loved, love." Now there is great pleasure, not only in maintaining old and established friendships, but also in beginning and acquiring new ones.

• 6:56Speaker 01

  There is the same difference between winning a new friend and having already won him, as there is between the farmer who sows and the farmer who reaps. The philosopher Attalus used to say: "It is more pleasant to make than to keep a friend, as it is more pleasant to the artist to paint than to have finished painting."

• 7:18Speaker 01

  When one is busy and absorbed in one's work, the very absorption affords great delight; but when one has withdrawn one's hand from the completed masterpiece, the pleasure is not so keen. Henceforth, it is the fruits of his art that he enjoys. It was the art itself that he enjoyed while he was painting. In the case of our children, their young manhood yields the more abundant fruits, but their infancy was sweeter.

• 7:49Speaker 01

  Let us now return to the question. The wise man, I say, self-sufficient though he be, nevertheless desires friends if only for the purpose of practising friendship, in order that his noble qualities may not lie dormant. Not, however, for the purpose mentioned by Epicurus in the letter quoted above: "That there may be some one to sit by him when he is ill, to help him when he is in prison, or in want."

• 8:18Speaker 01

  But that he may have someone by whose sick bed he himself may sit, someone a prisoner in hostile hands, whom he himself may set free. He who regards himself only, and enters upon friendships for this reason, reckons wrongly. The end will be like the beginning. He has made friends with one who might assist him out of bondage. At the first rattle of the chain, such a friend will desert him. These are the so-called fair-weather friendships. One who is chosen for the sake of utility will be satisfactory only so long as he is useful. Hence, prosperous men are blockaded by troops of friends, but

• 9:02Speaker 01

  those who have failed stand amid vast loneliness, their friends fleeing from the very crisis which is to test their worth. Hence also, we notice those many shameful cases of persons who, through fear, desert, or betray. The beginning and the end cannot but harmonize. He who begins to be your friend because it pays, will also cease because it pays. A man will be attracted by some reward offered in exchange for his friendship, if he be attracted by aught in friendship other than friendship itself.

• 9:41Speaker 01

  For what purpose, then, do I make a man my friend? In order to have someone for whom I may die, whom I may follow into exile, against whose death I may stake my own life and pay the pledge to. The friendship which you portray is a bargain and not a friendship. It regards convenience only, and looks to the results. Beyond question, the feeling of a lover has in it something akin to friendship. One might call it friendship run mad. But, though this is true, does anyone love for the sake of gain, or promotion, or renown?

• 10:21Speaker 01

  Pure love, careless of all other things, kindles the soul with desire for the beautiful object, not without the hope of a return of the affection.

• 10:43Speaker 01

  What then? Can a cause which is more honorable produce a passion that is base? You may retort. We are now discussing the question whether friendship is to be cultivated for its own sake. On the contrary, nothing more urgently requires demonstration, for if friendship is to be sought for its own sake, he may seek it, who is self-sufficient. How then, you ask, does he seek it? Precisely as he seeks an object of great beauty, not attracted to it by desire for gain, nor yet frightened by the instability of fortune.

• 11:24Speaker 01

  One who seeks friendship for favorable occasions strips it of all its nobility. "The wise man is self-sufficient." This phrase, my dear Lucilius, is incorrectly explained by many, for they withdraw the wise man from the world and force him to dwell within his own skin. But, we must mark with care what the sentence signifies and how far it applies: "The wise man is sufficient unto himself for a happy existence, but not for mere existence; for he needs many helps towards mere existence, but for a happy existence he needs only a

• 12:05Speaker 01

  sound and upright soul, one that despises fortune." I should like also to state to you one of the distinctions of Chrysippus, who declares that the wise man is in want of nothing and yet needs many things. On the other hand, he says, "Nothing is needed by the fool, for he does not understand how to use anything, but he is in want of everything."

