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

CHAPTER 11

Living Fully Regardless of Death

How long I might live is not up to me, but how I live is within my control.

—Seneca, Letters 93.7

To live a long life, you need Fate; but to live well depends on your character.

—Seneca, Letters 93.2

THE ULTIMATE TEST OF CHARACTER

“Wherever I turn, I see signs of my old age,” Seneca wrote to Lucilius. Seneca had just arrived at his villa outside of Rome, where he was having a conversation with his property manager about the high cost of maintaining the disintegrating old building. But Seneca then explained, “My estate manager told me it was not his fault: he was doing everything possible, but the country home was old. And this villa was built under my supervision! What will my future look like if stonework of my own age is already crumbling?”1

At that time, Seneca was in his late sixties, and he was starting to feel the aches and pains of old age. But he also found old age to be pleasurable. However, the older you get, the more challenging things become. Extreme old age, he said, is like a lasting illness you never recover from; and when the body really declines, it’s like a ship that starts springing leaks, one after another.

Where I currently live, in Sarajevo, I see extremely old people, who are quite close to death, on an almost daily basis. It seems that some of my neighbors—thin, frail, and bent over, often walking with a cane at a snail’s pace over the old stone streets—could drop over and expire at any moment. That said, seeing extremely elderly people out and about is an inspiring and heartfelt experience for me. First of all, it’s lovely to see people who have lived for so long, often against challenging odds, and it’s impossible to see them without feeling a great sense of tenderness for them. Second, they are a timely reminder of my own mortality. It’s also very different from what I remember seeing in the United States.

Unlike many other countries, the United States has accomplished a world-class disappearing act when it comes to keeping older adults (and any other reminders of death) out of sight and out of mind. With its shiny glass and steel buildings, shopping malls, and spread-out suburbs, the American landscape has been sterilized and artificially “cleaned up” in such a way that extremely old people are rarely seen on public display. But here in a historic European city with ancient stone buildings that go back centuries, and well-established neighborhoods with cobblestone streets, extremely old people, hobbling along, are a happy part of daily life. They remind me that life is not without extreme struggle. And when people die, which can happen at any age, the local religious communities post death notices, with photos of the deceased, in local neighborhoods all over town. It’s another nice custom that reminds us of being mortal.

A Stoic wants to live well—and living well means dying well, too. A Stoic lives well through having a good character, and death is the final test of it. While every death will be a bit different, the Roman Stoics believed that a good death would be characterized by mental tranquility, a lack of complaining, and gratitude for the life we’ve been given. In other words, as the final act of living, a good death is characterized by acceptance and gratitude. Also, having a real philosophy of life, and having worked on developing a sound character, allows a person to die without any feelings of regret.2

Seneca frequently thought and wrote about death. Some of this must have been due to his poor health. Because he suffered from tuberculosis and asthma from a young age, he must have sensed the certainty and nearness of his own death throughout his entire life. In Letter 54 he describes, in graphic detail, a recent asthma attack that nearly killed him. But much earlier, probably in his twenties, he was so sick, and so near death, that he thought about ending his own life, to finally stop the suffering. He didn’t follow through on that, fortunately, out of love for his father. As he writes,

I often felt the urge to end my life, but the old age of my dear father held me back. For while I thought that I could die bravely, I knew he could not bear the loss bravely. And so I commanded myself to live. Sometimes it’s an act of courage just to keep living.3

For a Stoic (and for other ancient philosophers, too), memento mori—contemplating our inevitable death—was an essential philosophical exercise, and one that comes with unexpected benefits. As an anticipation of future adversity (see chapter 6), memento mori allows us to prepare for death, and helps remove our fears of death. It also encourages us to take our current lives more seriously, because we realize they’re limited. As I’ve discovered in a practical sense, reflecting on my own death—and the inevitable death of those dear to me—has had a totally unexpected and powerful benefit: feeling a more profound sense of gratitude for the time we still have together.

