Dear Readers,
After an extended break, I’m bringing back the Sundays with Seneca series. For longtime subscribers, you might recall weekly readings of Seneca’s moral letters. This series is exclusively available to Perennial Meditations members.
If you’d like to become a member, I’ve created three options: (1) Become a member at $5 a month or $39 for the year; (2) If you need assistance, you can use this 50% discount link; and (3) If you can’t afford it — please accept a complimentary membership.
Be wise and be well,
J.W.
🏛️ 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 the Happy Life (Pt 1)
In a letter known today as On the Happy Life, Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius,
You and I will agree, I think, that outward things are sought for the satisfaction of the body, that the body is cherished out of regard for the soul, and that in the soul there are certain parts which minister to us, enabling us to move and to sustain life, bestowed upon us just for the sake of the primary part of us. In this primary part there is something irrational, and something rational. The former obeys the latter, while the latter is the only thing that is not referred back to another, but rather refers all things to itself. For the divine reason also is set in supreme command over all things, and is itself subject to none; and even this reason which we possess is the same, because it is derived from the divine reason.
