Seneca - College of Stoic Philosophers

SENECA IN RETIREMENT 117late at night after a troublesome journey and foundnothing ready for his reception but the contentedmind he brought with him. This he owed, so hewrites, to the reflections that nothing externalreally matters if you take it lightly ; that all thatis displeasing in our indignationfeeling itself, not from its subject;arises from thethat evil residesnot in things, but in the opinion we have of them ;and that although there was no bread in thehouse but the coarse stuff eaten by his bailiff andlabourers, he would find, if he waited long enoughto be hungry, that this was better than the breadto which he was accustomed. Amusing himselfwith these philosophical meditations he wentsupperless to bed, and determined to eat no scraptill his appetite should clamour for the homelyfare within his reach and he could digestit withpleasure. A stomach well-disciplined and trainedto put up with indignities, he moralised the nextmorning to Lucilius, is of the greatest use to onewho would be free. He is delighted to find withwhat perfect unconcern he can endure unexpectedinconveniences ; for, as he remarks, a man ifgiven time can brace himself to do without manythings, the sudden loss of which he would feel.We do not understand how many of the things weuse are superfluoustill we begin to dispense \^dth them.Then we find that we made use of them merely becausewe possessed them. With how many things we surroundourselves only because others have done the same, becauseit is the fashion ! A fruitful source of our errorsis that we live by imitation and are guided by customrather than by reason. When a practice of any kind