Meditare mortem. Seneca, Epistles 3.26.8-10

Seneca tells Lucilius to study death. Meditate on it. Learn it, and you will know freedom while you unlearn servility and bondage.

Desinere iam volebam et manus spectabat ad clausulam, sed conficienda sunt aera et huic epistulae viaticum dandum est. Puta me non dicere unde sumpturus sim mutuum: scis cuius arca utar. Exspecta me pusillum, et de domo fiet numeratio; interim commodabit Epicurus, qui ait meditare mortem, vel si commodius sic transire ad nos hic potest sensus: egregia res est mortem condiscere. Supervacuum forsitan putas id discere quod semel utendum est. Hoc est ipsum quare meditari debeamus: semper discendum est quod an sciamus experiri non possumus. Meditare mortem: qui hoc dicit meditari libertatem iubet. Qui mori didicit servire dedidicit; supra omnem potentiam est, certe extra omnem. Quid ad illum carcer et custodia et claustra? liberum ostium habet. Una est catena quae nos alligatos tenet, amor vitae, qui ut non est abiciendus, ita minuendus est, ut si quando res exiget, nihil nos detineat nec impediat quominus parati simus quod quandoque faciendum est statim facere. Vale.

I desire already to be done here, and my hand too is eager to reach a conclusion, but debts must be paid, and this epistle requires postage. Suppose I don't name the source I'm borrowing from. No matter. You know whose strongbox I use. Wait a little, and you'll have payment from my house. In the meantime, Epicurus will tide you over. “Think on death,” he says—or, if we make his sense here a little easier to reach: “Death is the best thing to study carefully.” Perhaps you think it pointless to study something you can only do once. But that is the very purpose of meditation, the reason why we should meditate: to learn about something we know we cannot experience directly. “Think on death.” The man who says this bids us meditate on liberty, as one who has learned to die has unlearned all servility. He is above all power, beyond all jurisdiction. What are prisons, guards, and bolts to him? He already has an open door. There is but one chain that holds us bound: our love of life. It is not to be cast away but filed down, so that when our time is up, nothing may detain or impede us—no matter how ill prepared we might be—from doing immediately what must be done. Farewell.