Revisiting the Shortness of Life

On The Shortness of Life is an essay written by Seneca, one of the Roman teachers of Stoicism. It’s an essay I found myself rereading once a year at the least. I can’t tell you when I read it last. But it doesn’t matter since the essay remains the same. It’s the reader who’s changed—or should’ve changed if he strived to live well. 

“It’s not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it.” - Lucius Annaeus Seneca

Of the many passages in this low essay, I’ve picked out a few that inspired me to sit on my ass and think. 

Yearning For Approval

Seeking the attention and approval of others requires you to take a hard look at yourself. How often do you shy away from your reflection in the mirror? Have you tried looking at yourself for a solid few minutes? Sit alone with yourself with nothing but a notepad for hours and endure the person inside your head. 

It’s not that we shouldn’t work to add value to others. We should care for others. But when you feel frustration towards others, look at yourself. Why? Why do you demand so much of others? Why do you expect this and that? 

"To how many does the throng of clients that crowd about them leave no freedom! In short, run through the list of all these men from the lowest to the highest—this man desires an advocate, this one answers the call, that one is on trial, that one defends him, that one gives sentence; no one asserts his claim to himself, everyone is wasted for the sake of another. Ask about the men whose names are known by heart, and you will see that these are the marks that distinguish them: A cultivates B and B cultivates C; no one is his own master. And then certain men show the most senseless indignation—they complain of the insolence of their superiors, because they were too busy to see them when they wished an audience! But can anyone have the hardihood to complain of the pride of another when he himself has no time to attend to himself? After all, no matter who you are, the great man does sometimes look toward you even if his face is insolent, he does sometimes condescend to listen to your words, he permits you to appear at his side; but you never deign to look upon yourself, to give ear to yourself. There is no reason, therefore, to count anyone in debt for such services, seeing that, when you performed them, you had no wish for another’s company, but could not endure your own."

All Bark, No Bite. 

You vent. You want to be heard and understood. You are frustrated and you let it be known. But what good is all that when you go back to your own ways? Blowing off steam is a poor use of time. It’s a total waste of it. Nothing has been solved. You’ve learned to deny it for a short while. 

"For when they have vented their feelings in words, they fall back into their usual round. Heaven knows! such lives as yours, though they should pass the limit of a thousand years, will shrink into the merest span; your vices will swallow up any amount of time."

You took a hit of a drug to ignore the problem. It’s no different from drowning yourself in alcohol on a Friday. It’s one thing to use days of the week for focused rest. It’s another to count the precious days you have trickle away with the hopes of the weekend. A conscious break is to use the next few blocks of time effectively. Looking forward to the weekend on a Monday presents a problem. 

Focus on the Practice.

Living a good life is a practice. Allow me to illustrate using the micro-lens of powerlifting. To be a strong powerlifter, you make choices every day.

You make choices on what you eat. What will your macros be? When will you eat your meals? What will you eat and how does that fit into your goals? From nutrition to the exercise routine to the mental preparation, every action needs to have a purpose. 

Why will you have a 15-minute warm-up session? What seven to ten exercises make up your dynamic stretching and mobility routines? What does your program look like and what is the focus of each set?

Furthermore, what muscle are you specifically targeting with the movement? What are your cues when you squat? Do you take just two steps when you un-rack the bar? Do you do a shallow breath through the chest then a deep one through your diaphragm before the lift? Do you feel your lats flare before you go under the bar to squat? Do you flex your quads when you are ready to descend? Do you make sure your weight is evenly spread out on every major point of your foot? How do you descend? Where are your hips? Where are your knees? 

"Finally, everybody agrees that no one pursuit can be successfully followed by a man who is preoccupied with many things—eloquence cannot, nor the liberal studies—since the mind, when distracted, takes in nothing very deeply, but rejects everything that is, as it were, crammed into it. There is nothing the busy man is less busied with than living: there is nothing that is harder to learn. Of the other arts there are many teachers everywhere; some of them we have seen that mere boys have mastered so thoroughly that they could even play the master. It takes the whole of life to learn how to live, and—what will perhaps make you wonder more—it takes the whole of life to learn how to die."

A simple day of training has many considerations. Every rep of every set needs focus. It’s not about ticking off boxes.

A poor rep will lead to a poor set and a poor training session. The beginner focuses on showing up 4, 5, or 6 times a week. The pro looks into every single rep and the constant journey. Learning to live is that but expanded to every single waking minute of our life. Every day is a reset and we have to focus yet again and practice discipline. Without that, we are doomed to never learn how to live. 

Live. Don’t Merely Exist. 

Age is just a number. This can be applied to every other element of life from how one appears, how long you’ve worked at a company, etc. Numerical age, tenure or the appearance of physical decay does not indicate wisdom or psychological maturity.

