All I know of the life of Seneca comes from an opera plot.
In Monteverdi’s L’incoronazione di Poppea, the emperor Nero wishes to exile his own wife in order to marry his mistress. Seneca advises against doing this, so Nero, understandably irritated, executes him. I haven’t seen the opera in a long time, and my recollection of the plot may be fuzzy. But that is the sole foreknowledge I bring to reading Seneca. I didn’t know that he was also exiled from Rome, which was when wrote a letter to his mother, Consolation to Helvia.
Poor Helvia was dealt a bad hand by life. Her mother died in childbirth, and later on she lost her uncle and her husband, too. Twenty days after the additional loss of her three grandchildren, her son, Seneca, was taken into exile. From Seneca’s point of view, this last misfortune was the worst for her. (For the purposes of understanding his letter, we’ll have to accept this assertion.) The “Consolation” he provides Helvia is an explanation of why exile is not so bad. He thinks this will make her feel better.
Some “Great Ideas”:
-- People exile themselves willingly all the time. Most of the population of Rome consists of people who left their homeland to seek the prosperity and excitement of the seat of the Empire. You don’t see them complaining.
-- We lose little in exile, “when the two finest things of all accompany us wherever we go, universal nature and our individual virtue.”
-- “If you have the strength to tackle any one aspect of misfortune you can tackle them all.”
I guess this is why they call Seneca a Stoic Philosopher.
Next time: On Tranquility of Mind
28 July 2006
21 July 2006
From simpleton to sage -- Seneca, pt. 1
Disclaimer: I am not an academic. I am not a critic. I am not even a writer. I am the peanut gallery. The views I express are not to be taken as learned, exhaustive or correct. I would prefer them to be regarded as cute.
Seneca’s letter, On the Shortness of Life, the first essay in the Great Ideas paperback of the same title, could also be called, “Why Life Seems So Short.” The reason is: because most of us don’t know how to spend our time well, and end up wasting it.
Seneca divides people loosely into two sorts: “preoccupied” people who spend their time advancing themselves (mainly but not exclusively) in public circles, and “leisured” people who tend to their own needs and the enhancement of their personal lives.
“preoccupied” people = bad
“leisured” people = good
A great idea I picked up on:
The preoccupied loathe the past because their memories are unpleasant, ignore the present because they believe that time passes too slowly, and fear the future because their longed-for pleasures are too fleeting.
The leisured are able to grasp the past in their recollection, to use the present, and to anticipate the future. This gives them a long, rewarding life and prepares them well for death.
Huh? That’s not exactly what I meant to say when I started typing.
I’ll just add this: I am one of the preoccupied, but I’d rather be one of the leisured.
Next time: Seneca’s second letter: Consolation to Helvia
Seneca’s letter, On the Shortness of Life, the first essay in the Great Ideas paperback of the same title, could also be called, “Why Life Seems So Short.” The reason is: because most of us don’t know how to spend our time well, and end up wasting it.
Seneca divides people loosely into two sorts: “preoccupied” people who spend their time advancing themselves (mainly but not exclusively) in public circles, and “leisured” people who tend to their own needs and the enhancement of their personal lives.
“preoccupied” people = bad
“leisured” people = good
A great idea I picked up on:
The preoccupied loathe the past because their memories are unpleasant, ignore the present because they believe that time passes too slowly, and fear the future because their longed-for pleasures are too fleeting.
The leisured are able to grasp the past in their recollection, to use the present, and to anticipate the future. This gives them a long, rewarding life and prepares them well for death.
Huh? That’s not exactly what I meant to say when I started typing.
I’ll just add this: I am one of the preoccupied, but I’d rather be one of the leisured.
Next time: Seneca’s second letter: Consolation to Helvia
20 July 2006
From simpleton to sage
Wisdom for sale!
The books in Penguin’s Great Ideas series have a strange power over me. The 24 titles (40 titles are available in Canada and the UK) contain excerpts from the canon of significant “thought” literature, i.e. Philosophy, Social Criticism, Religious Scripture, etc. Displayed at bookstores in special, compartmental stands, they positively twinkle at the onlooker. Crisp, sassy, and appealing, these little duodecimo tablets with ‘smartistic’ covers promise to divert me and make me smart. They look so… easy.
