Don't tear life's fabric. Seneca, Epistles 4.32.1-2
Seneca
opens his letter with a jocular greeting, turning serious at the end
to remark that we are always making new beginnings, cutting ourselves
off from the past to try something we haven't yet done or prepared.
If we aren't careful about this, if we let ourselves be driven always
to the latest novelty by crowds of people and events, we will lose
the thread of meaning that holds our lives together, from birth to
death (and perhaps beyond, if we manage to leave some legacy for
others). As we get older, it is important to make time to keep that
which we have built, and to make it something of enduring worth. Look
beyond the moment and build for what comes after.
Inquiro
de te et ab omnibus sciscitor qui ex ista regione veniunt quid agas,
ubi et cum quibus moreris. Verba dare non potes: tecum sum. Sic vive
tamquam quid facias auditurus sim, immo tamquam visurus. Quaeris quid
me maxime ex iis quae de te audio delectet? quod nihil audio, quod
plerique ex iis quos interrogo nesciunt quid agas.
Hoc
est salutare, non conversari dissimilibus et diversa cupientibus.
Habeo quidem fiduciam non posse te detorqueri mansurumque in
proposito, etiam si sollicitantium turba circumeat. Quid ergo est?
non timeo ne mutent te, timeo ne impediant. Multum autem nocet etiam
qui moratur, utique in tanta brevitate vitae, quam breviorem
inconstantia facimus, aliud eius subinde atque aliud facientes
initium; diducimus illam in particulas ac lancinamus.
I
ask about you, inquiring diligently from everyone who comes from your
region what you are doing, where and with whom you dwell. You cannot
give me only words, for I am already with you. Live as though I am
about see, as well as hear, whatever it is you do. You want to know
what pleases me best, of the things that I hear about you? The fact
that I hear nothing, since the majority of those I question have no
idea what you are up to.
This
is only a greeting, not a serious conversation about our minds or
paths diverging. I am confident that you are not being turned aside
from your purpose—that you will remain firm in it, even if a mob of
anxious petitioners encircles you. What then is my anxiety? I don't
fear that they will change you; I fear that they will get in your
way. The man who delays us causes much damage, as our lives are
already so brief, and then we make them even shorter by our
inconstancy, starting over all the time. We tear the fabric of our
lives to little pieces and squander them.