This review is basically for me to come back to instead of re-reading the book. Read at your own discretion.
On the Shortness of Life: Life Is Long if You Know How to Use It by Seneca is a sequence of three dictates by Seneca reprinted by Penguin Books. These dictates are “On the Shortness of Life”, “Consolation to Helvia” and “On Tranquility of the Mind”.
In this book (the first letter at least), Seneca tackles the issue most people have which is that time is not enough. He brings forth some very convincing arguments which I have extracted and quoted below.
“Assuredly your lives, even if they last more than a thousand years, will shrink into the tiniest span: those vices will swallow up any space of time. The actual time you have - which reason can prolong though it naturally passes quickly-inevitably escapes you rapidly: for you do not grasp it or hold it back or try to delay that swift est of all things, but you let it slip away as though it were something superfluous and replaceable.”\
“Can anything be more idiotic than certain people who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves officiously preoccupied in order to improve their lives; they spend their lives organizing their lives. They direct their purposes with an eye to a distant future. But putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and den I es us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune’s control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal are you straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately. Listen to the cry of our greatest poet, who as though inspired with divine utterance sings salutary verses:
Life’s finest day for wretched mortals here is always first to flee”
From this, I understand that we shouldn’t put our true days of rest and freedom from control towards the unpromised ends of our lives.
He says rich men waste their time in utmost vanity. Collection keeping, buying things they don’t appreciate, indulging in following sports just to feel among I feel he is more than a bit pissed at the upper class. How does he know they aren’t enjoying their lives. Sure some parts of it are wasted and done for status and to serve others, but what about the other parts. What does Seneca truly know about that?
He says a lot of facts and activities are meaningless to truly living. We need to cut all the fat to understand how much time we truly have and how much we have wasted. He says philosophy is the only act of leisure that makes you feel alive. Really patting himself on the back there. He just sounds bitter and lacks understanding. What would he rather everyone do? Think? For all time?
I understand the part of not letting others control your time and not being so liberal with it but everything else just seems like a bitter attack.
This book reminds me of The Death of Ivan Ilych. He thought was progressing in life but was chasing vanity. Surrounded himself with the wrong people, wasted time and was stuck with people putting up with him for his wealth waiting for his death. Really interesting book with similar ideas. He believes people like Zeno and Pythagoras truly lived. And I can see the parallels between them and George Hotz and Patrick Collison. But these modern people enjoyed their lives.
George Hotz does not believe in the wastage of time. Time exists to be spent how you wish. There should be no regret, no pinnacle of perfection you should be ashamed of not reaching. You should actually enjoy your life. It doesn’t matter anyway.
He also talks about immortality through monuments and philosophy. That doesn’t change the finiteness of the experience of life and how to maximize it. It’s all pointless in the end. Sure, he’s living now through his work but what does that mean to his dead, long-decayed body? Nothing!
The only good advice is to cut out the noise and live life in the moment, not by chasing pleasures.\
“But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future. When they come to the end of it, the poor wretches realize too late that for all this time they have been preoccupied with doing nothing. And the fact that they sometimes invoke death is no proof that their lives seem long. Their own folly afflicts them with restless emotions which hurl themselves upon the very things they fear: they often long for death because they fear it. Nor is this a proof that they are living for a long time that the day often seems long to them, or that they complain that the hours pass slowly until the time fixed for dinner arrives. For as soon as their preoccupations fail them, they are restless with nothing to do, not knowing how to dispose of their leisure or make the time pass. And so they are anxious for something else to do, and all the intervening time is wearisome: really, it is just as when a gladiatorial show has been announced, or they are looking forward to the appointed time of some other exhibition or amusement -they want to leap over the days in between. Any deferment of the longed-for event is tedious to them.Yet the time of the actual enjoyment is short and swift, and made much shorter through their own fault. For they dash from one pleasure to another and cannot stay steady in one desire. Their days are not long but odious: on the other hand, how short do the nights seem which they spend drinking or sleeping with harlots! Hence the lunacy of the poets, who encourage human frailty by their stories in which Jupiter, seduced by the pleasures of love-making, is seen to double the length of the night.What else is it but to inflame our vices when they quote the gods to endorse them, and as a precedent for our failings they offer -and excuse -the wantonness of the gods? Can the nights, which they purchase so dearly, not seem much too short to these people? They lose the day in waiting for the night, and the night in fearing the dawn.”\
We don’t learn to live the moments between but are instead chasing one pleasure to another. And this is even more prevalent in our age, with so much to take our time and engage us, none of it truly meaningful. But again, I criticize Seneca, who is to say what is of meaning?\
It is the pursuit of pleasures and the negligence of the present that make life short. Even while enjoying said pleasures, we dread its ending so much that we fail to enjoy the present.\
“There will always be causes for anxiety, whether due to prosperity or to wretchedness. Life will be driven on through a succession of preoccupations: we shall always long for leisure, but never enjoy it.” \
And even when we get what we want, the great toils it took us are exchanged with even greater toils, the anxiety does not dissipate, the feeling of completion still hesitates, and we are left in the wake of no change.
