Lucius Annaeus Seneca, most commonly known as just Seneca, is recognized as one of the
primary forefathers of Stoic philosophy. Stoicism is a school of thought that formed initially
in Athens, Greece in third century BC by an individual named Zeno of Cittium. And despite
the years of fluctuating historic and cultural circumstances that Stoicism has endured since,
it retains a uniquely high level of popularity still to this day, testifying for its potency
and potential value. To provide some brief, basic background; after being founded in ancient
Greece, Stoicism was further formed and popularized in ancient Rome and is most commonly associated
with individuals of this time like Marcus Aurelius, Epictetus, and of course, Seneca.
The key principles of the philosophy generally include living in accordance with nature,
devoting one’s self to wisdom, virtue, and duty, avoiding acting on intense emotions,
embracing one’s fate, and focusing more on the internal experience of life as opposed
to the external. In terms of Seneca, specifically, he was born
around 4 BC in Spain, but lived most of his life in Rome until he died there in 65 AD.
Throughout his life, he was a statesman, orator, tragic writer, philosopher, as well as a variety
of other things. Seneca lived a life of rather extreme ups and downs as a result of his particular
relationship with various aspects of the politics of Rome at the time. In a lot of ways, he
can be observed to have struggled to follow what would be considered his own Stoic advice,
which is perhaps worth noting. However, arguably, it does not devalue many of the ideas he shared,
but rather, perhaps attests to the difficulty of them.
As aforementioned, a leading Stoic principle is that we lack a great deal control over
the outcomes and happenings of our external world, and we can only really ultimately choose,
if anything, how we choose perceive the unfolding of it. How we frame our experience of the
fate of everything and the immovable qualities of our condition.
One particular condition that we are thrown and subjected into that Seneca focused much
of his discourse on is time. More specifically, how to handle our slippery and transient experience
of it. Seneca observed that we tend to be frugal
and prudent with many aspects of our life. We tend to hoard our money and possessions
and whatever else we can see and get our hands on, and yet, when it comes to time, we rarely
guard it or evaluate carefully how well we save and spend it. He suggested that we often
give up a great deal of our time to things and people that we wouldn’t consider to
be worthy of giving anything too if we slowed down and thought about what we were doing
and why. “Men are thrifty in guarding their private property, but as soon as it comes
to wasting time, they are most extravagant with the one commodity for which it’s respectable
to be greedy.” Wrote Seneca in his essay and letter entitled, On The Shortness of Life.
Time, in Seneca’s mind, is to be viewed like any other commodity of life, and if anything,
to be viewed as the most valuable one. Ultimately, all we have is our minds and our
time. And no one ever knows how much time they have inside their mind. And once it’s
gone, you can’t work for, buy, or fight for it back. This is fairly obvious, and even
cliché to utter as sentiment at this point. But despite its obviousness, Seneca observed
then, and it can certainly still be observed now, that most of us remain incapable of living
as if. We seem to continue to treat our time like it’s more or less infinite and more
or less inferior to the other objects of our possessions.
Unlike the majority of possessions in life, you can’t see, hold, or truly know time,
making it incomprehensibly slippery and abstract. And because the present is so brief and immaterial,
Seneca thought, is why we mostly struggle to properly perceive and value it.
For Seneca, to confront the concept of time, one must first fully confront the conditions
of their relationship with its finitude and accept their fate as an observer or sort of
passenger to it; that you are slipping in every moment towards the end of all moments,
at any moment, it could all be cut short. And you can’t do anything about it. This,
although bleak, is perhaps worth often considering, because the likely fact is that if everyone
who was going to lose their life in the next couple years, knew they would, mostly all
of those people would live differently. And thus, we must live not as if we are one of
the ones who will live into late age, but rather, one of the ones who might not. Because
only in such case, can the finitude of life begin to reveal itself. And only when the
finitude of life reveals itself, can we live in a way that might resemble how a finite
life should be lived. Of course, the challenge of this is no small
feat. The difference between imagining life might end next week or in couple years is
vastly different than knowing it in fact will. And to know and manage this balance between
now and later is perhaps one of the greatest human complications.
