🏛️ Sundays with Seneca
Sundays with Seneca explores Lucius Annaeus Seneca's writings and Stoic philosophy. Each week, I share a selected reading from one of Seneca's letters in search of ancient lessons on the art of living.
How to Love Life
In a letter to Lucilius known today as On Old Age, Seneca wrote,
Wherever I turn, I see evidence of my advancing years. Recently, I visited my country place and protested against the money spent on the tumble-down building. My bailiff maintained that the flaws were not due to his own carelessness; “he was doing everything possible, but the house was old.” And this was the house that grew under my own hands! What has the future in store for me if stones of my own age are already crumbling?
I was angry, and I embraced the first opportunity to vent my spleen in the bailiff’s presence. “It is clear,” I cried, “that these plane trees are neglected; they have no leaves. Their branches are so gnarled and shriveled; the boles are so rough and unkempt! This would not happen if someone loosened the earth at their feet and watered them.” The bailiff swore by my protecting deity that “he was doing everything possible and never relaxed his efforts, but those trees were old.” Between you and me, I had planted those trees myself; I had seen them in their first leaf. …
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