HOW TO TRULY LIVE LIFE
Extract yourself from the crowd.Truly do things for yourself.Don’t live life squalidly.Don’t live life chasing pleasure.Don’t chase your true desires far off.Don’t spend time liberally.Follow Patrick Collison’s life advice:
https://patrickcollison.com/advice
LEARNING TO BE ZEN (FROM REDDIT)
“Some redditor from posted how his boss always seemed totally at peace in a high-stress environment. Totally chill, no matter how messed up things got. When he asked him about it, the boss said “Someday, someone you love will die, and everything else will seem totally irrelevant.”
Totally morbid way of saying “Life is too short to be mad/sad/stressed all the time,” but it gets to the point and it’s stuck in my head.
A guy I know lost his son to cancer. He’s gone through some shit in his life but he still remains positive. When I asked him how, he said “any day spent above ground is a good day.”
CRITICISMS
Some things are either lost on me or not useful at all. Why does he talk about his mother or virtues?
Some of his arguments are dated and useless ( even back then) such as desiring wealth and estates when our bodies are so small.
He is just done with the materialism and the greed of his time and the rich thinking they are enjoying themselves while not understanding the true essence of life.
WISE WORDS FROM TRANQUILITY OF MIND
“‘Where is the need,’ I ask, ‘to compose something to last for ages? Why not stop trying to prevent posterity being silent about you? You were born to die, and a silent funeral is less bothersome. So if you must fill your time, write some-thing in a simple style for your own use and not for publication: less toil is needed if you study only for the day.” “We are, therefore, seeking how the mind can follow a smooth and steady course, well disposed to itself, happily regarding its own condition and with no interruption to this pleasure, but remaining in a state of peace with no ups and downs: that will be tranquility.”
“How do we deal with the boredom and restlessness and inability of our mind to stand itself and the hateful black bitterness of others that arise from it. By devoting ones mental talent to one thing. By finding something worthwhile to fill the void.”\
“We are all tied to Fortune, some by a loose and golden chain, and others by a tight one of baser metal: but what does it matter? We are all held in the same captivity, and those who have bound others are themselves in bonds -unless you think perhaps that the left -hand chain is lighter. One man is bound by high office, another by wealth; good birth weighs down some, and a humble origin others; some bow under the rule of other men and some under their own; some are restricted to one place by exile, others by priesthoods: all life is a servitude. So you have to get used to your circumstances, complain about them as little as possible, and grasp whatever advantage they have to offer: no condition is so bitter that a stable mind cannot find some consolation in it. Often small areas can be skillfully divided up to allow room for many uses and arrangement can make a narrow piece of ground inhabitable. Think your way through difficulties: harsh conditions can be softened, restricted ones can be widened, and heavy ones can weigh less on those who know how to bear them. Moreover, we must not send our desires on a distant hunt, but allow them to explore what is near to hand, since they do not submit to being totally confined. Abandoning those things which are impossible or difficult to attain, let us pursue what is readily available and entices our hopes, yet recognize that all are equally trivial, outwardly varied in appearance but uniformly futile within. And let us not envy those who stand higher than we do: what look like towering heights are precipices. On the other hand, those whom an unfair fate has put in a critical condition will be safer for lowering their pride in things that are in themselves proud and reducing their fortune as far as they can to a humble level. Indeed there are many who are forced to cling to their pinnacle because they cannot descend without falling; but they must bear witness that this in itself is their greatest burden, that they are forced to be a burden to others, and that they are not so much elevated as impaled. By justice, gentleness, kindness and lavish generosity let them prepare many defences against later disasters to give them hope of hanging on more safely. But nothing can rescue us from these mental vacillations so efficiently as always to set some limit to advancements, and not to allow Fortune the decision when they should cease but ourselves to stop far short of that. In this way, we shall have some desires to stimulate the mind, but being limited they will not lead us to a state of uncontrolled uncertainty.”
But the wise man does not fear Fortune. He is ready to give it all back. He lives well below his means in preparation. He doesn’t fall to the temptations of Fortune. He is ready to relinquish all ( even his body) back gracefully with thanks. He is not anchored to any chain, tied to any state. His mind and self-worth are not dependent on it.
Understand that positions and power do not guarantee anything. They are not worth pursuing.
Do not pursue pointless agendas. Only following what you know will reap rewards for you. Do not be aimless.
“It is not industry that makes men restless, but false impressions of things drive them mad. For even madmen need some hope to stir them: the outward show of some object excites them because their deluded mind cannot detect its worthlessness.”
Unremitting effort leads to a kind of mental dullness and lethargy. It is ok also to relax.