Stop Wasting Time on Trivialities

In his twenty-third letter to Lucilius, Seneca opens with some meta snark that is relatable to anyone who has ever been trapped in a banal conversation at a boring cocktail party. “You were probably thinking I was going to open this letter with idle chit chat about the weather,” Seneca begins, “but I’m not, because who has the time?”Certainly not Seneca, who spends the rest of the letter talking about the joy that comes from the study of philosophy and the earnest pursuit of the art of living. Important ideas. None of these trivialities—the weather, ‘what have you been up to lately?,’ ‘how’s your mother?,’ ‘reading anything good?’—that he says are the refuge of people who are “at a loss for topics of conversation.”Topics like philosophy, life, love, death, virtue, fate and fortune. Real stuff. Life is short. You see and speak to your friends rarely enough as it is. New connections, as they happen these days, are rarer still. Let us not fritter that time and opportunity away on banalities. Let us push through the nerves of newness, through the superficialities of introduction or reacquaintance, to greater understanding and deeper connection. The weather. Your mom and dad. Traffic. These are trivialities of conversation designed to create quick, easy connection. To show us that we have something in common despite being strangers or not having seen each other in some time. But we are already connected. We already know these things before we say a word to each other. We are sharing the same space, so we have experienced the same weather. We are humans, so we all have mothers and fathers. We each got to this cocktail party from somewhere else, so we know what it took to get here. These little factoids are what put the trivia in trivialities. They are information, they are not knowledge or insight or wisdom. They are not fake, per se, but they are fruitless. They lack the abundance of the kind of real conversations Seneca had with Lucilius and countless others in his life. So get real. Speak the truth. Ask the uncomfortable questions. Share. You’ll be glad you did. See 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.

• 0:06Ryan Holiday?

  Welcome to The Daily Stoic, where each day we read a short passage designed to help you cultivate the strength, insight, wisdom necessary for living the good life. Each one of these passages is based on the 2,000-year-old philosophy that has guided some of history's greatest men and women. For more, you can visit us at dailystoic.com. Stop wasting time on trivialities. In his 23rd letter to Lucilius, Seneca opens with some snark that is relatable to anyone who has ever spent time at a boring cocktail party, or of course is old enough to remember writing and receiving actual letters. Basically, Seneca says, "You were probably thinking I was going to open this letter with idle

• 0:51Ryan Holiday?

  chit-chat about the weather, but I'm not, because who has the time?" In fact, he says these trivialities—the weather, "What have you been up to lately? How's your mother? Reading anything good?"—that they are the refuge of people who are at a loss for topics of conversation. Thankfully, that is not Seneca, and neither should it be you. As it happens, the rest of the letter is about the joy that comes from the study of philosophy and the earnest pursuit of the art of living. Important stuff, but that seemingly inconsequential line at the top is worth thinking about, too. "Life is short. You see and speak to your friends rarely enough, as it is. Human contact, as it happens

• 1:32Ryan Holiday?

  these days, is rare enough as well. Let us not fritter that time and opportunity away because we are too nervous to get to the point. Let us not let superficialities block us from exploring the depths below. Get real, speak the truth, ask the uncomfortable questions, share. You'll be glad you did." If you like the podcast that we do here, and you want to get it via email every morning, you can sign up at dailystoic.com/email.