Letters From a Stoic by Seneca
modified 20/04/2024 23:56These are some of my notes for Seneca’s Letters From a Stoic
On reading
Seneca recommands reading the same author to get a more intimate knowledge of it, instead of skipping from book to book and author to author. However, I think the more sublte point here is to actually stop and think about the books read, instead of mereley consuming them, otherwise books are just just “food that is vomited up as soon as it is eaten”
Some of his advice runs contrary to what I’ve read about recently – the fact that reading multiple books and textbooks at the same time can have benefits. Seneca instead suggests getting everything there is to get from a few good books, instead of reading through a lot of books but not getting antything out of them.
Have one main idea for the entire day
Each day, have an idea/thought that you’ll be thinking through (e.g. from the book – a quote from Epicurus: “A cheerful poverty is an honourable state”). Seneca then goes into analysing this, saying that if it’s cheerful – it’s not a poverty, rather, he argues – true poverty is when you constantly want more than what you have.
He ends the chapter by saying you should have what is essential and what is enough. What does essential mean? All that is necessary for life – food, clothes, shelter. What is enough? It depends from person to person, I believe – the more “enough” means, the “less” you actually have (you don’t own your things – fortune does), so if your “enough” is as close as possible to “essential”, you’re in the best possible state.