The Inquisitive Project

Welcome to the second installment of Speeches and Stories, Lyrics and Letters. This time we’re looking at the first letter in the collection known as Letters from a Stoic. For the full text and a transcript of this video, see below.

Please comment if you have any ideas for Speeches & Stories, Lyrics & Letters you’d like us to discuss.

Thank you for your time!

-Ryan Parmenter

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Full Text:

Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius.

CONTINUE to act thus, my dear Lucilius - set yourself free for your own sake; gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands. Make yourself believe the truth of my words, - that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach. The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness. Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose. What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily? For we are mistaken when we look forward to death+; the major portion of death has already passed, Whatever years be behind us are in death's hands. Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me that you are doing: hold every hour in your grasp. Lay hold of to-day's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon to-morrow's. While we are postponing, life speeds by. Nothing, Lucilius, is ours, except time. We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession. What fools these mortals be! They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning, after they have acquired them; but they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity, - time! And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay. You may desire to know how I, who preach to you so freely, am practising. I confess frankly: my expense account balances, as you would expect from one who is free-handed but careful. I cannot boast that I waste nothing, but I can at least tell you what I am wasting, and the cause and manner of the loss; I can give you the reasons why I am a poor man. My situation, however, is the same as that of many who are reduced to slender means through no fault of their own: every one forgives them, but no one comes to their rescue. What is the state of things, then? It is this: I do not regard a man as poor, if the little which remains is enough for him. I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours; and you cannot begin too early. For, as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask./a Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight, and the quality is vile. Farewell

Auto-generated Transcript:

Hello Dylan, I loved what you had to say about Sam and Frodo and fighting for what's good.

Yeah, really good stuff.

Today on speeches and stories, lyrics and letters, maybe I got that order right.

I want to share with you a letter from Seneca to his friend Lucilius who I don't know anything about Lucilius but Seneca was an ancient Roman guy I think he was high in the courts and maybe worked under Nero pretty closely so he yeah I guess I won't get into his biography

But he is one of the Stoic philosophers, which is a school of philosophy that I've been getting into lately.

Anyway, this is a letter he sends to his friend Lucilius, and it's about saving time. Time management, that kind of thing.

Here we go.

It says, Greetings from Seneca to his friend Lucilius.

Continue to act thus, my dear Lucilius.

Set yourself free for your own sake.

Gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you or filched away, or has merely slipped from your hands.

Make yourself believe the truth of my words, that certain movements are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach.

The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness.

Furthermore, if you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.

What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?

For we are mistaken when we look forward to death.

The major portion of death has already passed.

Whatever years lie behind us are in death's hands.

Therefore, Lucilius, do as you write me, that you are doing.

Hold every hour in your grasp.

Lay hold of today's task, and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow's.

While we are postponing, life speeds us by.

Nothing, Lucilius, is ours except time.

We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession.

What fools these mortals be!

They allow the cheapest and most useless things which can easily be replaced to be charged in the reckoning after they have acquired them.

But they never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity, time.

And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.

You may desire to know how I, who preach to you so freely, am practicing.

I confess, frankly, my expense account balances as you would expect from one who is free-handed but careful.

I cannot boast that I waste nothing, but I can at least tell you what I am wasting and the cause and manner of the loss.

I can give you the reasons why I am a poor man.

My situation, however, is the same as that of many who are reduced to slender means through no fault of their own.

Everyone forgives them, but no one comes to their rescue.

So yeah, this letter has a lot of wisdom.

And like you went through the speech idea by idea, I'm going to do that here with this one.

So back to the beginning.

Continue to act thus, my dear Lou of Silius.

Set yourself free for your own sake.

Gather and save your time, which till lately has been forced from you, filched away, or has merely slipped your hands.

So yeah, that's the idea that there are maybe three ways that you can lose time this valuable resource it's been forced from you which people can do people can steal your time forcefully um which i i guess has the connotation of like you have no consent in it maybe somebody has kidnapped you i don't know something like that um or it can be filched away um to me that implies you have been like asked to do something and maybe you don't want to do it but you're still have some social responsibility to do that and that takes up your time or has merely slipped from your hands and that's completely on you that last option where you have mismanaged your time or you have done you just like waste time to me that looks like doom scrolling i think that's the first example that comes to mind so the idea is just to gather your time and save it up and be aware of those three to your time allotment.

