Claim your rest. Seneca, Epistles 2.19.3-4
Find
ways to retire, even when life makes you active and involved. Look
for moments to plunge into the abyss where your name and station do
not matter.
Deinde
videbunt de isto quibus integra sunt et prima consilia an velint
vitam per obscurum transmittere: tibi liberum non est. In medium te
protulit ingenii vigor, scriptorum elegantia, clarae et nobiles
amicitiae; iam notitia te invasit; ut in extrema mergaris ac penitus
recondaris, tamen priora monstrabunt. Tenebras habere non potes;
sequetur quocumque fugeris multum pristinae lucis: quietem potes
vindicare sine ullius odio, sine desiderio aut morsu animi tui.
Quid
enim relinques quod invitus relictum a te possis cogitare? Clientes?
quorum nemo te ipsum sequitur, sed aliquid ex te; amicitia olim
petebatur, nunc praeda; mutabunt testamenta destituti senes, migrabit
ad aliud limen salutator. Non potest parvo res magna constare:
aestima utrum te relinquere an aliquid ex tuis malis.
In
any case, the decision to cultivate fame or not belongs properly to
those who can still choose to live unknown. This choice is not free
to you. The vigor of your mind, the elegance of your writings, and
the eminent nobility of your friends have brought you forth into the
midst of society. Notoriety has already invested you! Nonetheless,
better things will teach you to plunge into life's depths, hiding
yourself deep in her abyss. You cannot keep the darkness of anonymity
even here, for an abundance of bright light will always follow in
your wake. But you can claim moments of rest, a retirement
empty of any hatred, desire, or gnawing mental remorse.
What
will you lose by retiring? Is there anything in our business that you
would be unwilling to part with? Clients? Not one of them follows
you. Each is there only for
something you provide. One has been seeking friendship for ages; now
he wants profit. Old men on their last legs will alter their wills,
and your client will show up knocking a door that belongs to someone
else (†).
No great matter can rise from such petty stuff. Would you be willing
to part with a bother that makes
more harm than good? You decide!
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(†)
Roman nobles received clients regularly, sometimes daily,
entertaining them with food and personal attention. Clients were
generally members of the lower classes—plebeians,
freedmen, foreigners—and repaid the care of their patrons, the
nobles, with political and personal loyalty.