But I can’t completely trust them. Each book is so brief that nothing more than a superficial misrepresentation of its author’s mighty thoughts seems possible. Let’s be honest, I may never get around to, for instance, the complete Essays of Montaigne, so I’ll give Great Ideas a try. I promise not to claim to know everything about Montaigne after two chapters.
Ever-dependable, the NYPL has 10 of the titles available for loan! I spotted two copies at the Jefferson Market branch in Greenwich Village and pounced upon one gladly. Standing on the checkout line, I daydreamed about my gradual transformation into a lettered person. (But it was to be one step forward, two steps back: the other item I borrowed was a DVD of “Wonder Woman - season two.”)
I have chosen “On the Shortness of Life” by Seneca, the earliest writer in the series. The book’s cover quote solemnly intones, “Life is long if you know how to use it.” Philosophy is not meant to be self-help, yet I can’t resist the temptation to view it that way. I want this book to give me guidance through the pesky career crisis I’m experiencing right now.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
The books in Penguin’s Great Ideas series have a strange power over me. The 24 titles (40 titles are available in Canada and the UK) contain excerpts from the canon of significant “thought” literature, i.e. Philosophy, Social Criticism, Religious Scripture, etc. Displayed at bookstores in special, compartmental stands, they positively twinkle at the onlooker. Crisp, sassy, and appealing, these little duodecimo tablets with ‘smartistic’ covers promise to divert me and make me smart. They look so… easy.
But I can’t completely trust them. Each book is so brief that nothing more than a superficial misrepresentation of its author’s mighty thoughts seems possible. Let’s be honest, I may never get around to, for instance, the complete Essays of Montaigne, so I’ll give Great Ideas a try. I promise not to claim to know everything about Montaigne after two chapters.
Ever-dependable, the NYPL has 10 of the titles available for loan! I spotted two copies at the Jefferson Market branch in Greenwich Village and pounced upon one gladly. Standing on the checkout line, I daydreamed about my gradual transformation into a lettered person. (But it was to be one step forward, two steps back: the other item I borrowed was a DVD of “Wonder Woman - season two.”)
I have chosen “On the Shortness of Life” by Seneca, the earliest writer in the series. The book’s cover quote solemnly intones, “Life is long if you know how to use it.” Philosophy is not meant to be self-help, yet I can’t resist the temptation to view it that way. I want this book to give me guidance through the pesky career crisis I’m experiencing right now.
I’ll let you know how it goes.
18 July 2006
Brevity is the soul of wit
Thank you, Hamlet. You hit the nail on the head, yet again.
I hereby stake my claim: the ideal everyday blog entry should be around 200-300 words in length. To the best of my ability, I will limit my future postings to this length.
Loosely speaking, a posting of 200-300 words permits a reader's eye to take in the whole of the text in a single glance at the average computer screen, and therefore presents itself as just substantial enough to express a thought adequately and engage the attention without threatening a reader's time and patience.
The end.
(98 words, not including Title or parenthetical word count)
I hereby stake my claim: the ideal everyday blog entry should be around 200-300 words in length. To the best of my ability, I will limit my future postings to this length.
Loosely speaking, a posting of 200-300 words permits a reader's eye to take in the whole of the text in a single glance at the average computer screen, and therefore presents itself as just substantial enough to express a thought adequately and engage the attention without threatening a reader's time and patience.
The end.
(98 words, not including Title or parenthetical word count)
17 July 2006
Joie de livre
Let me tell you about my little book problem.
I can’t resist books. I also can’t seem to finish them. No, wait, that’s not true. I do finish books, but the time it takes me to finish them far outstrips the degree of enthusiasm I experience at the time I take them out of the library, or, *gasp*, bought them.
I try to be realistic about my habits. I try to buy only books that I “need” and that I know I will get around to reading sooner or later. And I’ve been pretty good about it for a long time. I can pat myself on the back for my moderation. The actual reading of a book, however, is the true challenge. One must make time for reading, and I am bad about that. I am distractible and restless. And when I’m tired, as I often am, I am both, to a heightened degree. Sometimes I need “Family Guy” more than I need James Alison.
Book binging is not the biggest problem in the world. But it’s a bit embarrassing. You’d think I was a voracious reader and vastly learned. I certainly don’t feel as if I am. I just “get on to a lot of things,” as one does. That is, I get an idea in my head that I NEED to explore. Or I hear about a writer (on the radio, at a blog, from an acquaintance) about whom I simply MUST inform myself, and off I go to the New York Public Library to snap the desired tome that will lift me to a better plane of existence from the system reserves or… *frisson*, immediate checkout.
