life ceases for the rest of us just when we are getting ready for it. Nor is it just the man in the street and the unthinking mass of people who groan over this - as they see it - universal evil: the same feeling lies behind complaints from even distinguished men. (skip) It is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it. (skip) we are not given a short life but we make it short.
life is long enough if you know how to use it. But one man is gripped by insatiable greed, another by a laborious dedication to useless tasks. (skip) Look at those whose good fortune people gather to see: they are choked by their own blessings. (skip) he has bent his ears to your word, he has let you walk beside him. But you never deign to look at yourself or listen to yourself. So you have no reason to claim credit from anyone for those attentions, since you showed them not because you wanted someone else's company but becuase you could not bear your own.
You are living as if destined to live for ever; (skip) You act like mortals in all that you fear, and like immortals in all that you desire.
whatever time was available he devoted entirely to himself. None of it lay fallow and neglected, none of it uner another's control; (skip)
Mark off, I tell you, and review the days of your life: you will see that very few - the useless remnants - have been left to you. (skip) Everone hustles his life along, and is trouble by a longing for the future and weariness of the present. But the man who spends all his time on his own needs, who organizes every day as though it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the next day.
Can anything be more idiotic than certain people who boast of their foresight? They keep themselves officiously preoccupied in order to improve their lives; they spend their lives in organizing their lives. They direct their purposes with an eye to a distant future. But putting things off is the biggest waste of life: it snatches away each day as it comes, and denies us the present by promising the future. The greatest obstacle to living is expectancy, which hangs upon tomorrow and loses today. You are arranging what lies in Fortune's control, and abandoning what lies in yours. What are you looking at? To what goal you are straining? The whole future lies in uncertainty: live immediately. (skip)
Old age overtakes them while they are still mentally childish, and they face it unprepared and unarmed.
So, however short, it is fully sufficient, and therefore whenever his last day comes, the wise man will not hesitate to meet death with a firm step.
Do you call those men leisured who divide their time between the comb and the mirror? (skip) By these means they cultivate a reputation for elegance and good taste, and to such an extent do their failings follow them into all areas of their private lives that they cannot eat or drink without ostentation.
It would be tedious to mention individually those who have spent all their lives playing draghts or ball, or carefully cooking themselves in the sun. they are not at leisure whose pleasures involve a seriuos commitment. (skip) But now the Romans too have been afflicted by the pointless enthusiasm for useless knowledge. (skip) such knowledge will not do us any good, but it interest us because of the appeal of these pointless facts. (skip) but does it serve any good purpose? (skip)
sometimes he wondered whether it was better not to be involved in any researches than to entangled in these.
Of all people only those are at leisure who make time for philosophy, only those are really alive. For they not only keep a good watch over their own lifetimes, but they annex every age to theirs.
it was not in our power to choose the parents (skip) But we can choose whose children we would llike to be. There are households of the noblest intellects: choose the one into whihe you wish to be adopted, and you will inherit not only their name but their property too. (skip) Time is present: he uses it. Time is to come: he anticipates it. This combination of all times into one gives him a long life.
But life is very short and anxious for those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear the future.
extract yourself from the crowd, (skip) take some of your own time for yourself too.
Stolid pack-animals are much more fit for carrying loads than thoroughbred horses: who ever subdued their noble speed with a heavy burden? Consider too how much anxiety you have in submitting yourself to such a weight of responsibility:
So, when you see a man repeatedly wearing the robe of office, or one whose name is often spoken in the Forum, do not envy him: these things are won at the cost of life.
I've come across people who say that there is a sort of inborn restlessness in human spirit and an urge to change one's abode; for man is endowed with a mind which is changeable and unsettled: nowhere at rest, it darts about and directs its thoughts to all places known and unknown, a wanderer which cannot endure repose and delights chiefly in novelty. This will not surprise you if you consider its original source. It was not made from heavy, earthly material, but came down from that heavenly spririt: but heavenly things are by natuer always in motion, (skip)
whaat does it matter what ground I stand on?
You really must consider how small your bodies are.
though he piles all these up, they will never sate his insatiable soul; just as no amount of fluid will satisfy one whose craving arises not from lact of water but from burning internal fever: for that is not a thirst but a disease. (skip) So the man who restrains himself within the bounds set by nature will not notice poverty; the man who exceeds these bounds will be pursued by poverty however rich he is. (skip) It is the mind that creates our wealth,
Homer had one slave, Plato had three, and Zeno, the founder of the strict and manly Stoic philosophy, had none.
