[Quotes courtesy of Seneca]
[Just when we thought we’d never get to the tasty parts of Seneca…
In this letter Seneca alludes, finally, to a noble death. Pleasantly, in getting to it, he gives us a few useful tidbits. The first is that the things we cherish, involve ourselves with, obsess over, can become chains: ” … there are a few men whom slavery holds fast, but there are many more who hold fast to slavery.” Consider our addictions. Are we compelled to be pawns of our social life? For we certainly relinquish control, submitting and embracing our digital masters.
When it comes to aging gracefully: surrendering our treasures, gifting those things we find dear, rather than chasing down the last morsel of profit or acquisition: “No man can swim ashore and take his baggage with him.”
Lastly, the title Memento Mori: Remember that you will die. This, among all themes in the Stoic’s philosophical arsenal, is the most powerful. The cares to which we grasp as we die have no bearing on our place in the universe. You had nothing coming in — you will have nothing going out.
“Free yourself of the fear of loss for the final loss negates them all.” – Anonymole
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I thought overcoming the concept of loss was a cornerstone of the stoics. Gain and loss are not to be considered in the moment, only being in the moment to the best of your ability and not whining as all score keeping is irrelevant. We come into the world fed a concept of family and “humanity” which, for all we know, is exactly the same for wolves. Only Mom drops them sooner and they’re on their own. Much as we are save the lip service given to the precepts of “humanity.” There’s a reason philosophy and religion are such rackets.
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Overcoming or rationalizing loss away, I’d say those two are equal. In the end, we ignore them in our own way — if we are to practice such a belief.
Eight Billion philosophies: all of them bunk.
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