MEMENTO MORI: REMEMBERING DEATH

The Latin phrase memento mori literally means “remember that you have to die.” Over the centuries, scholars often would keep a symbolic memento mori image in their study, like a skull, as a reminder of their own mortality.

In the world of philosophy, the model of someone dying well, without an ounce of fear, was Socrates. Imprisoned on trumped-up charges for corrupting the youth of Athens, Socrates was detained for thirty days before facing his death sentence of drinking hemlock poison. At the time of his death in 399 BC, Socrates was around seventy years old. If he had wished, he could have very easily escaped prison, with his friends’ help, and then set up life elsewhere in Greece. But it would have gone against everything he believed in. Also, escaping would have permanently damaged his reputation. Since one of Socrates’s main goals was to improve society, that implied he should follow society’s laws, even if he had been treated unjustly.

This allowed Socrates thirty final days to meet with his friends and his students to continue their philosophical discussions. He had challenged the morality of those who called for his death with a very memorable line: “If you kill me,” he said, “you will not harm me so much as yourselves.”4 This thought was much appreciated by the later Stoics, since, in their view, nothing can harm the character of a wise person. During his last meeting with his students, right before his death, Socrates discussed and questioned the possibility of an afterlife. He also said, memorably, that “philosophy is a preparation for death,” which was probably the real beginning of the memento mori tradition (at least for philosophers). When his final conversation was complete, Socrates drank the hemlock, and he peacefully passed away, surrounded by his students.5

According to Seneca, the philosopher Epicurus said, “Rehearse for death,” which is a practice Seneca himself greatly encouraged. For Seneca and the other Roman Stoics, death was “the master fear,” and once someone learns how to overcome it, little else remains fearful either.

The Stoic philosopher Epictetus told his students that when you kiss your child goodnight, you should remind yourself that your child could die tomorrow. While it is literally true that your child could die tomorrow, many modern readers recoil at the idea of even contemplating such a thought. However, that might be a measure of their reluctance to accept the inevitability of death, or a way of repressing the fact that death can arrive unexpectedly, at any moment. As someone who personally uses this practice, I can tell you that it’s perfectly harmless, once you get past any initial discomfort. The huge benefit it brings is the greater sense of gratitude you experience with your loved ones. When you perform this practice, you consciously realize that someday, which nobody can predict, will be your last time together—so you experience much greater gratitude for the time you spend together now. As Seneca wisely recommended, let us greedily enjoy our friends and our loved ones now, while we still have them.6

WHAT IS IT LIKE emotionally to contemplate your own death or the death of a close family member? I’ve been experimenting with this for some time now and can report only positive results. That’s because, when I think of the mortality of a loved one and the fact that all of our time together is by definition limited, it improves the quality of my life. It makes me feel a much deeper sense of appreciation for all the time we are together. If you don’t remember that your time is limited and finite, you are much more likely to take things for granted.

I most often remember death when I’m with my son, Benjamin, seven and a half as I write. That’s a delightful age because he’s very playful and now capable of having fun conversations. We’re also starting to talk about philosophical things.

Of course, it’s impossible for most children of his age to grasp the gravity or finality of death, because most of them have never had any firsthand experience of losing a loved one. Children live in a kind of psychological Golden Age, in which all their needs seem magically provided for. Since they live in a protected sphere, most haven’t yet been exposed to the more challenging aspects of life.

Because of that, I’ve been trying to teach Benjamin a little bit about death and the fact that daddy, mommy, and he will someday die. This effort is a bit of basic Stoic training for a kid, and I’m curious if it might be possible to increase his appreciation for the limited time we have together, even at such a young age? At the very least, I hope it will greatly reduce the level of shock he experiences when someone close to him does die, because he’ll be expecting it.

The other day, we were driving home after feasting on some fast food, and Benjamin spoke to me about God for the first time in his life. With a boyish sense of delight, he explained to me, “God has some amazing powers, like being able to see and hear everything. But his greatest superpower is that he’s invisible!”

