The PATH | Consistency, Uncertainty, and Introspection

sent by J.W. Bertolotti | Jun 27, 2022

Welcome to The PATH — A weekly reflection with three timeless insights into daily life.

1. Consistency

Towards the end of his life, the philosopher Seneca wrote a series of 124 Moral Letters known today as Letters from a Stoic. These letters explore a wide range of topics just as relevant today as 2,000 years ago.

In a letter titled Consistency, Seneca wrote to his friend Lucilius,

Philosophy teaches us to act, not to speak. Its demands are these: each person should live to the standard he himself has set; his manner of living should not be at odds either with itself or with his way of speaking, and all his actions should have a single tenor. This is the chief task of wisdom and the best evidence of it too: that actions should be in accordance with words…

How consistent are your words with your actions? Do you have a clear set of standards you are striving to follow? 

One of the themes throughout Seneca’s letters is clarity, “Adopt once and for all some single rule to live by and make your whole life conform to it.”

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2. Uncertainty

Seneca observed that without a consistent goal or direction in life, we are thrown from one new design to another, leaving us unsettled and dissatisfied. Although Seneca advised having a goal, he also stressed: “The greatest impediment to living is expectancy, which relies on tomorrow wastes today.” All that is to come lies in uncertainty — we must focus on living right now. 

In his treatise On the Shortness of Life, Seneca explained, 

It’s not that we have a short time to live, but we waste much of it. Life is long enough, and it’s been given to us in generous measure for accomplishing the greatest things if the whole of it is well invested. But when life is squandered through soft and careless living… spent on no worthwhile pursuit, death finally presses and we realize the life of which we didn’t notice passing has passed away.

How do you want to live your life? If time is your more precious resource — how do you want to spend it? A critical piece of living an examined life is knowing what type of life you actually want to live.

The poet Carl Sandburg said, “Time is the coin of your life. It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent. Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you.”

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3. Introspection

Author James Miller writes in Examined Lives: From Socrates to Nietzsche that the works of Quintus Sextius influenced Seneca’s philosophy. Revering Sextius as a model of virtue — Seneca adopted his daily routine of introspective self-examination. In Seneca’s words,  

“Sextius had this habit, and when the day was over and he had retired to his nightly rest, he would put these questions to his soul: What bad habit have you cured today? What fault have you resisted? In what respect are you better?”

Seneca says a delightful sleep follows this type of survey — “how tranquil it is, how deep and untroubled when the soul has either praised or admonished itself.” In one of his Letters, Seneca stressed that philosophy must be contemplative and active. Every form of experience, if properly examined, is a potential source of wisdom.

“I will watch myself continually, a most useful habit, and review each day.” — Seneca

An inevitable aspect of the examined life is falling short; Seneca was no exception. Seneca frequently confessed that although he praises virtue and can describe the kind of life a wise man ought to live, he is not Socrates, a man whose actions and words harmonized with his life.

According to Miller, we are invited to view Seneca as a real philosopher, someone with aspirations for wisdom — who repeatedly concedes that he is incomplete, unfinished, and imperfect. 

To quote Seneca, “As long as you live, never stop learning how to live.”

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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful. If so, please consider sharing it with others.

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