Yeah, moving on.

Make yourself believe the truth of my words, that certain moments are torn from us, that some are gently removed, and that others glide beyond our reach.

Again, just a rewording of what he said before.

The most disgraceful kind of loss, however, is that due to carelessness.

Yeah, the doom scrawling is disgraceful, says Seneca.

Potentially.

I mean, he didn't have dim scrolling back then.

Anyway.

Yeah, that's the worst one because it's your own fault, right?

And if you're squandering your time, then that's disgraceful because time is the most valuable resource you have.

And if you want to live a good life and pursue good things, wasting time is taking away from those goals.

And you have to be cognizant of that.

Balancing that with knowing what rest looks like and not labeling that as wasted time, which can be hard.

But yeah, thinking of wasted time as a disgrace is kind of weighty language, but I think it's helpful to ponder.

It goes on.

Furthermore, If you will pay close heed to the problem, you will find that the largest portion of our life passes while we are doing ill, a goodly share while we are doing nothing, and the whole while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.

So again, another set of three.

The most amount of our time passes while we are doing ill.

I don't think he means that we are committing crimes or doing something against other people, but ill is just probably anything that isn't worth it.

Anything that's not actively benefiting you and the other people around you in a constructive and moral way.

The other, the second option here is a goodly share.

passes while we are doing nothing.

So yeah, that's just, again, probably mismanaged time.

Or maybe you've set up your calendar in a way that you find yourself waiting around for things in waiting rooms or something like that, just like you're doing nothing, you're waiting around for the next thing.

And then the whole passes us while we are doing that which is not to the purpose.

The purpose, we could just substitute The Quest.

I think that fits in pretty good.

What man can you show me who places any value on his time, who reckons the worth of each day, who understands that he is dying daily?

Yeah, so it's just rare and therefore worthwhile to really get a grasp of what your time looks like and how much you have and how much you're wasting.

Because most people don't do that.

And if you are someone who does that, you're you're ahead for we are mistaken when we look forward to death the major portion of death has already passed whatever years lie behind us are in death's hands that is a cool idea that whatever has already gone on and is over that is what is dead and the idea that death is something in the future is misguided considering that death is always right on our heels, eating up our past, eating up the previous moment, the previous hour.

And so we really only have the present and maybe the future, but even that's not promised.

So make sure you're managing your present well, I think is a moral you can take from that.

He says, lay hold of today's task and you will not need to depend so much on tomorrow's.

While we are postponing, life speeds us by.

I think that's the same idea as don't put off to tomorrow what you could do today. That's just a wiser way of deciding what to do when so that you're not postponing and never getting anything done and procrastinating because that's when life passes us by.

Life speeds by, says Seneca.

Nothing, Lucilius, is ours except time.

We were entrusted by nature with the ownership of this single thing, so fleeting and slippery that anyone who will can oust us from possession.

So it's our only real possession, is what Seneca says, that anyone relationship we have like oh this is my brother this is my girlfriend this is my husband whatever that's something that can be taken from you they can die they can disown you something like that um any material possession clearly can be taken from you that has been so apparent to me driving around looking at the destruction that these tornadoes have been causing here in Omaha lately it's crazy it's so sobering because the previous weeks i would drive around and be like oh these houses are so nice what what would it be like if i was able to make this kind of money and then that same neighborhood gets racked with tornadoes and houses are demolished like down to the ground and i need to take a step back and be like wow i was really taking what i had for granted and material possession is just an illusion

It can be taken from you.

But really, the only thing that we have is time.

And so that's just a reframing of what resources you have and what things you should really be paying attention to.

What fools these mortals be?

They allow the cheapest and most useless things, which can easily be replaced, to be charged in the reckoning after they have acquired them.

They never regard themselves as in debt when they have received some of that precious commodity, time.

And yet time is the one loan which even a grateful recipient cannot repay.