I chuckled at his use of the word “superpower,” which made God sound like a superhero, just like Spider-Man! But laughter aside, he had opened up the doorway to speak about some profound issues, so I brought up the topic of death.

“Benjamin,” I asked, “do you know that, someday, mommy, daddy, and you are going to die?”

“Yes,” he replied.

“I’m almost sixty,” I explained, “so I could live another twenty years.”

“I don’t think you’ll live quite that long,” he said. “But maybe something like that.” (Thank you, Benjamin! We’ll just have to see how things go.)

Then I asked, “Did you know that you could die at any time?”

He said, “I don’t think I’ll die anytime soon.”

“But,” I replied, “you could. This is not something in our control. You are young, so you could live for a very long time. But since we’re driving in a car, we could be in a car crash five minutes from now, and we could both be killed instantly. So even if you’re very, very young, you can die at any time. If you stay healthy, the chances that you’ll live a long life go up. But in the end, when we die is not under our control.”

Benjamin nodded and seemed to understand. And fortunately, we arrived home safely a few minutes later.

THAT WAS A FEW days ago. Yesterday, I picked up Benjamin at school. He filed out of the school building with a few other kids his age, all wearing facemasks. I was wearing one too.

As of this writing, it’s early 2021, during the first year of the Covid-19 global pandemic. A new wave of infections is now sweeping across Europe, and cases here are at an all-time high. The World Health Organization recently announced that the coming death rate from Covid-19 could now be five times higher than what Europe experienced during the first wave. It certainly could happen—who knows? What I do know is that Stoicism can help us face death calmly and with emotional equilibrium, so it’s an ideal philosophy for these uncertain times.

After I picked up Benjamin from school, we had to run a few errands on foot, wearing our masks. As we crossed a beautiful, busy street in the old part of Sarajevo, Benjamin slipped his little hand into mine for safety. Crossing a street here can be quite dangerous for adults, not to mention for children.

One of the Stoic practices I learned from Seneca is to treat each day as though it might be my last. Because of that, I ask Benjamin each day, “Do you know that I love you?” He always says, “Yes,” and I ask him the question for one reason: if it should really be my last day, I’d like him to know that.

Now at age seven Benjamin has become skilled at expressing his affection. As we walk down the street hand in hand, I can literally feel the love streaming between us, hand to hand between two living beings. Having a child has taught me the beauty of philostorgia, a word the Stoics used, which means “family love.”

Some people have found Epictetus to be a bit morbid or forbidding for teaching his students to remember that their children are mortal. On the contrary, as I hold Benjamin’s hand and we walk down the street, I have a totally different experience. The Stoic practice of remembering our mortality makes me even more grateful for this time we have together. It makes my heart open more widely.

OVERCOMING THE MASTER FEAR

First, free yourself from the fear of death . . . then free yourself from the fear of poverty.

—Seneca, Letters 80.5

In Seneca’s philosophy death is “the master fear” because it’s usually the worst outcome anyone can think of. Let’s imagine that you’re a psychologist, and your client is afraid that something terrible is going to happen to him or her. You might then say, “Okay, let’s imagine that does happen. What’s the worst thing that could happen next?”

If you keep asking the same question over and over, to figure out how bad things could actually get, then, ultimately, your client will respond, “And then I could die.” Since death is terminal, by definition, it’s hard to imagine anything worse happening after that!

In this way, we can see how death stands as “the master fear.” Based on this insight, Seneca and the other Roman Stoics thought that once we can rid ourselves from the fear of death, everything else becomes so much easier. With the fear of death out of the way, other fears lose their power, too.

