Letter 15, “On Brawn and Brains,” is Seneca’s witty and surprisingly modern take on the relationship between physical fitness and the life of the mind. He opens with a charming twist on the old Roman letter-greeting — instead of “if you are well, it is well,” people like us should say “if you are studying […]
Letter 14: On the Reasons for Withdrawing from the World
Letter 14, “On the Reasons for Withdrawing from the World,” is one of the meatier and more politically charged letters — and it carries extra weight when you remember that Seneca wrote under the unpredictable and dangerous emperor Nero. He begins with our natural love for the body: we’re right to care for it, he […]
Letter 13: On Groundless Fears
https://media.blubrry.com/littlebook/www.lettersfromastoic.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Letter_13_-_On_Groundless_Fears.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: Email | RSS Letter 13, “On Groundless Fears,” is one of the most psychologically astute and practically useful letters in the entire collection — essentially a piece of cognitive therapy written two thousand years before the term existed. Its central insight is one of Seneca’s most […]
Letter 12: On Old Age
https://media.blubrry.com/littlebook/www.lettersfromastoic.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Letter-12-On-Old-Age.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: Email | RSS Letter 12, “On Old Age,” is one of the warmest and most beloved letters in the whole collection. Seneca visits his country estate and finds the evidence of his own aging everywhere he looks: a crumbling building, the gnarled old plane trees he […]
Letter 11: On the Blush of Modesty
https://media.blubrry.com/littlebook/www.lettersfromastoic.net/wp-content/uploads/2023/08/Letter_11-_On_The_Blush_of_Modesty.mp3Podcast: Play in new window | Download | EmbedSubscribe: Email | RSS Letter 11, “On the Blush of Modesty,” is short and charming, and it turns on a delightful observation. Seneca has just met a promising young friend of Lucilius’s and noticed that the young man blushed — which sends him into a wonderful meditation […]