Change and friendship. Seneca, Epistulae 1.6.1-3

Seneca discusses change and friendship. Friends share all with each other, including even the hard things, like the fact that life means change. As you live, you will accumulate different things in your behavior that require change—Seneca says you will gather, and thin, and exalt them—and you should share these things with true friends. Not those whose burdens you are not willing or able to share, but those whose will-to-friendship is equal to your own. You can hear the Latin <here>.

Intellego, Lucili, non emendari me tantum sed transfigurari; nec hoc promitto iam aut spero, nihil in me superesse quod mutandum sit. Quidni multa habeam quae debeant colligi, quae extenuari, quae attolli? Et hoc ipsum argumentum est in melius translati animi, quod vitia sua quae adhuc ignorabat videt; quibusdam aegris gratulatio fit cum ipsi aegros se esse senserunt.

Cuperem itaque tecum communicare tam subitam mutationem mei; tunc amicitiae nostrae certiorem fiduciam habere coepissem, illius verae quam non spes, non timor, non utilitatis suae cura divellit, illius cum qua homines moriuntur, pro qua moriuntur. Multos tibi dabo qui non amico sed amicitia caruerint: hoc non potest accidere cum animos in societatem honesta cupiendi par voluntas trahit. Quidni non possit? sciunt enim ipsos omnia habere communia, et quidem magis adversa.

I understand, Lucilius, that I am not just correcting myself, but changing myself entirely. I do not make any promise, or even cherish any hope, that there shall remain nothing in me that needs to be changed. Should I not have many things in my character that require change—some that ought to be gathered, some that ought to be thinned, and some that should be raised up? This argument belongs to a mind that has already been brought to a better place, one from which it perceives in itself vices it did not earlier recognize. Some who are sick rejoice when they become aware of their illness.

And so I would desire to tell you as soon as possible of any change in myself, that I might then have greater confidence in our friendship, proving that it remains true in spite of hope, or fear, or anxiety about personal benefit—the kind of friendship that men carry with them to the grave, and for which they would die. For I can show you many who have lacked not friends but friendship: this cannot happen when an equal will on either side draws two minds to seek one another's company. How could they lack friendship? For they know that they share everything, including especially the hard things.