[HN Gopher] Seneca on The Shortness of Time (2017)
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Seneca on The Shortness of Time (2017)
Author : prostoalex
Score : 198 points
Date : 2020-02-02 12:35 UTC (10 hours ago)
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| rnd33 wrote:
| One thing I can't shake, and it appears already in the second
| sentence of the quoted letters by Seneca:
|
| "Life is long enough, and it has been given in sufficiently
| generous measure to allow the accomplishment of the very greatest
| things if the whole of it is well invested."
|
| What are "great things" and what is the definition of a "well-
| invested life"? Most of us will live rather unremarkable lives,
| most likely forgotten in a hundred years or so (at best!). Who
| says a "good life" means being remembered as long as possible by
| future humans? Who says the point of living is not to live in
| luxury and carelessness?
|
| It just seems to me that Seneca assumes the stoic world-view to
| be the norm. Can anyone help me understand?
| compumike wrote:
| On a related note, if you don't make conscious and deliberate
| decisions about how you want to spend your finite time -- i.e. if
| you are living "on autopilot" as another commenter said -- the
| decisions will be made for you by default, whether you like it or
| not.
|
| "I saw my life branching out before me like the green fig tree in
| the story. From the tip of every branch, like a fat purple fig, a
| wonderful future beckoned and winked. One fig was a husband and a
| happy home and children, and another fig was a famous poet and
| another fig was a brilliant professor, and another fig was Ee
| Gee, the amazing editor, and another fig was Europe and Africa
| and South America, and another fig was Constantin and Socrates
| and Attila and a pack of other lovers with queer names and
| offbeat professions, and another fig was an Olympic lady crew
| champion, and beyond and above these figs were many more figs I
| couldn't quite make out. I saw myself sitting in the crotch of
| this fig tree, starving to death, just because I couldn't make up
| my mind which of the figs I would choose. I wanted each and every
| one of them, but choosing one meant losing all the rest, and, as
| I sat there, unable to decide, the figs began to wrinkle and go
| black, and, one by one, they plopped to the ground at my feet."
| -- Sylvia Plath
| mariushn wrote:
| Wonderful quote! How do you get more figs in the tree? As in,
| how to discover possibilities you haven't thought of, and the
| tree has only 2-3 figs now, none amazing?
| whtrbt wrote:
| Wander, ramble, daydream, experiment.
| 867-5309 wrote:
| "The very parent at the park playing on his iPhone while his
| children run around playing and laughing is the same one, who,
| when you fast-forward the axis of time, wants those precious
| moments back."
|
| other brands are available..
| atorodius wrote:
| Antonomasia?
| 867-5309 wrote:
| product placement? elite luxury?
| pmoriarty wrote:
| Seneca's _Moral Letters_ [1] are also well worth reading, though
| they are as a whole more hit and miss than _On the Shortness of
| Life_ which is excellent throughout.
|
| [1] - https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Moral_letters_to_Lucilius
| jacobwilliamroy wrote:
| I didn't realize Seneca was still writing as of 2017
| dang wrote:
| We'd change the year to that of his letter, but the bulk of the
| OP was not written by Seneca.
| golemotron wrote:
| Entrepreneur too. His apple juice is incredible.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I was reminded that some things in adult life still distort the
| notion of time. Climbing for instance got people to quote "turns
| a second in a century". The amount of focus and depth for every
| little move makes your mind works differently.
|
| I think modern life kills this. Too many things are too
| comfortable and too stressful (as in short burst of opposite
| stimuli).
| cryptozeus wrote:
| Letters by seneca (free)
|
| http://www.openculture.com/2017/10/three-huge-volumes-of-sto...
| lawlorino wrote:
| Am I the only one who doesn't find this kind of writing helpful?
| It just seems to add to my increasing anxiety about throwing my
| life away by reminding me of that fact but not presenting a path
| to solution. I think I can best summarise my problem from the
| quote
|
| > "A man who dares to waste an hour of time has not discovered
| the value of his life."
|
| The critical thing that I'm missing is how does one go about
| finding the value of their life exactly?