• 12:35Speaker 01

  The wise man needs hands, eyes, and many things that are necessary for his daily use. But he is in want of nothing, for want implies a necessity, and nothing is necessary to the wise man. Therefore, although he is self-sufficient, yet he has need of friends. He craves as many friends as possible, not, however, that he may live happily, for he will live happily even without friends. The supreme good calls for no practical aids from outside. It is developed at home, and arises entirely within itself. If the good seeks any portion of itself from without, it begins to be subject to the play of fortune.

• 13:21Speaker 01

  People may say: "But what sort of existence will the wise man have, if he be left friendless when thrown into prison, or when stranded in some foreign nation, or when delayed on a long voyage, or when out upon a lonely shore?"

• 13:39Speaker 01

  His life will be like that of Jupiter, who, amid the dissolution of the world, when the gods are confounded together and nature rests for a space from her work, can retire into himself and give himself over to his own thoughts. In some such way as this the sage will act. He will retreat into himself and live with himself. As long as he is allowed to order his affairs according to his judgment, he is self-sufficient and marries a wife. He is self-sufficient and brings up children. He is self-sufficient, and yet could not live if he had to live without the society of man.

• 14:21Speaker 01

  Natural promptings, and not his own selfish needs, draw him into friendships. For just as other things have for us an inherent attractiveness, so has friendship. As we hate solitude and crave society, as nature draws men to each other, so in this matter also there is an attraction which makes us desirous of friendship.

• 14:47Speaker 01

  Nevertheless, though the sage may love his friends dearly, often comparing them with himself and putting them ahead of himself, yet all the good will be limited to his own being, and he will speak the words which were spoken by the very Stillbo whom Epicurus criticizes in his letter. For Stillbo, after his country was captured and his children and his wife lost, as he emerged from the general desolation alone and yet happy, spoke as follows to Demetrius, called Sacker of cities, because of the destruction he brought upon them, in answer to the question whether he had lost anything. "I have all my goods with me.

• 15:30Speaker 01

  There is a brave and stout-hearted man for you. The enemy conquered, but Stillbo conquered his conqueror. I have lost nothing." Aye, he forced Demetrius to wonder whether he himself had conquered after all. "My goods are all with me." In other words, he deemed nothing that might be taken from him to be a good. We marvel at certain animals because they can pass through fire and suffer no bodily harm, but how much more marvelous is a man who has marched forth unhurt and unscathed

• 16:12Speaker 01

  through fire and sword and devastation? Do you understand now how much easier it is to conquer a whole tribe than to conquer one man? This saying of Stillbo makes common ground with Stoicism. The Stoic also can carry his goods unimpaired through cities that have been burned to ashes, for he is self-sufficient. Such are the bounds which he sets to his own happiness. But you must not think that our school alone can utter noble words. Epicurus himself, the reviler of Stillbo, spoke similar language.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Put it down to my credit, though I have already wiped out my debt for the present day, he says, "Whoever does not regard what he has as most ample wealth is unhappy, though he be master of the whole world."

• 17:12Speaker 01

  Or, if the following seems to you a more suitable phrase, for we must try to render the meaning and not the mere words. A man may rule the world and still be unhappy if he does not feel that he is supremely happy. In order, however, that you may know that these sentiments are universal, suggested, of course, by nature, you will find in one of the comic poets this verse. Unblessed is he who thinks himself unblessed. Or, what does your condition matter if it is bad in your own eyes? You may say, what then?

• 17:56Speaker 01

  If yonder man, rich by base means, and yonder man, lord of many but slave of more, shall call themselves happy, will their own opinion make them happy? It matters not what one says, what one feels. Also, not how one feels on one particular day, but how one feels at all times. There is no reason, however, why you should fear that this great privilege will fall into unworthy hands. Only the wise man is pleased with his own. Folly is ever troubled with weariness of itself. Farewell.

• 18:36Ryan Holiday?

  Thanks for listening to the Daily Stoic Podcast. Just a reminder, we've got signed copies of all my books in the Daily Stoic store. You can get them personalized, you can get them sent to a friend. The Obstacle is the Way, Ego is the Enemy, Stillness is the Key, the leather-bound edition of the Daily Stoic. We have them all in the Daily Stoic store, which you can check out at store.dailystoic.com.