Doomer optimism. Seneca, Epistles 3.24.15-18
Seneca
encourages Lucilius to put away worry by facing his worst fears of
the future in the present. What if everything bad you can imagine
came true right now, this moment? What would you do? How would you
feel? Letting those feelings emerge is the first step towards letting
them go.
Haec
in animo voluta, quae saepe audisti, saepe dixisti; sed an vere
audieris, an vere dixeris, effectu proba; hoc enim turpissimum est
quod nobis obici solet, verba nos philosophiae, non opera tractare.
Quid? tu nunc primum tibi mortem imminere scisti, nunc exilium, nunc
dolorem? in haec natus es; quidquid fieri potest quasi futurum
cogitemus. Quod facere te moneo scio certe fecisse: nunc admoneo ut
animum tuum non mergas in istam sollicitudinem; hebetabitur enim et
minus habebit vigoris cum exsurgendum erit. Abduc illum a privata
causa ad publicam; dic mortale tibi et fragile corpusculum esse, cui
non ex iniuria tantum aut ex potentioribus viribus denuntiabitur
dolor: ipsae voluptates in tormenta vertuntur, epulae cruditatem
afferunt, ebrietates nervorum torporem tremoremque, libidines pedum,
manuum, articulorum omnium depravationes. Pauper fiam: inter plures
ero. Exul fiam: ibi me natum putabo quo mittar. Alligabor: quid enim?
nunc solutus sum? ad hoc me natura grave corporis mei pondus
adstrinxit. Moriar: hoc dicis, desinam aegrotare posse, desinam
alligari posse, desinam mori posse.
Non
sum tam ineptus ut Epicuream cantilenam hoc loco persequar et dicam
vanos esse inferorum metus, nec Ixionem rota volvi nec saxum umeris
Sisyphi trudi in adversum nec ullius viscera et renasci posse cotidie
et carpi: nemo tam puer est ut Cerberum timeat et tenebras et
larvalem habitum nudis ossibus cohaerentium. Mors nos aut consumit
aut exuit; emissis meliora restant onere detracto, consumptis nihil
restat, bona pariter malaque summota sunt.
Roll
these thoughts within your mind, thoughts you've often heard, often
uttered yourself. But always prove with action whether you've heard
or spoken correctly. The most shameful objection we are used to meet
is that we offer philosophy our words, but no deeds. What? Did you
only just realize that death looms over you, that exile and pain
stand waiting before her? To these trials you were born. Let us
regard anything that could happen as though it certainly shall. I
know you have already done what I'm advising you to do. Now I merely
admonish you to avoid drowning your mind in the anxiety of
anticipation. The mind besieged with worry will go dull, losing its
vigor as the moment arrives when it must sally forth. Lead the train
of your thought away from your own private situation to that of
humanity in general. Tell yourself that you are mortal and frail, a
small body called to suffer pain not only from hostile injury or
powers too great for it: even its pleasures turn to pain. Banquets
give us indigestion, bouts of drinking make our sinews slow and
shaky, and sexual indulgence saps our hands, our feet, and all our
joints. I'm going to be poor! So I shall be just one of a crowd. I'm
going into exile! I will regard myself then as a native of whatever
place I'm sent off to. I'm going to be arrested, tied up and
shackled! What then? Am I currently free? Nature has already bound me
fast to the heavy weight of my body. I'm going to die! When you say
this, you affirm that I will no longer be susceptible to illness,
arrest, or any worry about my death.
I'm
not such a pedantic fool as to follow after the old Epicurean cant
here, going off about how empty our fears of hell are—insisting
that Ixion isn't being spun on a wheel, that Sisyphus carries no rock
uphill on his shoulders, that nobody has guts that respawn after
being devoured on the daily. None of us is so childish as to retain fear
of Cerberus, and darkness, and the ghostly appearance of tombs
stacked with bones (†). Either death consumes us, or she sets us
free from life. Those she frees rest easier without their burden,
while those consumed retain nothing at all: their goods are as
utterly gone as anything bad they once had.
---
(†)
Here we get a little tour of the ancient Greek underworld, as seen
through Roman eyes. Ixion is the Greek equivalent of Cain, banished
from society as the first kinslayer (for the murder of his
father-in-law, who stole some horses from Ixion when the punk
neglected to pay a bride-price). Zeus took pity on the outcast and
brought Ixion to Olympus, where he enjoyed the feast too much and
made a pass at Hera. Zeus then struck him down with a thunderbolt,
fixing him thereafter to a flaming wheel that whirled down to Hades
or Tartarus, where you can find it still (cf. Pindar, Pythian 2;
Vergil, Aeneid
6.601).
Sisyphus was king of Ephyra, ancient Corinth, renowned for guile that
extended to tricking the gods (to get water for his city, and then to
avoid dying himself when Zeus tried to punish his theft). He was
condemned to roll a great rock uphill forever in Hades, where
Odysseus finds him suffering (Odyssey 11.593-600).
Many know the myth of the
titan Prometheus, whose theft of divine fire got him chained to a
peak in the Caucasus, where Zeus' eagle repaired daily to consume his
miraculously renewing liver until Heracles set him free (Hesiod,
Theogony 507-616). A
similar fate befell his fellow titan Tityus, who assaulted Leto, but
his banishment was to Hades, where he found no relief (Odyssey
11.576-81; Vergil, Aeneid
6.595-600). Cerberus, of
course, is the three-headed dog who guards the entrance to the
underworld.