final thoughts from seneca: figure out what you need and shape your life based on that

“When the spirit has prepared itself beforehand, it is not so clear just how much real strength it possesses; the surest indications are the ones it gives on the spur of the moment, when it views annoyances in amateur not merely unruffled but serene, when it refrains from flying into a fit of tempter or picking a quarrel with someone, when it sees to everything it requires by refraining from hankering after this and that… Until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. We’ve been using them to cause we need them but because we had them. Look at the number of things we buy because others have bought them or because they’re most people’s houses. One of the causes of the troubles that beset us is the way our lives are guided by the example of others; instead of being set to rights by reason we’re seduced by convention. There are things that we shouldn’t wish to initiate if they were done by only a few, but when a lot of people have started doing them we follow along, as though a practice became more respectable by becoming more common. One they have become general, mistaken ways acquire in our minds the status of correct ones…

These are the people who pass on vices, transmitting them from one character to another. One used to think that the type of person who spreads tales was as bad as any: but there are persons who spread vices. And association with them does a lot of damage. For even if its success is not immediate, it leaves a seed in the mind, and even after we’ve said goodbye to them the evil follows us, to rear its head at some time or other in the future…” — seneca, letter cxxiii (123)

this passage had a lot of gems for me.

1. the fact that the work of “preparing the spirit beforehand” doesn’t show up immediately just resonated with me for some reason. i think that’s related to what i wrote the other day about seneca’s thoughts on how living virtuously takes practice. that type of effort/work doesn’t show up instantly like some other work does. but those moments when the effort pays off are important (like refraining to fly off into a temper).
2. ​so much of what we live with these days is unnecessary, but we use it because we have it. until we have begun to go without them, we fail to realize how unnecessary many things are. i’m pretty interested in how consciously choosing to have less can teach us to need less. i wrote the other day about seneca’s thoughts on essentials vs luxuries and now i’m thinking of marie kondo’s work, too…
3. ​avoid spending time with people who are vice-spreaders. it’s harder to shed the influence of their thoughts than one would think. definitely taking that thinking with me into 2017. and a related point…
4. one of the causes of our troubles is that we guide our lives based on the lives of others. this is just generally a problematic reality. when few people have done something, we’re fine to not follow. but as things grow in popularity we follow along as if things get more respectable the more common they are. but that just isn’t always a causal pathway. lots of people can collectively be into some fucked up shit just as easily as they can be into good things. but i always have been and will likely always be someone who tries to be critical of all things in that lane. stopping to ask why and whether or not that thing is good for me is super important. i think about this with television and binge watching series’ all the time. do i really need to be caught up on game of thrones because everyone else is?

the big point behind this passage for me, and really all of seneca’s writing (this is the last seneca post i think), is this: figure out what you need and shape your life based on that; not what others say they need. the process of defining what you as an individual needs is one that i don’t actually see people being supported to do. school doesn’t do it and society does it in the worst, back-handed, implicit, and generally oppressive ways. i really like alain de botton’s school of life and now i’m wondering if there’s some way to have something like that here in the states…

hm!

writing: 16:18
​spell-check, link-finding, & formatting: 7:18