Seneca suffered from attacks of breathlessness all his life, likely asthma, and in this short, brave letter he writes just after one has passed. His doctors called it “rehearsing death.” Gasping for air, he steadied himself with a simple thought: we have already “tried” nonexistence, before we were born, and it held no suffering. His […]
Letter 53: On the Faults of the Spirit
This letter begins with one of Seneca’s funniest stories: a short boat trip, a miserable bout of seasickness, and Seneca jumping overboard in his cloak to swim for shore. From there he draws a serious lesson. We notice bodily illness eventually, but the sicker the soul, the less it knows it’s sick. Only philosophy can […]
Letter 52: On Choosing Our Teachers
Why do we keep drifting back toward the very things we want to leave behind? Seneca’s answer is humble: almost no one rises above their own folly alone. We need help. In this letter he sorts learners into three kinds, honors the ones who have to fight hardest against their own nature, and gives timeless […]
Letter 51: On Baiae and Morals
Seneca visits Baiae, the glittering beach resort of the Roman rich, and leaves the very next day. Why? Because the places we choose shape the people we become. In this short, fiery letter he argues that some surroundings soften us, that life is a campaign with no furlough, and that real freedom means being a […]
Letter 50: On our blindness and its cure
Seneca tells a strange, sad story about a woman in his household who went blind and didn’t know it. She kept complaining that her rooms were too dark. Then he turns the story on all of us: we’re blind to our own faults and blame them on the city, our age, or our circumstances. The […]