Overcoming the fear of death, then, is essential to becoming free. As Seneca writes,

Anyone who dies with the same contentment he had at birth has become wise. But as it is, we tremble as the danger approaches: our minds fail us and our faces grow pale. Tears fall but accomplish nothing. What is more disgraceful than being overwhelmed with worry at the very threshold of tranquility?7

Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius saw things similarly. As Epictetus noted, the source of all evils and cowardice for human beings “is not death, but rather the fear of death.”8 Seneca said that for someone who has overcome the fear of death, it is possible to let go of life contentedly, with composure, while others feel terror. But those who fear death “clutch and cling to life, even as those who are carried down a rushing stream clutch and cling to briars and sharp rocks.”9

It’s for this reason, Seneca maintains, that death is the ultimate test of character. As he explains to Lucilius (but speaking about himself), someone can say and believe anything, and act bravely while they’re alive. But at the point of death, it will become clear whether or not their words were true. At the time of his death, Seneca says, it will become clear “what progress I have really made.” In this way, death will pass judgment on us and reveal our authentic characters. He writes,

Discussions, learned seminars, sayings from philosophers, and high-brow conversations—all of these do not reveal the mind’s true strength. Even the most cowardly people speak boldly. What you have actually achieved will only be clear when you take your last breath. I welcome this test and do not fear the judgment.10

How, then, to overcome the fear of death? Since the Stoics were philosophers, they tried to look at death rationally. They then presented rational arguments to deconstruct whatever fears might be associated with it. Some of these arguments are very briefly listed below. They are explained more fully in the writings of Seneca and the other Roman Stoics:

1. Death is just a natural part of life. When we were born, we entered into an agreement that, one day, we will die. Death is just a natural part of life. Because of that, and because life and nature are good, we should accept death without fear and without complaint. When writing his letters, Seneca visited his old friend and teacher, Demetrius, an Epicurean philosopher who was in the process of dying. As Demetrius explained to Seneca, the only thing people fear about death is its uncertainty. Otherwise, Demetrius said,

Someone who is unwilling to die never wished to live, for life is given to us with the condition it will end. . . . Death is a necessity, distributed equally and unavoidably to all. Who can complain about being subject to the same condition as everyone else? The most important element of equality is impartiality.11

Put another way, death is not a punishment but merely a consequence of being alive. And since it’s a law of nature, applied equally to everyone who lives, there is nothing to fear.

2. Regardless of what happens at death, we will be fine either way. In the words of Seneca, “Death either consumes us or sets us free. If we are released, better things remain, since our burden has been removed. But if we are consumed, nothing remains: blessings and evils are removed together.” In other words, if the soul is destroyed, there will be nothing left to experience suffering. And if the soul does survive, it will be starting a new adventure in a new form.12 Whatever may actually happen, neither outcome is harmful.

3. What is terrible about returning to where you came from? This is known as “the symmetry argument” and was used by many ancient philosophers. If death is simply nonexistence, when you die you are returning to the same state you were in before you were born. If this interpretation is correct, the condition that existed before our birth will follow us after death: on either side of life, there is great peace, without any suffering.13

When Epicurus famously said, “Death is nothing to us,” he wasn’t trying to sound superior or look down upon death with contempt. He was merely referring to this argument. Death will be nothing to us, in his view, because there will be no “us” left to suffer from it.14

The Stoics believed that the soul, or our mental and biological life-force, is material. Because of this, they left open the possibility that the soul might survive in some way after our physical death, or that it might survive for a period of time. Alternately, it might merge with the intelligence and life-force of the entire universe. Seneca and Marcus Aurelius were not sure if this was likely, but they were both open-minded about the possibility. In any case, regardless of what actually happens, none of the Stoics believed that there was anything harmful in death, even in the worst-case scenario that we are simply annihilated.

WHAT MAKES LIFE WORTH LIVING IN THE FIRST PLACE?

The goodness of life does not depend on life’s length but upon the use we make of it.

