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.