| lihaciudaniel wrote:
| If you like to read more about Seneca, I can't recommend enough
| Tao Of Seneca [1] by Tim Ferris. Other classical text that are
| must read include Enchiridion by Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius
| Meditations
|
| [1] https://tim.blog/2017/07/06/tao-of-seneca/
| dahart wrote:
| > The best way to spend money is to buy time
|
| I realized recently that I never fully understood 'time is
| money', never felt it first-hand truly and deeply, until I tried
| to start my own business. Then I 'discovered' that money directly
| extended the amount of time I could chase my dream and feed my
| family. Having a job never gave me the sense that I was buying
| time, maybe because it's not finite in the same way the startup
| is.
| blinkingled wrote:
| Yet the best hours of my life have been idle, empty ones with no
| plans or agenda whatsoever.
|
| This whole idea of filling time with 'work' like it is a race is
| completely antithetical to any idea of joy and fulfilment.
|
| It feels like 'wasting' time or downtime is essential to
| meaningful productivity.
|
| I did absolutely nothing and it was everything that I thought it
| could be. -- Peter Gibbons.
| agumonkey wrote:
| I guess whatever you do, try to approach what pleases your mind
| to the fullest. Either coasting along looking at the sky or
| climbing a mountain.
|
| Slight anecdote, as a health improvement I started jogging in
| the woods last summer. My brain is still recovering from a lot
| of nasty sensations and I'm very sensitive to any form of happy
| emotions. Whenever I run, I'm free to pick my path, and this
| feels like a very raw form of happiness seeking. If a part of
| the forest appeals to me (because it's new, or the sun shines
| differently through it, or if it's more challenging) I do it
| and it appeases something in me.
| lordleft wrote:
| I would like to point out that Seneca was contemptuous of
| busyness for its own sake. The point is not to work, but to
| spend the finite time we are alive well. Maybe that includes
| periods of rest and repose.
|
| There is a tradition of meditation in Stoicism that invites us
| to take it easy and reflect on what we have, instead of
| hurrying to an arbitrary destination, given to us by our
| bosses, or society.
|
| From the same essay:
|
| Everyone hustles his life along, and is troubled by a longing
| for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who
| ... organizes every day as though it were his last, neither
| longs for nor fears the next day... Nothing can be taken from
| this life, and you can only add to it as if giving to a man who
| is already full and satisfied food which he does not want but
| can hold. So you must not think a man has lived long because he
| has white hair and wrinkles: he has not lived long, just
| existed long. For suppose you should think that a man had had a
| long voyage who had been caught in a raging storm as he left
| harbor, and carried hither and thither and driven round and
| round in a circle by the rage of opposing winds? He did not
| have a long voyage, just a long tossing about.
| dorkwood wrote:
| Which translation is that? It seems easier to read than my
| copy (Richard M. Gummere).
| lordleft wrote:
| I got the quote from this brainpickings article:
| https://www.brainpickings.org/2014/09/01/seneca-on-the-
| short...
|
| ...which uses: https://www.amazon.com/Shortness-Life-
| Penguin-Great-Ideas/dp...
| 1996 wrote:
| Coasting through life is still being part of the rat race -
| except you run at a lower pace.
|
| The core issue remains: if you don't have a plan for your life,
| society will make a plan for you.
|
| By making your own destiny, you may fill part of your time with
| work, but only as long as it serves your purpose.
|
| How good is your idea of wasting time to get meaningful
| productivity, if you are achieving someone else's goals instead
| of your own?
| marnett wrote:
| This is profound and concise. Particularly that
| society/someone/something will make a plan out of you if you
| are without one.
| blinkingled wrote:
| > How good is your idea of wasting time to get meaningful
| productivity, if you are achieving someone else's goals
| instead of your own?
|
| That's a great point actually - the someone else's goals
| part. The whole intelligence in service of madness thing
| stems from the fact that sane and intelligent people
| sometimes do not have a goal of their own.
|
| I definitely did not mean to imply that idling is the only
| thing you do with your life - on the contrary I was trying to
| say idling is a great way of knowing who you are and coming
| up with general goals for yourself that you can then fulfill
| in the rest of the time.
|
| The problem with busy life is you never really dream of your
| goals and are constantly looking for things to do - it makes
| it almost eventual that you'll be in service of others'
| goals. That's not always a bad thing but I find no
| fulfillment in doing just that.
| tonyedgecombe wrote:
| _The whole intelligence in service of madness thing stems
| from the fact that sane and intelligent people sometimes do
| not have a goal of their own._
|
| I have a suspicion that the majority only have a vague idea
| and they mostly end up where they are by happenstance.
