Showing posts with label Seneca. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Seneca. Show all posts

Wednesday, November 22, 2023

from a place of gratefulness






It is only from such a place of gratefulness that we can perform beautiful acts — 
from a place of absolute, ravishing appreciation for the sheer wonder of being alive at all, 
each of us an improbable and temporary triumph over the staggering odds 
of nonbeing and nothingness inking the ledger of spacetime.
 But because we are human, because we are batted about by the violent immediacies of everyday life, 
such gratitude eludes us as a continuous state of being. We access it only at moments, 
only when the trance of busyness lifts and the blackout curtain of daily demands
 parts to let the radiance in, those delicious moments when we find ourselves 
awash in nonspecific gladness, grateful not to this person, grateful not for this turn of events,
 but grateful at life — a diffuse gratitude that irradiates every aspect and atom 
of the world, however small, however unremarkable, however coated 
with the dull patina of habit. In those moments, everything sings, 
everything shimmers. 

In those moments, we are most alive.



~ Seneca
from Letters from a Stoic


Friday, December 29, 2017

Seneca on anxiety





There are more things … likely to frighten us than there are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality.

What I advise you to do is, not to be unhappy before the crisis comes; since it may be that the dangers before which you paled as if they were threatening you, will never come upon you; they certainly have not yet come.

Accordingly, some things torment us more than they ought; some torment us before they ought; and some torment us when they ought not to torment us at all. We are in the habit of exaggerating, or imagining, or anticipating, sorrow.

It is likely that some troubles will befall us; but it is not a present fact. How often has the unexpected happened! How often has the expected never come to pass! And even though it is ordained to be, what does it avail to run out to meet your suffering? You will suffer soon enough, when it arrives; so look forward meanwhile to better things. What shall you gain by doing this? Time. There will be many happenings meanwhile which will serve to postpone, or end, or pass on to another person, the trials which are near or even in your very presence. A fire has opened the way to flight. Men have been let down softly by a catastrophe. Sometimes the sword has been checked even at the victim’s throat. Men have survived their own executioners. Even bad fortune is fickle. Perhaps it will come, perhaps not; in the meantime it is not. So look forward to better things.

The mind at times fashions for itself false shapes of evil when there are no signs that point to any evil; it twists into the worst construction some word of doubtful meaning; or it fancies some personal grudge to be more serious than it really is, considering not how angry the enemy is, but to what lengths he may go if he is angry. But life is not worth living, and there is no limit to our sorrows, if we indulge our fears to the greatest possible extent; in this matter, let prudence help you, and contemn with a resolute spirit even when it is in plain sight. If you cannot do this, counter one weakness with another, and temper your fear with hope. There is nothing so certain among these objects of fear that it is not more certain still that things we dread sink into nothing and that things we hope for mock us. Accordingly, weigh carefully your hopes as well as your fears, and whenever all the elements are in doubt, decide in your own favour; believe what you prefer. And if fear wins a majority of the votes, incline in the other direction anyhow, and cease to harass your soul, reflecting continually that most mortals, even when no troubles are actually at hand or are certainly to be expected in the future, become excited and disquieted.
 
 
 
 ~ Seneca
with thanks to brainpickings
 Art by Catherine Lepange from Thin Slices of Anxiety: Observations and Advice to Ease a Worried Mind
 
 

Thursday, October 8, 2009

No man can be said to be perfectly happy

...
No man can be said to be perfectly happy 
that runs the risk of disappointment;
which is the case of every man 
that fears or hopes for anything.

...
~ Seneca



.

Saturday, September 26, 2009

It is the mind








If nothing will serve a man but rich clothes and furniture, statues and plate, a numerous train of servants, and the rarities of all nations, it is not Fortunes's fault, but his own, that he is not satisfied; for his desires are insatiable, and this is not a thirst, but a disease; and if he were master of the whole world, he would be still a beggar. It is the mind that makes us rich and happy, in what condition soever we are; and money signifies no more to it than it does to the gods.


~ Seneca