For your information, I am not much of a fiction reader. I pick away almost exclusively at non-fiction. I am not proud of this, but I must follow my heart where it leads. I have worse flaws.
Lunchtime often leads me to one of NYPL’s nearby, central midtown branches. The Mid-Manhattan and Donnell branches are equidistant from the Death Star -- I mean my office -- and they are public treasures of the first order. I never thought I would be glad to spend so much time in places of such architectural dinginess and grim, bare-bones civic atmosphere as these public library branches. But I walk to the library with the excitement of a pilgrim approaching Santiago de Compostela. Each and every time.
And it’s free.
But at times the library fails me. My interests are particular and the books I want sometimes verge on the arcane. The library is not always equal to my greed. In such instances I pay a call to my secret paramours, the second-hand bookshops. I am not afraid of them. Most are better organized and less dusty than their detractors believe. I found quite a few good ones in the University of Chicago area when I was there two weeks ago. But New York has one or two shops at which one need not sneeze (I did mention these stores are not dusty). The Strand, for instance. A gold mine, take my word for it. And the venerable, historic Gotham Book Mart, one block’s walk, as luck would have it, from the Death Star.
I can exercise restraint, and I do. I do not sacrifice my rent money to second-hand books. Just my time. You would be dismayed by the growing stack of reading on the hallway shelf in my apartment. It’s blocking the daylight from the windows.
Today’s posting is brought to you by Guilt. Guilt: haunting America’s bloggers, from coast to coast, who fail to post for months at a time, who then resort to writing anything, just ANYTHING, when the mood hits. Like me. And you!
I can’t resist books. I also can’t seem to finish them. No, wait, that’s not true. I do finish books, but the time it takes me to finish them far outstrips the degree of enthusiasm I experience at the time I take them out of the library, or, *gasp*, bought them.
I try to be realistic about my habits. I try to buy only books that I “need” and that I know I will get around to reading sooner or later. And I’ve been pretty good about it for a long time. I can pat myself on the back for my moderation. The actual reading of a book, however, is the true challenge. One must make time for reading, and I am bad about that. I am distractible and restless. And when I’m tired, as I often am, I am both, to a heightened degree. Sometimes I need “Family Guy” more than I need James Alison.
Book binging is not the biggest problem in the world. But it’s a bit embarrassing. You’d think I was a voracious reader and vastly learned. I certainly don’t feel as if I am. I just “get on to a lot of things,” as one does. That is, I get an idea in my head that I NEED to explore. Or I hear about a writer (on the radio, at a blog, from an acquaintance) about whom I simply MUST inform myself, and off I go to the New York Public Library to snap the desired tome that will lift me to a better plane of existence from the system reserves or… *frisson*, immediate checkout.
For your information, I am not much of a fiction reader. I pick away almost exclusively at non-fiction. I am not proud of this, but I must follow my heart where it leads. I have worse flaws.
Lunchtime often leads me to one of NYPL’s nearby, central midtown branches. The Mid-Manhattan and Donnell branches are equidistant from the Death Star -- I mean my office -- and they are public treasures of the first order. I never thought I would be glad to spend so much time in places of such architectural dinginess and grim, bare-bones civic atmosphere as these public library branches. But I walk to the library with the excitement of a pilgrim approaching Santiago de Compostela. Each and every time.
And it’s free.
But at times the library fails me. My interests are particular and the books I want sometimes verge on the arcane. The library is not always equal to my greed. In such instances I pay a call to my secret paramours, the second-hand bookshops. I am not afraid of them. Most are better organized and less dusty than their detractors believe. I found quite a few good ones in the University of Chicago area when I was there two weeks ago. But New York has one or two shops at which one need not sneeze (I did mention these stores are not dusty). The Strand, for instance. A gold mine, take my word for it. And the venerable, historic Gotham Book Mart, one block’s walk, as luck would have it, from the Death Star.
I can exercise restraint, and I do. I do not sacrifice my rent money to second-hand books. Just my time. You would be dismayed by the growing stack of reading on the hallway shelf in my apartment. It’s blocking the daylight from the windows.
Today’s posting is brought to you by Guilt. Guilt: haunting America’s bloggers, from coast to coast, who fail to post for months at a time, who then resort to writing anything, just ANYTHING, when the mood hits. Like me. And you!
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