This is How to Die By Seneca
Defiance works because it renders all threats and risks powerless.
Death here means cessation of life or the losses, break ups, and other life events that’ll involve letting go of our fears and embracing a new way of life.
It’s a shivering plunge into the abyss.
“Those who have learned how to die have unlearned how to be slaves. It is a power above, and beyond, all other powers.”
Defiance works because it renders all threats and risks powerless.
Death is the greatest threat of them all. It’s also the ultimate risk.
Conquering its fear makes you free and puts you in a powerful position to choose how you’d like to go out.
You can choose to die with courage — declining to complain or feel pity for yourself.
You can choose not to sell your soul. To protect your vision and voice at any cost.
You can choose to die with greatness of spirit and magnanimity, having helped as many people as you could with your power.
Not to say you’ll be fully composed when death comes, even Cicero ran away at first before accepting his death sentence with grace. But you won’t lose your wits for longer or as much as most people would.
“Death too has a bad reputation; but let’s not allow that to harm it in our eyes. None of those who bring charges against it have ever tried it, and it’s impudent to condemn what you know nothing of. But you do know, at least, how many have found death helpful; how many it has released from tortures, poverty, lamentation, punishments, fatigue. We are in no one’s power, if death is in our power.”
How many times have you handled something you had imagined dreadful so well you even surprised yourself?
Could you apply the same thought process to a change you have to accept? What of death?
“Nothing can be of such great benefit to you, in your quest for moderation in all things, than to frequently contemplate the brevity of one’s life span, and its uncertainty. Whatever you undertake, cast your eyes on death.”
The shortness of life helps you clarify your priorities.
You get to be more conscious about where your energy and attention flow, being ruthless enough to ensure they don’t leak out into negativity or futility — but toward progress and power.
You find the time and intensity necessary to bring your goals and projects to life.
You become more intentional with the time you spend with your loved ones.
You refuse to die, as Musonius Rufus said, “as someone quite ordinary.”
It’s through this wisdom that thinking of death benefits you. You get to live. Not exist.
“It’s as silly to fear death as to fear old age, for just as age follows youth, so death follows age. Whoever doesn’t want to die, doesn’t want to live. Life is granted with death as its limitation; it’s the universal endpoint. To fear it is madness, since fear is for things we’re unsure of; certainties are merely awaited. Death’s compulsion is both fair and unopposed, and who can complain of sharing a condition that no one does not share? The first step toward fairness is evenhandedness.”
The inevitability of death is better handled through the total love and acceptance of its unfolding.
It’s impossible to live well. To make use of each moment — if you don’t know it might end without warning.
“We don’t fear death but the contemplation of death. Death itself is always the same distance away; if it is to be feared, then it should be feared always. What time is there that’s exempt from death?”
Seneca here reveals what bothers us when we think of death.
It’s not its happening but our imagination of how we’ll suffer because of it, what awaits us on the other end, and how we’ll no longer enjoy the pleasures we have at present.
We should therefore aim not to worsen the situation by controlling our imagination.
“My days have this one goal, as do my nights; this is my task and my study, to put an end to old evils. I make it so that my day is a small version of my whole life. I don’t, by Hercules, grab at it as though it were my last one, but I look upon it as though it could be my last.”
You can’t procrastinate if you don’t have enough time to waste.
Think of the last time you worked through a deadline; you poured every minute into your work even if you didn’t want to. Even if you’d rather do something else.
Similarly, taking each day as a complete life in itself ensures you’ll keep the promises you make to yourself and enjoy satisfaction and confidence before slipping into that sweet good night.
I wish you a great week ahead,
Antonius Veritus.
What I’m listening to:
Thank you. A message Americans need to hear.
Time to embody these senecianism 🌹