Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living

CHAPTER 10

How to Be Authentic and Contribute to Society

THE EPICUREAN GARDEN VS. THE STOIC COSMOPOLIS

Stoicism became the most widespread and successful philosophy of the Roman Empire because it promised a sense of inner tranquility in a stressful world that seemed, as in our own time, dangerously out of control. But Stoicism wasn’t the only philosophy that promised inner tranquility to its followers. The Epicureans, named after their founder Epicurus (341–270 BC), made the same claim. And like earlier Greek philosophers, both the Stoics and Epicureans were in search of eudaimonia or lasting happiness.

There are some areas in which Epicurean and Stoic thinking overlap. But it’s impossible to reconcile other ideas from the two schools because they’re just too far apart. In about the first thirty letters Seneca wrote to Lucilius, he includes a saying from Epicurus at the end of the letter. These sayings or epigrams are in perfect harmony with Stoic teachings and cover topics like the importance of simple living and how to achieve wealth through frugality. Even though Seneca considered the Epicureans to be “the opposing camp,” he was extremely open-minded when acknowledging the value of genuine wisdom, whatever its source. As he liked to point out to his friend Lucilius, good ideas are the “common property” of humanity, regardless of who expressed them.

Like the modern meaning of the word “stoic,” popular stereotypes and the development of language have been unfair to the Epicureans too. Today epicurean refers to someone who seeks out pleasure, like a gourmet through fine food. While it’s true that the Epicureans did make “pleasure” the foundation and goal of their philosophy, they were far from being hedonists. In fact, “pleasure” for them only meant living a life that was free from pain. And when it came to gourmet dining, nothing could be further from the truth. Epicurus himself mainly ate bread and water, and if he ever had a little cheese to go along with it, he considered it to be a feast.1

While the Stoics and Epicureans both sought mental tranquility in life, their views about the universe were entirely different. The Stoics saw the universe as resembling an intelligent organism, of which all living things, including us, are a part. The patterns we see in nature, they maintained, are a reflection of nature’s intelligence, in the same way that your hand is a manifestation of biological intelligence. By contrast, the Epicureans believed that the universe was made up of atoms—or tiny particles of matter—that collided randomly and stuck together by chance. Let’s stress those two words, just for a moment: randomly and chance. While atomism is an interesting idea, it doesn’t explain the kind of order and patterns we see in nature or biological life, which is very far from random.2

We discover another vast difference between the two schools in their ideas about how people should contribute to society. When Epicurus founded his philosophical school in Athens, he bought a piece of land outside the city, which was called “the Garden.” Epicurus’s students would hang out at the Garden, which resembled a hippy commune. That’s because the Epicureans lived a life in common, but as social dropouts. While the goal was to achieve peace of mind, in practice that meant disengaging from anything that might upset the soul, including the frustrations arising from marriage, having children, and getting involved in politics. As if to sum up his belief in social disengagement, Epicurus famously advised, “Live unnoticed.”3

For the Stoics, the Epicureans’ dropout culture raised serious ethical questions but also inspired opportunities for humor. Epictetus, for example, had a very sharp wit, which is still funny today. Joking to his students one day, he asked them, “Can you imagine a city of Epicureans? ‘I won’t marry’ says one. Another says, ‘Nor will I, because one shouldn’t marry!’ ‘No children either! Nor should we perform any civic duties!’”4

By contrast, the Stoics strongly emphasized the importance of civic engagement because they understood that we’re born to be social animals. For the Stoics, we belong to two different cities or two different commonwealths. The first commonwealth is the city or community where we were born (or where we now happen to live). The second commonwealth is the cosmopolis, the “world-city” or “community of the cosmos,” which encompasses the entire world and all of humanity. Because of this brotherhood of humanity of which we’re a part, the Stoics taught, it’s our duty to improve society—not by dropping out and joining a commune, but by actively serving our local communities and society as a whole. That’s why so many Stoics, like Seneca and Marcus Aurelius, were statesmen or public servants throughout the Roman Empire. Stoicism called upon them to improve the human condition to the best of their abilities.

