What are we quibbling about ? 

There is no such thing as

good or bad fortune

for the individual.  

Things have happened, & what has transpired, ensue an outcome that is only a thing, however may it come to pass.  

If you are to live for yourself

you must live for your neighbours. 

The life that you are having now, is much dependent on the broad conditions of the ecosystems, which we are part of.  

Do we quibble over what a friend is to be?, Do we put our trust in opinions, rather than what nature offers?  

Frankness & Simplicity

befits & behooves

us to become. 

On Quibbling as Unworthy of the Philosopher 

The fact is, the same thing is advantageous to me which is advantageous to youu; for I am not your friend unless whatever is at issue concerning you is my concern also. 

Friendship produces between us a partnership in all our interests. 

There is no such thing as good or bad fortune for the individual;

we live in common; And no one can live happily who has regard to themselves alone and transforms everything into a question of their own utility. 

You must live for your neighbour, if you would live for yourself.  

This fellowship, maintained with scrupulous care, which makes us mingle as people with our fellow-folks and holds that the human race have certain rights in common, is also of great help in cherishing the more intimate fellowship which is based on friendship, concerning which I began to speak above.  

For one that has much in common with a fellow-folk will have all things in common with a friend. 

And on this point, my excellent Lucilius, I should like to have those subtle dialecticians of yours advise me how I ought to help a friend, or how a fellow-folk, rather than tell me in how many ways the word “friend” is used, and how many meanings the word “people” possesses.  

Wisdom and Folly are taking opposite sides; Which shall I join?, Which party would you have me follow?  

On that side, “people” is the equivalent of “friend”; on the other side, “friend” is not the equivalent of “people”, The one wants a friend for their own advantage; the other wants to make themselves an advantage to their friend. 

What you have to offer me is nothing but distortion of words and splitting of syllables.  

It is clear that unless I can devise some very tricky premisses and by false deductions tack on to them a fallacy which springs from the truth, I shall not be able to distinguish between what is desirable and what is to be avoided!  

“‘Mouse’ is a syllable; Now a mouse eats cheese; therefore, a syllable eats cheese.”  

Suppose now that I cannot solve this problem; see what peril hangs over my head as a result of such ignorance!, What a scrape I shall be in!, Without doubt I must beware, or someday I shall be catching syllables in a mousetrap, or if I grow careless, a book may devour my cheese!  

Unless  perhaps, the following syllogism is shrewder still: “‘Mouse’ is a syllable; Now a syllable does not eat cheese; Therefore a mouse does not eat cheese.”  

What childish nonsense!, Do we knit our brows over this sort of problem?, Do we let our beards grow long for this reason?, Is this the matter which we teach with sour and pale faces? 

Would you really know what philosophy offers to humanity?, 

Philosophy offers counsel.  

Death calls away one man, and poverty chafes another; a third is worried either by their neighbour’s wealth or by their own.  

So-and-so is afraid of bad luck; another desires to get away from their own good fortune; Some are ill-treated by people, others by the gods.  

This friend, in whose company you are jesting, is in fear; Help them, and take the noose from about their neck. 

People are stretching out imploring hands to you on all sides; lives ruined and in danger of ruin are begging for some assistance; people’s hopes, people’s resources, depend upon you.  

They ask that you deliver them from all their restlessness, that you reveal to them, scattered and wandering as they are, the clear light of truth.  

Tell them what nature has made necessary, and what superfluous; tell them how simple are the laws that it has laid down, how pleasant and unimpeded life is for those who follow these laws, yet how bitter and perplexed it is for those who have put their trust in opinion rather than in nature. 

I should deem your games of logic to be of some avail in relieving people’s burdens, if you could first show me what part of these burdens they will relieve.  

What among these games of yours banishes lust?, Or controls it?, Would that I could say that they were merely of no profit!  

They are positively harmful; I can make it perfectly clear to you whenever you wish, that a noble spirit when involved in such subtleties is impaired and weakened.  