| ellius wrote:
| One thing not highlighted in this article is that Seneca
| considered "leisure" the highest virtue. He talks about
| Augustus, for example, and other prominent Romans who "won" the
| rat race, and says they basically wasted their lives. So I
| think you'd find Seneca's message agreeable. Just read the real
| thing and ignore this knockoff.
| cortesoft wrote:
| There is a Brad Paisley song about this - Time Well Wasted.
|
| Like everything, the key is finding the right balance - between
| activity and rest, between production and consumption, between
| relationships and solitude. There is no easy answer to what the
| right ratios are, and they will vary by person and by the stage
| in life.
| magwa101 wrote:
| Seneca, JFC...
| lordleft wrote:
| It was this essay, along with a choice quote from Epictetus, that
| induced me to finally leave my day job to go back to University
| to study CS. I graduated a month ago and began my first full-time
| SWE position last Monday.
|
| I spent my twenties on auto-pilot, allowing external
| circumstances to effectively decide my life for me. Seneca and
| the Stoics reminded me of the immense agency I still possessed,
| despite the obscenity that was the recession and the cost of
| American Higher Education. I still had some say over my life, or
| at least over my choices, and if I didn't exercise my agency,
| life would slip through my fingers and hurtle to me a deathbed
| filled with regret and disappointment.
|
| The quote from Epictetus:
|
| "How long are you going to wait before you demand the best for
| yourself and in no instance bypass the discriminations of reason?
| You have been given the principles that you ought to endorse, and
| you have endorsed them. What kind of teacher, then, are you still
| waiting for in order to refer your self-improvement to him? You
| are no longer a boy but a full-grown man. If you are careless and
| lazy now and keep putting things off and always deferring the day
| after which you will attend to yourself, you will not notice that
| you are making no progress but you will live and die as someone
| quite ordinary. From now on, then, resolve to live as a grown-up
| who is making progress, and make whatever you think best a law
| that you never set aside. And whenever you encounter anything
| that is difficult or pleasurable or highly or lowly regarded,
| remember that the contest is now, you are at the Olympic games,
| you cannot wait any longer, and that your progress is wrecked or
| preserved by a single day and a single event. This is how
| Socrates fulfilled himself by attending to nothing except reason
| in everything he encountered. And you, although you are not yet
| Socrates, should live as someone who at least wants to be
| Socrates."
| DenisM wrote:
| Easier said than done tho. How does one overcome the comfort of
| inertia?
|
| How did you? Just by reading Seneca, or was there more to it?
| yepguy wrote:
| I think the secret actually consists of having a good set of
| aesthetic judgments and emotional reactions. The power of
| these things is precisely that they're involuntary reactions
| which push or pull you to do the right thing. Thus they are
| indispensable for all those moments when your intellect and
| will are insufficient.
|
| The difficulty is that you can't reason yourself into having
| them, but must nurture them by other means. This used to be
| one of the primary goals of education, and is the primary
| value of a (proper) liberal arts education, as opposed to
| "critical thinking" skills.
|
| The Stoics wrote about the importance of cultivating a
| contempt for pleasure. The Christians teach that you should
| "Love not the world, nor the things which are in the world"
| (1 John 2:15). Understood naively, these statements are a
| sure recipe for unhappiness and disaster. But properly
| understood, within a healthy aesthetic framework and with
| emotions trained in accordance to it, these statements
| obviously contain a large chunk of the secret to happiness
| and success.
|
| I recommend watching this video for an extended introduction
| to this way of thinking: https://youtu.be/tX5e6eSkaMc
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Haven't watch this video, but thanks for posting this. For
| some reason, despite being deeply involved in the arts my
| entire life, and despite believing that the classic liberal
| arts are about enculturation more than knowledge, I never
| quite put it together that aesthetics more generally had a
| kind of behavioral utility beyond personal "satisfaction."
|
| Behavioral cognitive therapy is aesthetics for beginners,
| or maybe "applied surgical aesthetics"
| CalRobert wrote:
| Everyone's different but I find that keeping my mortality
| front and center in my mind does wonders.
|
| If, everytime you consider loafing around doing nothing (or
| worse, you wind up working all weekend on something you don't
| care about to make your boss rich), you think "I've got ~2500
| sunday afternoons left, maybe 2000 in good health, maybe 500
| while I have young kids", etc you consider how precious your
| time is.
| demosito666 wrote:
| > you consider how precious your time is.
