Seneca · a new plain-English translation from the Latin
[1] What you're asking me was clear to me - I had the matter learned by heart - on its own account; but I haven't tested my memory in a long time, so it doesn't follow me easily. What happens to books stuck together from sitting unused, I feel has happened to me: the mind needs to be unfolded, and whatever has been laid up in it must be shaken out from time to time, so that it's ready whenever use demands it. So let's put this off for now; it calls for a good deal of work, a good deal of care. As soon as I hope for a longer stay in one place, I'll take the matter in hand. [2] Some things you can write even riding in a gig; others require a couch, leisure, and privacy. Nonetheless, even on these busy days something should be done - and indeed the whole of it. New business will never fail to turn up: we sow it ourselves, and so out of one thing many come forth. Then we grant ourselves postponements: 'once I've finished this, I'll throw myself into it wholeheartedly,' and 'once I've settled this annoying business, I'll devote myself to study.' [3] Philosophy isn't to be pursued when you have free time - you're to make free time so that you can pursue philosophy; everything else is to be neglected so that we can attend to this, for which no amount of time is enough, even if life is stretched from childhood to the furthest limits of a human lifespan. It makes little difference whether you drop philosophy or merely suspend it; for it doesn't stay where it was interrupted, but like things stretched taut that snap apart, it springs back to its starting point once it breaks off from continuity. We must resist our engagements - they're not to be untangled but pushed aside. No time, in fact, is too unsuitable for beneficial study; and yet many people fail to study amid the very things for which studying is needed. [4] 'Something will come up to get in the way.' Not for the man whose mind is glad and eager in every undertaking: in those still imperfect, joy is cut through with interruptions, but the sage's joy is woven seamlessly, broken by no cause, no turn of fortune; he is tranquil always and everywhere. For he doesn't depend on anything outside himself, and doesn't wait on fortune's favor or another man's. His happiness is his own household affair; it would leave his mind if it entered from outside - it is born there. [5] Occasionally something from outside comes along to remind him of his mortality, but it's a light thing, scraping only the surface of the skin. He is brushed by some inconvenience, I grant you, but that greatest good of his stands fixed. What I mean is this: there are some outward inconveniences, just as in a body that is strong and sound there sometimes break out a few pustules and small sores, but there is no sickness deep within. [6] This, I say, is the difference between the man of perfected wisdom and one still advancing, the same as between a healthy man and one emerging from a serious, long illness, for whom a lighter relapse counts as health: the latter, if he isn't careful, is soon weighed down again and rolls back into the same state; the sage cannot relapse, and indeed cannot fall ill any further. For the body, good health is only a matter of time - even the doctor, when he restores it, doesn't guarantee it, for he is often called back to the very same patient who summoned him before. The mind, once healed, is healed entirely. [7] I'll tell you how you can recognize a healthy mind: if it is content with itself, if it trusts itself, if it knows that all the wishes of mortal men, all the favors given and sought, carry no weight at all in a happy life. For whatever something can be added to is imperfect; whatever something can be taken from is not permanent - and the man whose joy is to be everlasting should rejoice in what is his own. But everything the crowd gapes after flows back and forth: fortune gives nothing as an outright possession. Yet even these chance gifts delight us only when reason has tempered and blended them - it is reason that even lends worth to external things, whose enjoyment is thankless for the greedy. [8] Attalus used to use this image: 'Have you ever seen a dog snapping with open mouth at scraps of bread or meat thrown by its master? Whatever it catches it swallows whole at once, and its mouth still hangs open in hope of what's to come. The same thing happens to us: whatever fortune tosses to us as we wait for it, we gulp down at once without any pleasure, already straining and gaping toward the next snatch.' This doesn't happen to the sage: he is full; even if something comes his way, he takes it calmly and sets it aside; he enjoys the greatest joy, continuous, his own. [9] Someone has good intentions, has made progress, but is still a long way short of the summit: this man is thrown down and lifted up by turns, now raised to the sky, now brought back down to earth. For the untrained and unskilled there's no end to the plunging; they fall into that Epicurean chaos, an empty void without limit. [10] There is yet a third kind - those who are within reach of wisdom, though they haven't actually touched it, yet have it in view and, so to speak, within striking distance: these are not shaken, nor do they slip back; they aren't yet on dry land, but they're already in port. [11] So then, since the differences between the highest and the lowest are so great, and since even those in the middle have their own wave to follow, along with the huge danger of sliding back to worse things, we mustn't indulge our engagements. They must be shut out: if they get in even once, they'll put others in their place. Let's resist their very beginnings: better that they not start than that we have to stop them. Farewell.