For the Stoics, living an authentic life means contributing to society in some way that will benefit others. But since people are different, that service to others will take various forms. We’re not, after all, stamped out from a single cookie cutter. Because of that, the first step in living with authenticity is to understand yourself and your unique nature.

KNOW YOURSELF

Each person acquires his character for himself, but accident controls his duties.

—Seneca, Letters 47.15

Inscribed on the wall of the temple of Apollo at Delphi in ancient Greece was the famous saying, “Know yourself.” While this relates to every aspect of life, it very strongly applies to the question “How can I live authentically and contribute to society?” Because each person is different, we’re all best suited for many different tasks and occupations. And then there’s the added factor of chance or Fortune that’s thrown into the mix. As Seneca explained, while we’re all responsible for the quality of our inner characters, what each person does for a living is not entirely under our control.

Even though we don’t have full control over our professional careers or what we’re able to achieve in life, we should certainly strive for the best—or strive for the best work that’s suited for us. Because of this, Seneca writes, “we must first examine ourselves,” and then consider what we’d like to undertake. As he explains, we must understand ourselves carefully because people often think they can accomplish more than they’re able to.5 Of course, the opposite is often true. Sometimes people accomplish less than they could, simply because they doubt their abilities.

When discussing these things, Seneca seems to be following the thoughts of an earlier Roman Stoic philosopher, Panaetius (c. 185–c. 110 BC). In his writings, Panaetius described the “four roles” (or four personae) that contribute to a person’s place in society, including our work and career choices.6 Rather than calling these “roles,” though, let’s call them factors.

The first factor that influences us is our universal nature as human beings, which, for a Stoic, means the fact that we’re rational beings, which allows us to understand the world and act in good ways. The second factor that influences us are all the qualities that nature assigns to us as individuals, which vary widely. As Seneca noted, the qualities given to us by birth will tend to stick with us throughout life.7 People vary enormously in their physical differences. For example, some people are athletic by nature, and others aren’t. But there are even greater differences in people’s psychological dispositions, personality traits, and the wide range of talents we all possess.8 As Seneca notes,

Some people are too shy for politics, which requires a bold appearance. Others are too arrogant for the royal court. Some cannot keep their anger in check, and any feeling of irritation leads them to say reckless things. Others cannot control their humor and refrain from dangerous jokes. For all such people, retirement is more useful than public employment: an arrogant and impatient nature should avoid provocations to outspokenness that will only bring harm.9

In addition to understanding our individual traits and capacities, a third factor that affects us is chance, which is beyond our control: for example, the facts of our upbringing, whether our parents were wealthy or poor, whether we had good or bad teachers, and many other things of that kind. The fourth and final factor is our own will or personal agency: our intention and decision-making. What we decide to apply ourselves to, and the energy with which we pursue our intentions, will all make a significant impact on our careers and how we contribute to society.

In the Stoic view, we must understand our traits so that we don’t struggle against nature and try to pursue something beyond our capabilities. It’s just not possible to live authentically, with self-awareness, if you don’t understand who you are. Finally, it’s impossible to live authentically or happily if you try to copy someone else while ignoring your own nature.10

As we can see, the Roman Stoics emphasized our universal nature as human beings, or what is common to everyone. But they also recognized the importance of our traits as individuals, which are also given to us by nature. To live happy and fulfilling lives in society, we need to pay attention to both. In this way, the Stoics extended the idea of “following nature” to include our personal traits.

SELF-CONSISTENCY

Above all, strive to be consistent with yourself.

—Seneca, Letters 35.4

For Seneca, living with authenticity implies being one person with a stable personality. Without that solid sense of self, a person changes his or her intentions like the shifting winds. “I don’t mean,” Seneca explains, “that a wise person should always walk in the exactly same way, but that he should follow a single path.”11 This idea relates strongly to Seneca’s metaphor that, when traveling, it’s important to have a real destination rather than just wandering about randomly.

