🏛️ Sundays with Seneca
Sundays with Seneca is a weekly series exploring Lucius Annaeus Seneca’s writings and Stoic philosophy. Each meditation includes selected passages from one of Seneca’s letters, searching for ancient lessons on the art of living.
Seneca — On Choosing Our Teachers
This week, we explore a letter known today as On Choosing Our Teachers, which Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius,
What is this force, Lucilius, that drags us in one direction when we aim in another, urging us on to the exact place we long to withdraw from? What is it that wrestles with our spirit and does not allow us to desire anything once and for all? We veer from plan to plan. None of our wishes is free; none is unqualified. None is lasting.
“But it is the fool,” you say, “who is inconsistent; nothing suits him for long.” But how or when can we tear ourselves away from this folly? No man by himself has sufficient strength to rise above it; he needs a helping hand and someone to extricate him.
Epicurus remarks that certain men have worked their way to the truth without anyone’s assistance, carving out their own passage. And he gives special praise to these, for their impulse has come from within, and they have forged to the front by themselves. Again, he says, there are others who need outside help, who will not proceed unless someone leads the way, but who will follow faithfully. …