|
| And what are you going to do with it then? I totally
| realize how valuable the time is. This gives me tremendous
| anxiety and fear of missing out - it's so precious after
| all that I have to use in absolutely the best way possible.
| But what this best way would be?
|
| So I end up in similar analysis paralysis that the one who
| spends more time choosing a movie to watch then actually
| watching it does. Needless to say that he also enjoys the
| movie less - because he is not sure that he made a right
| choice after all. And after that he realizes that he just
| waisted double the amount of movie time to something that
| he hadn't even liked.
|
| IMHO putting time/productivity/goals/etc. as your top
| priority is a mistake. Similar to committing to some ideal
| from your childhood for the whole life. Unless yours and
| your close ones' personalitiea are not factored in, this is
| just a way to delude yourself into "productivity" trap.
| lutorm wrote:
| Indeed, knowing what it is that is important to you may
| be the most important feature of your philosophy of life,
| and discerning this is difficult. But all we can do is
| try our best to figure it out and realize that time is
| not wasted if it is spent _purposefully_.
| [deleted]
| chillwaves wrote:
| Truly feel some people are born with more resilience but I
| also think it can be trained, from an earlier age the better.
|
| If you have grown up giving in to discomfort/pleasure, then
| you are conditioned to accept the same. It's harder now, but
| not impossible.
| graeme wrote:
| By making choices day by day. As the other commentor posting
| quoting Heraclitus, they are what make us:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=22217440
|
| If a big choice is required, then first do a search of
| possible benefits, and vulnerabilities. Of what you would do
| if things went wrong, what the worst case scenarios are, and
| how to deal with them.
|
| I made such an analysis when considering leaving graduate
| school to start a business, and it helped immensely in
| clarifying things.
|
| You do ask a good question, as there are two separate
| questions in the quote from Epictetus: resolving upon a
| thing, and taking action to conform to it.
|
| It seems OP had already resolved, they just needed to make
| the jump. The resolution stage has somewhat different
| demands.
|
| For some, they may find that some factors preclude such a big
| jump. For instance, obligations to support a family, health
| issues, major consequences to failure and lack of a safety
| net, etc. If so, then the second part of the question doesn't
| apply, as wishing for a different circumstance is merely a
| dream, not a resolution.
|
| But, if your trouble is merely comfort and inertia, then slap
| your face with cold water and wake up. You only have one
| life. It is seeping away even as you read this comment.
|
| If you want to do something else and you are not doing it,
| then comfort is your enemy. It lulls you into sticking with
| what is merely tolerable.
|
| But you are dying. Focus on this, focus on the pain of that
| realization. It is this pain, this discomfort, that can let
| you resolve upon a change, whatever that may be in your
| circumstances.
|
| Once you have resolved, then all becomes clearer. Save every
| penny you can. Discard comfort and focus on necessity, for
| the transition will be worse than both the comfortable
| present and the expected better future. Every bit of slack
| you can generate helps immeasurably.
|
| Ask if you truly, truly want the change. Soul searching on
| your own with pen and paper is the best method I know, along
| with long walks.
|
| If you do form this resolve, and _truly_ decide you want it,
| hewing to this idea is what lets you break out of inertia.
| lihaciudaniel wrote:
| "Much difference is there between lying idle and lying
| buried!"
|
| Moral letters to Lucilius/Letter 82
| oldputput wrote:
| I don't think Socrates would be seeking a 'full-time SWE
| position' were he alive today.
| oklol123 wrote:
| Would be probably a physicist, doctor or lawyer
| lordleft wrote:
| We can be a Socrates anywhere. We don't have to literally be
| on trial for "corrupting the youth" to exercise reason and
| pursue virtue. We can strive to live well on even quotidian
| place like the workplace or our local communities. In fact
| that's where much of the drama of the philosophical life
| unfolds. I wasn't saying that Stoicism pointed me in the
| direction of a lucrative career but that it encouraged me to
| ask myself how I can lead a better life for others, and that
| involved finding work that I loved and that could provide for
| my family. So no, I don't think Socrates would become a SWE
| for the typical reasons why people jump into this industry.
| But there is nothing in his thought that suggests to me that
| he would above doing meaningful, intellectually enriching
| work that would enable to help to contribute to his community
| and to support those he loved.
| watwut wrote:
| He would be in politics advocating against democracy and for
| the next war.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| I think you're right, although I think he would feel the
| allure of software and probably write software. He faulted
| _writing_ with the decline of memory and resulting in the
| _pretense_ of understanding vs True understanding.