Consistency, and having some kind of “destination,” is a by-product of having a real philosophy of life. A person with a solid character will be one person instead of many, have an aim in life, and a corresponding sense of intention. But many people aren’t sure what they really want until the moment they desire it. As Seneca puts it, many people are not guided by their intentions, just “driven by impulse.”12 Elsewhere, he illustrates this idea with a funny account of what we today might call neurotic behavior:

There isn’t anyone who doesn’t change his plans and desires every day. One minute he wants a wife, the next moment only a girlfriend. One minute he wants to rule like a king, then he acts more obliging than the lowest servant. One minute he acts so grandly that he attracts envy, then he acts more humble than the most self-effacing. At one moment he scatters money grandly, and the next moment he steals it.

This is the clearest sign of a mind that lacks awareness: it constantly changes its identity. In my view, there is nothing more shameful than a mind that is inconsistent with itself. Consider it a great accomplishment to act as one person. But only the wise play a single role. The rest of us wear many masks. One minute we will seem frugal and serious, the next moment wasteful and silly. We keep changing our characters, taking on a new role that is its opposite. You should, then, demand this of yourself: play a single character until the curtain falls.13

One mark of a good character is that “it is content with itself and thus endures over time. But a bad character is unreliable: it often changes, not for the sake of the better, but just for the sake of being different.”14 Because of this, Seneca urges Lucilius to “adopt, once and for all, a single norm to live by, and make your entire life conform to this standard.”15

Another way to live with authenticity and consistency is to present yourself to the world as you really are. Seneca writes about how people wear masks in public and engage in acting: once in public and before an audience, we present ourselves in a different way than we’d normally behave at home. This often involves a bit of pretense and display. The problem is that once someone constructs a false persona, adjusted for public display, it creates anxiety due to the likelihood of one’s image being discovered as false. That could result in a shock for some, like photos of well-known Hollywood actresses shown without their makeup on. As Seneca notes, “life cannot be happy or free from anxiety for those who constantly live behind a mask,” and “it is better to be scorned for one’s natural state than to be tormented by constant pretense.”16

Finally, to live with authenticity, our actual deeds should match our words and our beliefs. As our modern sayings go, “Walk the talk” and “Practice what you preach.” Seneca was especially critical of professional philosophers in this regard because they often talk a good game but don’t live their lives accordingly. “Philosophy is not a trick to catch the public eye,” Seneca wrote, “nor is it devised for show. It’s not about words but actions.”17 In short, “Let us say what we feel and feel what we say. Let our words be in harmony with our actual lives. A person fulfills his promise when the person we see and the person we hear are one and the same.”18

INTELLECTUAL FREEDOM

We should not, like sheep, simply follow the herd that has gone before us.

—Seneca, On the Happy Life 1.3

One of the ways that Seneca himself lived with authenticity was through his deep embrace of intellectual freedom. This quality made him one of the best thinkers of his time. It also makes him feel entirely modern. While many people today embrace intellectual freedom in a slightly defiant or arrogant way, Seneca’s approach was different: he embraced intellectual freedom out of humility. In other words, he realized that human knowledge is limited and uncertain. He realized that, over the centuries, new discoveries will allow us to understand the world and the universe much more deeply. Because scientific understanding evolves, we need to be open-minded. Also, through critical thinking, we ourselves can contribute to the expansion of human knowledge. As he notes, we and future ages will add knowledge to what we have inherited from those who lived before us.19 For example, writing about scientific discovery, Seneca observes:

There will come a day when careful research over a long period will bring to light discoveries that are now hidden. A single lifetime, even one devoted entirely to astronomy, is not enough for the investigation of such great matters. . . . A time will come when our descendants will be amazed that we did not know such obvious facts.20

As he beautifully describes it, earlier thinkers “opened the way” for future discoveries rather than having exhausted the possibilities of human knowledge.21 For Seneca, this applied as much to Stoicism as it did to astronomy and other sciences. Because Stoicism is a philosophy and not a religion, it’s based on arguments, not beliefs. If you find Stoicism’s arguments to be credible, by finding ways to test them, perhaps you’ll find it to be useful as a philosophy of life. But a real Stoic would never ask you to take anything on faith. Maybe that’s one reason why Stoic philosophy appeals to many people today who classify themselves as secular humanists.