I am ashamed to say what weapons they supply to people who are destined to go to war with fortune, and how poorly they equip them!, Is this the path to the greatest good?, Is philosophy to proceed by such claptrap and by quibbles which would be a disgrace and a reproach even for expounders of the law?  

For what else is it that you people are doing, when you deliberately ensnare the person to whom you are putting questions, than making it appear that the person has lost their case on a technical error? 

Just as the judge can reinstate those who have lost a suit in this way, so philosophy has reinstated these victims of quibbling to their former condition.  

Why do you people abandon your mighty promises, and, after having assured me in high-sounding language that you will permit the glitter of gold to dazzle my eyesight no more than the gleam of the sword, and that I shall, with mighty steadfastness, spurn both that which all people crave and that which all people fear. 

Why do you descend to the ABC’s of scholastic pedants?, What is your answer? 

Is this the path to heaven? 

For that is exactly what philosophy promises, that I shall be made equal to the Divine. 

For this I have been summoned, for this purpose have I come; Philosophy, keep your promise! 

Therefore my dear Lucilius, withdraw yourself as far as possible from these exceptions and objections of so-called philosophers.  

Frankness, and simplicity beseem true goodness.  

Even if there were years left, you would have had to spend them frugally in order to have enough for the necessary things; however as it is, when your time is so scant, what madness it is to learn superfluous things!  

Farewell, Seneca, StoicTaoist. 

Are we not servants & slaves ?

Show me a person who is not a servant; One is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all people are slaves to fear.

No servitude is more disgraceful than that which is self-imposed.

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters. And as often as you reflect how much power you have over a servant, remember that your master has just as much power over you. 

Each person acquires their character for themselves, however accident assigns their duties; I propose to value them according to their character, and not according to their duties.

They are not your enemies when you meet them; we make them our enemies.

That which annoys us does not necessarily injure us; however we are driven into wild rage, so that whatever does not answer our whims arouses our anger. 

Badness is fickle, & changing not for the better, but for something different; however a mark of good character: is in forming your own judgments and abides by them.

On Master and Servants

I am glad to learn, through those who come from youu, that you live on friendly terms with your servants; This befits a sensible and well-educated person like yourself.

“They are servants,” people declare; Nay, rather they are people; “Servants!”, No, comrades; “Servants!”, No, they are unpretentious friends; “Servants!” No, they are our fellow-servants, if one reflects that Fortune has equal rights over servants and free folks alike.

That is why I smile at those who think it degrading for a person to dine with their servant; however why should they think it degrading? It is only because purse-proud etiquette surrounds a householder at their dinner with a mob of standing servants.

All this time the poor servants may not move their lips, even to speak. The slightest murmur is repressed by the rod; even a chance sound, – a cough, a sneeze, or a hiccup, – is visited with the lash. There is a grievous penalty for the slightest breach of silence; All night long they must stand about, hungry and dumb.

The result of it all is that these servants, who may not talk in their master’s presence, talk about their master. However the servants of former days, who were permitted to converse not only in their master’s presence, but actually with them, whose mouths were not stitched up tight, were ready to bare their necks for their master, to bring upon their own heads any danger that threatened them; they spoke at the feast, but kept silence during torture. 

Finally, the saying, in allusion to this same high-handed treatment, becomes current: “As many enemies as you have servants.”

They are not enemies

when we acquire them

We make them enemies

I shall pass over other cruel and inhuman conduct towards them; for we maltreat them, not as if they were people, but as if they were beasts of burden. When we recline at a banquet, one servant mops up the disgorged food, another crouches beneath the table and gathers up the left-overs of the tipsy guests. 

Kindly remember that they whom you call your servant sprang from the same stock, is smiled upon by the same skies, and on equal terms with yourself, breathes, livees, and dies.

It is just as possible for you to see in them a free-born folk as for them to see in you a servant. As a result of the massacres in Marius’s day, many a person of distinguished birth, who was taking the first steps toward senatorial rank by service in the army, was humbled by fortune, one becoming a shepherd, another a caretaker of a country cottage. Despise then, if you dare, those to whose estate you may at any time descend, even when you are despising them.