—Seneca, Letters 49.10

A Stoic is attempting to make progress, and progress is a journey. For Seneca, there is a definite destination point on that journey: becoming virtuous or “a completed” human being. In Stoicism, this involves developing our character and rationality so that we can understand and possess what is truly good in life. In addition to having developed a solid character, when someone reaches that final destination, human freedom, tranquility, and lasting joy result (see chapter 14). At that point, for Seneca, life is truly complete, and one lives in the fullest way possible. Then a person has attained what Seneca calls “the happy life”—a state of deep and lasting well-being. Even though I shy away from drawing parallels between different traditions, it’s difficult to read Seneca’s ideas about this state without thinking about the words “enlightenment” or “liberation” in Eastern traditions.

Once someone has attained the happy life, his or her life is truly complete, regardless of its length. For Seneca, this means that once we have achieved true happiness, or a blessed state of mind, living longer will not make us any happier. While living longer won’t make us more content, those extra days or years will be like icing on the cake of an already happy life. As he writes, a chief quality of living a virtuous or happy life is that “it doesn’t need the future and doesn’t count its days.” That’s because “in whatever time it has, it enjoys a timeless good.”15 For Seneca, finding true happiness is to experience something timeless, which cannot be surpassed; it is “the summit,” the whole point of being alive.

As Seneca repeatedly stresses over a dozen times in different writings, it’s the quality of one’s life that matters, not its quantity or its length. In my favorite description of this, he says life is like a play: it’s not the length of the play that matters, but the quality of the performance.16

For Seneca, obtaining a virtuous character is what matters in life, not life’s duration. To achieve the happy life is to live fully, regardless of its length. By contrast, he points out, many elderly people have simply “existed” for a long time but never truly lived. Some people, unfortunately, end up dying before they have even started to live fully.

Seneca gives an example of this. He’s writing to Lucilius about a mutual friend of theirs, a philosopher named Metronax, who died quite young, in the prime of his life. But while Metronax died young, he had developed a very fine character. Someone might complain that Metronax died in his prime. But Seneca responds:

He carried out the duties of a good citizen, a good friend, and a good son. He didn’t fall short in any respect. While his lifetime was incomplete, his life itself was perfect. Another man might seem to live for eighty years but only be around for eighty years—unless by “live” you mean that way in which trees are said to live. I beg you, Lucilius: Let’s carry on in this way, so our lives are measured like the most precious objects—not by their size, but by their worth. Let’s measure our lives by their performance, not by their duration.17

In the end, for Seneca, it’s the quality of a person’s life that allows someone to live fully, not its length.

THE BLESSINGS AND DANGERS OF OLD AGE

Our good is not merely in living, but in living well. Accordingly, a wise person will live as long as he ought, not as long as he can. . . . He always reflects concerning the quality and not the quantity of his life.

—Seneca, Letters 70.4

No one knows how long he or she might live; it’s entirely beyond our control. That said, given the significant increases that have taken place in medicine and technology, the chance of someone reaching a ripe old age today, even into their nineties, has increased dramatically since Seneca’s time. But with extreme old age come difficulties, like the crumbling stones of Seneca’s country villa. At a certain point, an increasingly ancient structure will just collapse, bit by bit. This applies to aging bodies, too.

For Seneca, old age can be a blessing, and it can be one of the most enjoyable times of life. As he writes,

Let us embrace and love old age. It is full of pleasure if you know how to experience it. Fruits are sweetest when ripe, just before they spoil. Boyhood’s charm is greatest at its end. For those devoted to wine, it’s the very last drink that delights—the one that puts you under, delivering the final push to inebriation. Every pleasure delays its sweetest moments for last. The most pleasurable time of life is on its downhill slope, but before going over the edge. Even the time spent standing on the outermost edge can have its own pleasures, I believe.18

Seneca thought that old age was something to treasure and that old age can be one of the happiest times of life. But there reaches a point where, if you live long enough, a person’s life resembles “a lingering death.” Perhaps because of their own fear of death, some people believe that life should be preserved at any cost, under any conditions, even if that means keeping a loved one alive unconscious, on a machine, with no hope of recovery. As you might have guessed, Seneca would not have gone along with this approach. He wrote, “What kind of life is a lingering death? Can anyone be found who wishes to waste away amid pains, dying limb by limb, and losing his breath drop by drop, rather than breathing out his last once and for all?”19

As Seneca repeatedly noted, “What matters is not how long you live, but how nobly you live,”20 and being left alone in a hospital room, falling apart limb by limb, is not the noblest way to depart this world. Seneca’s philosophy, therefore, has significant implications today for thinking about end-of-life issues.