It does not show someone who thinks or is knowledgeable on subject matters. It just shows someone who has gone through the passage of time. But not all years are equal.

One year of spending every weekday looking forward to the weekend to sit at bars or play videogames on those weekends is equal to a year spent meeting a new person every week, reading a book every week, or traveling to 5-10 different cities to learn a culture and not take a single Instagram photo. One has existed for a year and the other has lived. 

"Everyone hurries his life on and suffers from a yearning for the future and a weariness of the present. But he who bestows all of his time on his own needs, who plans out every day as if it were his last, neither longs for nor fears the morrow. For what new pleasure is there that any hour can now bring? They are all known, all have been enjoyed to the full. Mistress Fortune may deal out the rest as she likes; his life has already found safety. Something may be added to it, but nothing taken from it, and he will take any addition as the man who is satisfied and filled takes the food which he does not desire and yet can hold. And so there is no reason for you to think that any man has lived long because he has grey hairs or wrinkles; he has not lived long—he has existed long. For what if you should think that that man had had a long voyage who had been caught by a fierce storm as soon as he left harbour, and, swept hither and thither by a succession of winds that raged from different quarters, had been driven in a circle around the same course? Not much voyaging did he have, but much tossing about."

We Predict in the Present.

The past is for reflecting. Look back and learn. The past is certain. It has happened and there is no way around it. There is no nuance there.

You only have the present to act on. But that time is short. The present exists in a small band. It’s the actions you do today that will shape your tomorrow. Every single day you are making a prediction. Every single day, you are executing your vision of the future—whether you realize it or not. 

"The life of the philosopher, therefore, has wide range, and he is not confined by the same bounds that shut others in. He alone is freed from the limitations of the human race; all ages serve him as if a god. Has some time passed by? This he embraces by recollection. Is time present? This he uses. Is it still to come? This he anticipates. He makes his life long by combining all times into one. But those who forget the past, neglect the present, and fear for the future have a life that is very brief and troubled; when they have reached the end of it, the poor wretches perceive too late that for such a long while they have been busied in doing nothing.”

Killing Time

Look at how you conduct yourself. How do you behave in the week? Reflect on the past to get a grasp of your behaviour. 

"Nor because they sometimes invoke death, have you any reason to think it any proof that they find life long. In their folly they are harassed by shifting emotions which rush them into the very things they dread; they often pray for death because they fear it. And, too, you have no reason to think that this is any proof that they are living a long time—the fact that the day often seems to them long, the fact that they complain that the hours pass slowly until the time set for dinner arrives; for, whenever their distractions fail them, they are restless because they are left with nothing to do, and they do not know how to dispose of their leisure or to drag out the time.”

My god, are people bored! It’s not that boredom is bad. Purposely cultivating boredom can be an effective way to observe our subconscious mind. It’s the notion of “killing time” until the weekend or some aforementioned event that is the tragedy. Catching the self doing that should spark the need for introspection. 

"And so they strive for something else to occupy them, and all the intervening time is irksome; exactly as they do when a gladiatorial exhibition is been announced, or when they are waiting for the appointed time of some other show or amusement, they want to skip over the days that lie between."

Input any cliche to “maximize stupidity in the name of living only once” and we have the fleeting moments of life defined by the proud recounting of how one doesn’t remember the nights before. What was the point?

Was the point the belief you enjoyed the night? But was this enjoyment at the cost of rude and uncivilized behaviour to fellow humans? It’s often forgotten that the pent-up excitement exploding from too much boredom seems to act as the justifier for people to be assholes because they are just out trying to have a “good time.” Instead, it’s often the case that this time is unmemorable, caused harm to innocent bystanders, and was a net negative to society, except for the bars who rely on the impaired decision-making of its patrons to survive. 

"All postponement of something they hope for seems long to them. Yet the time which they enjoy is short and swift, and it is made much shorter by their own fault; for they flee from one pleasure to another and cannot remain fixed in one desire. Their days are not long to them, but hateful; yet, on the other hand, how scanty seem the nights which they spend in the arms of a harlot or in wine! It is this also that accounts for the madness of poets in fostering human frailties by the tales in which they represent that Jupiter under the enticement of the pleasures of a lover doubled the length of the night. For what is it but to inflame our vices to inscribe the name of the gods as their sponsors, and to present the excused indulgence of divinity as an example to our own weakness? Can the nights which they pay for so dearly fail to seem all too short to these men? They lose the day in expectation of the night, and the night in fear of the dawn.”

It’s a vicious cycle. The only way off is to stop playing said game. But first comes recognition. Then comes a decision that so few make.