But Seneca, like many other great philosophers and philosophies, believed that we can and
must work to overcome our tendency to look towards the future for solace, and rather,
better focus our perspective on the present. Not only because the future might not come,
but even if it does, when it arrives, it’ll likely just be another moment to spend preparing
and longing for further future moments if we remain stuck in such a constant preparatory
cycle. “It is inevitable,” wrote Seneca, “that life will be not just very short but
very miserable for those who acquire by great toil what they must keep by greater toil.
They achieve what they want laboriously; they possess what they have achieved anxiously;
and meanwhile they take no account of time that will never more return. New preoccupations
take the place of the old, hope excites more hope and ambition more ambition. They do not
look for an end to their misery, but simply change the reason for it.” For Seneca, to
hope to live for oneself finally in the future is to wait until it’s properly too late.
Rather, to make the most time is to make the most of today. “Lay hold of today’s task
and you will not need to depend so much upon tomorrow’s.” He wrote.
Seneca believed that one should spend their time fulfilling their duties and responsibilities,
enjoying any wealths or fortunes that might of them, but not working for the purpose of
social status or material success beyond ones minimal needs, because beyond mostly everything
else, he argued for allocating as much time as possible to leisure. More specifically,
a particular type of well-focused leisure in which one finds tranquility, introspection,
and stillness in themselves. Because to be busily engaged in doing nothing is not valuable
productivity. And to spend one’s free time doing things that are of no real personal
value is not well-used leisure. Both are but clever ways of wasting time. “The truly
leisured person,” Seneca wrote, “is one who is also conscious of his own leisure.”
The most valuable use of leisure, in his mind, is philosophy. Time spent on intellectual
reflections in which one recognizes, feels, and observes deeply the life that is being
sifted through each moment. It seems that, in this, the worthiest use
of time is in some sense spending it on itself. By considering, or at least pondering time
and how to best use it, one is paradoxically using it well. Seneca described the value
of this sort of reflection like that of securing the fluidity of time at the bottom of a glass,
so to contain it properly in order to see and possess it. The study of life and time
helps us, in his mind, widen or deepen the experience of the very life and time we are
studying, allowing us to fill our self with the wisdoms, wonders, and connection points
to the long gone or distant minds of people that we need as our closest friends, but otherwise
could never know or meet. When referring to the study of intelectual maters, Seneca wrote,
“You really out to leave ground level and turn your mind’s eye to these studies…
In this mode of life much that is worth studying awaits you: the love and practice of the virtues,
forgetfulness of the passions, knowledge of how to live and die, and deep repose.”
Seneca believed wisdom to be timeless and thus, the primary thing worth pursuing and
investing in. And considering his words are some two thousand years old and are still
thought to have value, his argument here does appear to hold some validity. How much validity
and how much time they can hold; time will tell.
In truth, it’s fair to argue that no matter who you are and what philosophy you share
or follow, no one truly knows how to fully wrestle with the concept of time and win.
And whether or not the use of one’s time is best served to philosophical studies and
contemplations is perhaps true. Or perhaps not. And perhaps who’s to say. Perhaps know
how anyone can or should spend time is some amount conceited. And to know why anyone should
do anything instead of nothing, or nothing instead of anything, isn’t self-evident.
It perhaps, like most things, comes down to the individual level. What one deems valuable
for themselves, and more importantly, how well they act on what they deem valuable for
themselves. Wasted time or well spent time is all the same when viewed from a sufficient
distance outside of it. And it is only to those in it during it that can examine, consider,
and determine the best way they wish to balance and claim it. And all anyone can ever do is
try their best. There is clear value in now, and thus, there
is clear value in the nows yet to come; value that we must consider when treating the now
we are in, but not so much that there is none left in either, which appears to leave us
with some level of cognitive dissonance when dealing with time. The balancing act of now
and later is perhaps nearly an impossible feat. But perhaps it is only in the examination
of time that we get to consider such a problem. And it is perhaps only in the consideration
of such a problem that we can feel the wonder that is the blender of human consciousness.
A sense of confusion wrapped in intrigue, curiosity, and desire to resolve. Which is,
in proper full circle fashion, what Seneca believed to be the best use of time.
Ultimately, Seneca and his stoic affiliates help serve as a bridge into this realm of
thought and wisdom. To help illuminate time’s form so we can better see it as we see any
other object, commodity, or feature of existence. To create the internal fortitude to fight
the external indifference of the universe and the internal solace to be ok when we lose.