Both the Greek and the Roman Stoics allowed for suicide under very extreme conditions, which were much more likely to exist in the ancient world than they are today. But suicide aside, there’s no question that Seneca would strongly advocate for euthanasia, or having a “good death,” rather than living on for years in an incapacitated state. As he writes, “Few have passed through extreme old age to death without impairment, and many have lain inert, unable to use their bodies. In this case, the cruelest loss in life is the loss of the right to end it.”21

Seneca didn’t think that old age was something one should yearn for, but he didn’t think it was something one should reject, either. In the end, since every life is different, it could be a blessing or a hindrance. As he wrote, “It’s pleasant to be with yourself as long as possible—if you’ve made yourself into someone worth spending time with.”22

Despite that, there was a definite point where Seneca said he would personally draw the line. As he wrote to Lucilius,

I will not abandon old age as long as it preserves my whole self, by which I mean the whole of my better part. But if it begins to shatter my mind and destroy parts of it—if I can no long live, but only breathe—then I will jump free from that crumbling and collapsing edifice.23

That makes perfect sense because, for a Stoic, merely being able to keep on breathing without having one’s mental faculties—being able to think, to know, and to appreciate—wouldn’t be living at all.

LIVING EACH DAY AS IF IT’S YOUR LAST

I am aiming to live each day as if it is a complete lifetime.

—Seneca, Letters 61.1

Everyone has heard the saying, “Live one day at a time.” Whether or not that saying goes back to Seneca, it certainly goes back to him in spirit.

As Seneca repeatedly points out, people become anxious by worrying about the future. But that’s because they haven’t yet “found themselves” enough to fully live in, and to deeply enjoy, the present moment.

Seneca suggests that we should live each day as “a complete life,” as if it’s our last day of being alive. For Seneca, this idea becomes a brilliant inner practice that ties together many different themes in his work: the fullness of the happy life, the importance of living in the present moment, memento mori, and freeing ourselves from all anxiety, including the fear of death.

As Steve Jobs once said in a speech to college students,

When I was seventeen, I read a quote that went something like: “If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you’ll most certainly be right.” It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past thirty-three years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: “If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today? And whenever the answer has been “No” for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.24

Sadly, we’ll never know whether a quotation from Seneca ultimately inspired this daily meditation as practiced by Steve Jobs. But regardless of that, it’s undoubtedly a good practice. As a daily meditation, it encourages a person to reflect on his or her life as a whole, including the quality of one’s life at that very moment.

Seneca fully believed that each day could be our last. He thought we should take our impending death into account without any hint of anxiety, but with happy acceptance, even if that death should arrive today. In practice, this means that we should not leave anything important undone when we go to bed at night. “Let us compose our thoughts,” he wrote, “as if we’ve reached the end. Let us postpone nothing. Let’s settle our accounts with life every day.”25 This practice encourages one to take nothing for granted, to look back on one’s life with gratitude, and it reminds us to live as fully as possible, according to our deepest values.

For Seneca, being able to go to sleep with gratitude, thinking life might truly be over, was a mark of someone who had lived a complete life. But then, if we should wake up in the morning, “let us receive it gladly,” and accept another day with gratitude. “The happiest and most cheerful possessor of himself,” Seneca wrote, “awaits the next day without anxiety. Anyone who says, ‘I have completed living,’ rises each morning with a profit, having gained an extra day.”26