No man is despised by another unless he despised by himself. (skip) If a great man falls and remains great as he lies, people no more despise him than they stamp on a fallen temple, which the devout still worship as much as when it was standing.
Let no one rob me of a single day who is not going to make me an adequate return for such a loss. (skip)
You were born to die, and a silent funeral is less bothersome. So if you must fill your time, write something in a simple style for your own use and not for publication: (skip) Then it is that I forget my rule and principle of restraint, and I am carried too far aloft by a voice no longer my own.
confidence in yourself and the belief that you are on the right path, and not led astray by the many tracks which cross yours of people who are hopelessly lost, though some are wandering not far from the true path. (skip) this steady firmness of mind 'euthymia' (skip) but I call it tranquillity,
They make one journey after another and change spectacle for spectacle. As Lucretius says, 'Thus each man ever flees himself.' But to what end, if he does not escape himself? He pursures and dogs himself as his own most tedious companion. And so we must realize that our difficulty is not the fault of the places but of ourselves.
We must be especially careful in choosing people, and deciding whether they are worth devoting a part of our lives to them, whether the sacrifice of our time makes a difference to them. For some people actually charge us for our services to them.
Still, you must especially avoid those who are gloomy and always lamenting, and who grasp at every pretext to complaint. (skip) a companion who is agitated and groaning about everything is an enemy to peace of mind.
practised thrift, without which no amount of wealth is enough, and no amount is not ample enough.
The next thing to ensure is that we do not waste our energies pointlessly or in pointless activities: (skip) like ants (skip) purposelessly make their way right up to the topmost branch and then all the way down again. (skip) busy idleness. (skip) It is not industry that makes men restless, but false impressions of things drive them mad.
We should also make ourselves flexible, so that we do not pin our hopes too much on our set plans, and can move over to those things to which chance has brought us, without dreading a change in either our purpose or our condition,
For it is agonizing always to be watching yourself in fear of being caught when your usual mask has slipped. (skip) there is a big difference between living simply and living carelessly.
Our minds must relax: they will rise better and keener after a rest.
with Aristotle that 'No great intellect has been without a touch of madness,' only a mind that is deeply stirred can utter something noble and beyond the power of others. When it has scorned everyday and commonplace thoughts and risen aloft on the wings of divine inspiration, only then does it sound a note nobler than mortal voice could utter.
- 세네카의 '시간'에 대한 논의는 너무도 명확하게 가슴에 와 닿는다. 누구에게나 충분한 시간이 있다. 죽음이 오기까지, 다만 제대로 그 시간을 살아내지 않는 것 뿐이다. 너무도 동의한다. 어떻게 BC 5년에 태어나 AD 65년까지 살았던 철학자가 현대에 와서도 심금을 울리는 진리를 이리도 정확하게 이야기할 수 있을까?
책임, 명예, 부, 욕심, 타인의 시선, 등에 항상 흔들리게 됨에도 불구하고 자신의 삶을 제대로 살아내기 위해서 지켜야 할 것들... 미래는 anticipate하고, 현재는 use할 것. 작은 무의미한 일들에서 벗어날 것, 관계의 덫을 피할 것, 절제하고 변화를 수용할 것, 그러다 보면 다다를 평정.
언젠가 노트에 적었던 것처럼 '평정(tranquillity/serenity)'은 어느순간 다다르는 상태가 아니라, 자신의 소중한 영지처럼 가꾸고 지켜야만 하는 것 같다. 이 순간을 살 수 있도록, 죽음을 맞을때 견고한 발걸음으로 나아갈 수 있도록, 허위 장막을 걷어내고 본질을 볼 수 있는 눈을 가지고, 삶을 보다 온전히 살도록 독려하는 소중한 책.
대부분의 말들은 알고 있었던 것을 명료하게 다시 확인해 주는 부분들. 그러나, 내가 가지고 있는 restlessness에 대해서 보다 잘 인식하게 되었다. 위를 보면 같은 하늘인 것을, 왜 그리도 안주하지 못했었는지... 어떤 땅에 서 있던, (혹은 넘어져 있던), 나라는 인간의 본질은 결국 나인 것을, 중요한 것은 나라는 존재의 본질. 혹은 살아나감.
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