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Seneca on overcoming stress
The concept of stress in our century is dramatically different from the concepts in prior centuries. People in the Middle Ages or in Ancient Rome wouldn’t have understood our concerns for issues such as noise pollution and work overload. Seneca wrote extensively about worries and preoccupations, but those would involve life-or-death threats. I am referring…
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How to practise Seneca’s art of patience
Stoicism is often presented as a purely reactive philosophy. Its role is to toughen the soul for enduring setbacks, adversity, and eventually death; and its goal is the reduction of emotional pain, devoting little energy to solving the root problems. Seneca was the most prolific Stoic author in Ancient Rome, but his recommendations are far…
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Seneca and the art of patience
Patience and endurance have become the archetypal virtues of those who claim to be enlightened. When the situation gets from bad to worse, they are the first to recommend resignation, acceptance and passivity. Seneca is to blame for originating the passive mentality that will accept anything, even the most outrageous abuses. That’s the mentality of…
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Philosophical lessons from Seneca’s tragedies
Every artwork entails magnification. It blows some aspects of reality out of proportion to underline their significance from the creator’s viewpoint. Other aspects are minimized, ignored, distorted or blurred. Seneca was a playwright before becoming a Stoic philosopher. It is enlightening to study his plays because they announce the principles of Stoicism, magnify its powerful…
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Seneca on overcoming envy and jealousy
Even the smartest, most enlightened humans are doomed to suffer from envy and jealousy. Seneca analysed the problem and came up with an imperfect solution. He spent considerable time reflecting about this matter, but his deficient logic prevented him from seeing the truth. I consider it important to study Seneca’s philosophy on this issue, and…
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Seneca on dealing with betrayal
Forgiveness has become the universal recipe for betrayal, at least theoretically. Moral leaders tell their flock to forget what they have suffered, purify their hearts, and move on with their lives. In the early Roman Empire, Seneca was the most notable philosopher to preach forgiveness as a recipe for dealing with betrayal. His recommendations are…
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Was Seneca wrong about revenge?
Let us beware of people who preach passivity because they might be trying to slow us down. If they have already taken advantage of the situation, they might be preaching resignation to prevent their victims from taking action. Seneca condemned revenge, but did his idea of revenge also include creative, peaceful solutions? When he wrote…
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Seneca’s thoughts on revenge
Most philosophers get it wrong about revenge, and Seneca was no exception. In his essays titled “On Anger” and “On Clemency,” he recommended to forget injury and insult, and abandon the idea of revenge. Seneca gave extensive arguments against revenge when conceived as warlike. He said that, if we seek revenge, we’ll become “slaves to…
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What Seneca taught about dealing with failure
In the next paragraphs, I am going to summarise the advice from Seneca about dealing with failure. He devoted a couple of decades to compiling his advice, not only from his personal experience, but also from other notable persons in the early Roman Empire. Seneca called for keeping adequate margins of error. I mean having…
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The main benefits from reading Seneca today
Few people read books written a hundred years ago. Even fewer show interest in books written two thousand years ago. I am one of those exceptions, one of the few who regularly devotes time to reading Seneca. I love reading Seneca’s essays and his Letters to Lucilius because they deliver one important benefit: They prompt…
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