Not surprisingly, Seneca, as an independent thinker, was sometimes critical of the earlier Stoics. For example, Seneca pointed out problems in some arguments of Zeno, the school’s founder. He also didn’t hesitate to criticize the logic of Chrysippus (c. 279–c. 206 BC), one of the most influential early Stoics, as being overly abstract and lacking in force.22 For Seneca, being a philosopher means that a person is a critical thinker and not just a believer. While he mostly followed and agreed with the earlier Stoics, he wrote, “I also allow myself to make new discoveries, alterations, and to reject things when needed. I agree with them, but I’m not subservient.”23

While very few people have noticed this, Seneca did extend Stoic thought in significant ways. He carried it forward by combining it with his own profound insights into human psychology and human motivations. Earlier Stoics understood that false beliefs lead to psychological suffering. But Seneca was the first Stoic to explain, in much greater depth, how those false beliefs are assimilated through socialization and social conditioning.

In a very memorable passage, Seneca explains that he will walk in the footsteps of his predecessors while remaining open to new discoveries:

I will indeed use the old road, but if I discover one that is shorter and more smooth to travel, I’ll open up a new path. Those who made these discoveries before us are not our masters but our guides. Truth lies open to all—it has not been monopolized. And there is still much to discover for those who will come after us.24

STOIC PERSISTENCE: “BECOMING INVINCIBLE”

There are a thousand cases of persistence overcoming every obstacle: nothing is difficult when the mind decides to endure.

—Seneca, On Anger 2.12.4

Let’s imagine that you understand yourself and your capabilities. You’ve surveyed the project or career you want to pursue, and everything looks good. It seems to be a perfect fit for your talents and abilities. But then when you press ahead, the project fails.

While the Stoics advocated patience and endurance, I’ve learned there are times when moving on to something else might be the best rational choice. Moving on could be another way to show persistence, another way to turn adversity into something positive, or might be justified by other reasons. Being persistent doesn’t mean you have to be a masochist, pounding your head against the same wall, day after day. Similarly, it doesn’t mean that it’s virtuous or a good idea to keep pursuing something that might not even be in your best long-term interests. Being persistent means that you keep moving forward or “making progress” in general. The specifics will always vary on a case-by-case basis.

Endurance, for the Stoics, was an essential human quality. Seneca wrote that “even after a poor harvest, one should sow seed again; often, what was lost to poor soil due to continued barrenness has been made good by one year’s fertility.” Similarly, “After a shipwreck, sailors try the sea again. . . . If we were forced to give up everything that causes trouble, life itself would stop moving forward.”25

The Stoics believed that nothing external can harm a wise person who possesses virtue, as long as his or her virtue stays intact. Seneca wrote a long work on this, which you can still read. It’s now called On the Constancy of the Wise Person, but it was initially titled On How the Wise Person Receives Neither Injury Nor Insult.26 Being invincible doesn’t mean that a Stoic isn’t vulnerable in a physical sense. As Seneca pointed out, even a Stoic sage can be beaten, lose a limb, or experience extreme physical pain. For a Stoic, those would be unfortunate events but not an injury. The only way to really injure a Stoic would be to damage his virtue, goodness, or character.

To illustrate persistence, Seneca uses the example of someone at the Olympic games who wears out an opponent through sheer patience. (The Latin word patientia means “endurance.”) Similarly, in terms of mental endurance, the wise person, through long training, acquires the patience to wear out, or simply ignore, any attack on his character. Epictetus also uses an analogy from athletic competition. He explains that even if you should falter in an athletic match, no one can prevent you from standing up again and resuming the fight. Even if you should fail at that particular match, you can continue to train and enter the contest again. Then, if you should finally win the victory, it would be as though you had never given up.27 Sometimes, just being able to keep making progress is a huge victory in itself.