So yeah, again, thinking of time as more valuable than possessions.

I think another Stoic philosopher puts it this way, where so many people would often be quick to litigate or get in a fight about somebody who stole something from them, their possession or somebody who hurt someone they love um but again those things can be taken away but time is the only thing that is really ours and so when you are given the gift of having extra time by somebody you should be all that much more grateful than the gift of i don't know of hamburger for example um thinking and just re-evaluating the value of time and how important it is to use all the other resources we have without time everything else is pointless right anyway you may desire to know how i who preach to you so freely and practicing i confess frankly my ex my expense account balances as you would expect from one who is free-handed but careful so my expense account balances

That might be a translation thing, but I think that's the idea of having a balanced checkbook.

Your debts are accounted for.

Your resources are accounted for.

You really know what's going on.

And he attributes that to being free-handed but careful.

Free-handed, I think, just means generous, right?

You're holding things loosely.

You can give things to people who need it.

But you're also careful and not someone who will be easily taken advantage of.

I think those are good goals there generosity and cautious caution I cannot boast that I waste nothing but I can at least tell you what I am wasting and the cause and the manner of the loss I can give you the reasons why I am a poor man so he's saying he's not perfect but at least he's not someone who doesn't know where their money's going they're like why am I always struggling he like knows what's going on.

He knows where his time is going,

which is apparently the first step in the direction of finding more wealth in time

and money.

You have to know where it's all going.

He says, I can at least tell you what I am wasting.

So yeah,

being aware,

being self-aware,

being reflective on these things,

introspective,

I think,

as well,

really helps.

He says,

my situation,

however,

is the same as that of many who are reduced to slender means through no fault of

their own.

Everyone forgives them, but no one comes to their rescue.

So it seems like something happened to him.

He lost a lot of money.

I think it was Seneca who was a slave.

No.

Yes.

Seneca, I think it was either him or Epictetus, but I think Seneca was a slave.

So he really knows...

I think that's probably the perspective that informs a lot of this thinking.

He knows what material wealth is and how easily it can be taken from you, how meaningless it is.

He knows what is actually valuable because when everything is stripped away,

he still had the commodity of his own time,

even as a slave.

So that's interesting.

Last bit here, he says, what is the state of things then?

It is this.

I do not regard a man poor if the little which remains is enough for him.

That's good.

Another way of saying that is wealth is not monetary success.

It's being content with what you have.

It's not wanting things.

Yeah, wealth is not having things.

It's the lack of wanting things.

So you can have a lot of stuff and want a lot more, and that's not a very wealthy state of mind.

But if you have a lot or if you have little, it doesn't matter.

As long as you're content and you're not actively like,

ah,

I wish I had this,

I wish I had that,

then I think that's a lot more wealthy state of mind,

right?

Scarcity versus abundance.

He says, I advise you, however, to keep what is really yours, time, and you cannot begin too early.

Same with investing money, but that's interesting that he draws the parallel.

Or at least for me, there's a parallel to be drawn.

That investing early financially is always better than investing later,

but same thing with investing your time wisely.

You cannot begin too early, he says.

For as our ancestors believed, it is too late to spare when you reach the dregs of the cask.

Of that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight and the quality is vile.

Farewell.

So yeah, if you've drank, drunken, drank and...

a cask,

I'm assuming,

of wine,

that the dregs at the bottom,

almost at the very end,

like the last inch,

you know,

is bitter and vile,

he says.

And maybe that's the idea that in life,

if we wait to the end of our life,

our ability to do things is a lot worse and our quality of doing them is vile.

So we should be

Conscious of our time and our limits and knowing that while we're in the prime of

our lives,

we should be taking advantage of this and our health and all of these things that

will be gone later in life.

If we are just saving up for retirement and we want to go travel the world,

but then we get there and there's like a big staircase,

you know,

and some monument and you can't even like get in because you're too feeble.

That's a tragedy, I would say.

And I think that's the idea here.

that that which remains at the bottom, the amount is slight and the quality is vile.

And he says for a while.

Anyway, there's a bit of an analysis on epistle number one on saving time from Seneca to his friend Lucilius.