I do not wish to involve myself in too large a question, and to discuss the treatment of servants, towards whom we Romans are excessively haughty, cruel, and insulting.

This is the kernel of my advice:

Treat your inferiors as you would be treated by your betters. And as often as you reflect how much power you have over a servant, remember that your master has just as much power over you. 

“But I have no master,” you say; You are still young; perhaps you will have one. Do you not know at what age Hecuba entered captivity, or Croesus, or the mother of Darius, or Plato, or Diogenes?

Associate with your servant on kindly, even on affable terms; let them talk with you, plan with you, live with you. I know that at this point all the exquisites will cry out against me in a body; they will say: “There is nothing more debasing, more disgraceful, than this.” However these are the very persons whom I sometimes surprise kissing the hands of other people’s servants. 

Do you not see even this, – how our ancestors removed from masters everything invidious, and from servants everything insulting? They called the master “father of the household,” and the servants “members of the household,” a custom which still holds in the mime.

They established a holiday on which masters and servants should eat together, – not as the only day for this custom, but as obligatory on that day in any case. They allowed the servants to attain honours in the household and to pronounce judgment; they held that a household was a miniature commonwealth.

“Do you mean to say,” comes the retort, “that I must seat all my servants at my own table?” No, not any more than that you should invite all free folks to it. You are mistaken if you think that I would bar from my table certain servants whose duties are more humble, as, for example, yonder muleteer or yonder herdsman; I propose to value them according to their character, and not according to their duties.

Each person acquires their character for themselves, however accident assigns their duties. Invite some to your table because they deserve the honour, and others that they may come to deserve it. For if there is any slavish quality in them as the result of their low associations, it will be shaken off by intercourse with people of gentler breeding. 

You need not, my dear Lucilius, hunt for friends only in the forum or in the Senate-house; if you are careful and attentive, you will find them at home also. Good material often stands idle for want of an artist; make the experiment, and you will find it so.

As one is a fool who, when purchasing a horse, does not consider the animal’s points, but merely their saddle and bridle; so one is doubly a fool who values a person from their clothes or from their rank, which indeed is only a robe that clothes us.

“He is a servant.”, Their soul, however, may be that of a free folk. “One is a servant.”, Yet shall that stand in their way?

Show me a person who is not a servant; one is a slave to lust, another to greed, another to ambition, and all people are slaves to fear.

I will name you an ex-consul who is servant to an old hag, a millionaire who is slave to a serving-maid; I will show you youths of the noblest birth in serfdom to pantomime players!

No servitude is more disgraceful than that which is self-imposed.

You should therefore not be deterred by these finicky persons from showing yourself to your servants as an affable person and not proudly superior to them; they ought to respect you rather than fear you. 

Some may maintain that I am now offering the liberty-cap to servants in general and toppling down lords from their high estate, because I bid servants respect their masters instead of fearing them.

They say: “This is what he plainly means: servants are to pay respect as if they were clients or early-morning callers!” Anyone who holds this opinion forgets that what is enough for a god cannot be too little for a master.

Respect means love, and love and fear cannot be mingled. 

So I hold that you are entirely right in not wishing to be feared by your servants, and in lashing them merely with the tongue; only dumb animals need the thong.

That which annoys us does not necessarily injure us; however we are driven into wild rage by our luxurious lives, so that whatever does not answer our whims arouses our anger. 

We don the temper of kings; For they too, forgetful alike of their own strength and of other people’s weakness, grow white-hot with rage, as if they had received an injury, when they are entirely protected from danger of such injury by their exalted station. They are not unaware that this is true, however by finding fault they seize upon opportunities to do harm; they insist that they have received injuries, in order that they may inflict them.

I do not wish to delay you longer; for you need no exhortation. This, among other things, is

a mark of good character: it forms its own judgments and abides by them; however badness is fickle and frequently changing, not for the better, but for something different.

Farewell, Seneca, StoicTaoist.