Stoics, like everyone else, will experience adversity and misfortune. What make Stoics invincible is that they don’t give up. Stoics will make the best of whatever circumstances are at hand, even amid failure, disaster, or financial difficulties. If knocked to the ground, Stoics will stand up, brush themselves off, keep training, and keep moving forward.

HOW TO CONTRIBUTE TO SOCIETY

The Romans loved a question that originally came from the Greek philosophical schools. They restated it like this: What is better—a life devoted to serving the Roman government or a life of leisure, devoted to philosophy?

Epicurus had said that a wise person should avoid taking political office if at all possible, since that would threaten a person’s mental tranquility. By contrast, the early Greek Stoics said that a wise person should hold political office unless it was impossible, because politics gives the philosopher a way to contribute to society.28

Of course, for us today the actual situation is far more complex and nuanced than this kind of simple black-and-white dichotomy. During ancient times, one of the surest ways to contribute to society was by following a political career. It could also be a road to wealth. But today, politics is hardly the only way one can engage in public service. In some cases, it might even be one of the worst ways to contribute to the world by wasting your time trying to repair a dysfunctional system. There’s also a big difference between working as a government clerk somewhere today and being a chief adviser to the Roman emperor in Seneca’s time.

Like us today, Seneca rejected the ancient, black-and-white view of how someone could contribute to society. Like us today, he took a far more nuanced view. While Seneca involved himself in politics like a good Stoic, it sometimes feels as though he was continually advising his friends, through his various writings, that they should seek out retirement from their official government positions and study philosophy instead.

Ironically, while the early Greek Stoics said that a philosopher should participate in politics, none of them actually did. But as Seneca points out, the founders of the Stoa did advance laws, but not just for one state. Instead, they guided “all of humanity,” serving people not only in their own time, but “the people of all nations, both present and future.”29 As Seneca writes, “Of course, it is required that we benefit others—many if possible, but if not, a few; and if not a few, then those nearest to us; and if not those nearest, then ourselves. For when we make ourselves useful to others, we engage in public service.”30

Seneca believed that a Stoic sage would not participate in politics just in any commonwealth or under any situation.31 If a situation was beyond hope, what would be the use? Also, if a sage decided to pursue a life of leisure instead, he or she would then work to benefit society or posterity through other means.32 In fact, Seneca saw his own life and work in a similar way. He almost certainly regretted the time he had spent working for Nero and wanted to make things right while he was still alive. As Seneca wrote to Lucilius,

I am working for later generations, writing down some ideas that may benefit them. There are certain healthy counsels, like the prescription of useful medicines, which I’m now putting into writing. . . . I’m pointing others to the right path, which I found late in life, when I grew tired from going astray.33

Significantly, Seneca told Lucilius that his current work was now writing for future generations—writing, in fact, for us. He believed this forward-looking work was far more important than anything he could have been doing in the Roman Senate or in the corrupt social and political sphere of his time.

Seneca had an incredible level of confidence in his work. He had no doubt that his writings would find readers far in the future. “I will find favor with future generations,” he wrote. Seneca even suggested to Lucilius that he would take Lucilius’s name along with his for the ride, preserving it for future readers.34 Astonishingly, Seneca was fully correct in making this incredibly bold prediction. Today, twenty centuries later, Seneca’s Letters to Lucilius is among the top-selling works of ancient philosophy. As he confided to his friend, “A person who just thinks of his contemporaries is born for only a few. Many thousands of years will come, and many thousands of peoples: look toward them too.”35

Whether you are working for those closest to you now or working for future generations, both approaches are worthy of admiration. Seneca shows us that there are countless ways we can all contribute to society, whether benefiting one or many. Regardless of our individual skills and inclinations, there’s a way open for everyone.