| natmaka wrote:
| Character is destiny. The content of your character is your
| choice. Day by day, what you choose, what you think and what
| you do is who you become. -- Heraclitus
| lihaciudaniel wrote:
| Everything is change, nothing is forever -- Heraclitus
| agumonkey wrote:
| I found it shocking to realize that thousand years old
| realizations are still worth more than the vast majority of
| ideas invented since (regarding human existence that is).
|
| Gives a slight taint to the meaning of the word 'progress'.
| ellius wrote:
| Taleb makes the argument this should actually be obvious. Old
| ideas have survived over time, which suggests they are good
| enough to be passed down from generation to generation. New
| ideas are a complete crapshoot, and you have to do a lot more
| work to figure out if they're worth a damn.
| jvanderbot wrote:
| My favorite book on this exact sentiment (with healthy doses
| of neuroscience) is Happiness Hypothesis. Recommended!
| dwrodri wrote:
| The progress we have made towards changing the conditions
| humans live in has evolved immensely, but the progress we
| have made towards a different human condition from our
| ancestors is almost nonexistent.
| agumonkey wrote:
| yes agreed, materially we're off the pit
|
| I'd argue though, that a good life is a balance between
| human condition and material needs. A kind of optimized
| frugality.
| taberiand wrote:
| That's the thing about philosophy - it doesn't take any
| special tools or rely on modern technology to study, just
| intellect. People today aren't any more or less sophisticated
| than the people of thousands of years ago, and them no more
| than the people thousands of years before them. Philosophy
| transcends time and space, and the golden age of Greek and
| Roman philosophy is full of extremely insightful and
| applicable knowledge to our modern lives.
| stallmanite wrote:
| So philosophy is similar to software as a field in that you
| don't need a bunch of equipment to get going? Maybe it's
| trivial but I had never considered that fact or it's
| implications before.
| refset wrote:
| My favourite computer-related quote: "programming is
| applied philosophy" (origin unknown, sorry!)
| simonh wrote:
| "What is Magic but applied philosophy?" I'm sure I've
| seen that as a quote, but I can't find where from.
| Possibly Dune?
| thunderbong wrote:
| I'm not so sure.
|
| Of course, I have asked many philosophical questions of
| myself, when understanding software. This, I've noticed,
| especially happens when you're crossing layers. For
| example, between hardware / assembly, assembly / C, C /
| OOP.
|
| However, considering that we have not really come up with
| a language with which we can communicate with computers
| seamlessly, I have my doubts. Because, unless we have a
| language, we can't really philosophize.
|
| This could be a problem due to the interfaces we have
| though. Or probably, because our interfaces with
| computers seem to be getting broader and richer with each
| generation of hardware, we haven't really been able to
| freeze on the language through which we communicate.
| therein wrote:
| I always thought, and probably not for the most solid
| reasons:
|
| Math is applied philosophy and theory of knowledge.
|
| Physics is Math applied on reality.
|
| Chemistry is applied Physics.
|
| Biology is applied Chemistry.
| bigbonch wrote:
| I would ammend the last two points and say Chemistry is
| Physics applied to physical primitives and Biology is
| Chemistry applied to organic phenomena or something like
| that.
| drworm wrote:
| Which brings to mind this classic XKCD:
| https://xkcd.com/435/
| thunderbong wrote:
| Agree. I had also thought of the sciences in that manner.
| leftyted wrote:
| Progress lies in the fact that everyone has access to these
| ideas. It isn't surprising that the best ideas are old. Any
| idea that has survived for thousands of years has to be good.
| agumonkey wrote:
| bruh, I'm not even sure that's remotely true.
|
| I'd bet my left pinky that people knew this earlier in life
| than us because our society shields us from our true
| selves.
|
| Too many distractions to the point it's harmful.
| IggleSniggle wrote:
| Or at least it has survivability, which is often but not
| always a proxy for a "good idea." Ideas that are very good
| but also unpleasant or exceedingly complex are unlikely to
| survive. Perhaps for some definitions of good, these ideas
| are not good.
| acabal wrote:
| Shameless plug, you can download a high quality ebook of his
| dialogues, including "On the Shortness of Life," for free at
| Standard Ebooks:
| https://standardebooks.org/ebooks/seneca/dialogues/aubrey-st...
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