How Can Seneca Improve Your Life - David Fideler

What happened is that I had a rather difficult experience, I just mentioned it in brief in the preface to the book, but I had a female friend who made a suicide attempt and that inspired a lot of grief in me and I had been reading Seneca, you know, before that happened, but so when this thing happened, fortunately she's fine by the way, but it was a terrible thing to go through really, so I took Seneca a lot more seriously and rather than just reading a philosopher, it seemed like his words were like a kind of medicine to me, so I started reading Seneca like every morning when I'd wake up and have a cup of coffee and then I used to live in the United States, I moved to Europe and I developed this ritual where like on a really good day I would go out, work out at the gym and grab a cup of coffee and then I'd sit down and have an omelette and I would always read Seneca's letters, so both Stoicism and the philosophy of Socrates were very practical philosophies and they were a lot less about theoretical things like professional philosophies today, they were really focused on the art of living, which is a term you can find in ancient philosophical texts, so it's a very practical kind of philosophy. Hello friends, welcome to Artidote Podcast, where I, Vasek Arminikas, ask questions to best-selling non-fiction authors about their books and ideas. My guest today is philosopher David Feidler, author of a book called Breakfast with Seneca, one of my favourite books on philosophy that I read this year. Seneca is widely recognised as the most humane writer of the Stoic tradition. He teaches us how to live with freedom and purpose. In his work Over a Hundred Letters from a Stoic, written to a close friend, Seneca explains how to handle adversity, overcome grief, anxiety and anger, transform setbacks into opportunities for growth and recognise the true nature of friendship. In Breakfast with Seneca, David Feidler explores Seneca's ideas in a series of focused chapters, clearly explaining Seneca's ideas without oversimplifying them. I read David's book every day with my morning cup of coffee and it felt like a daily ritual, and I started missing this daily routine after I finished reading his book. Reading about Seneca's ideas and his wisdom was a great way to begin my day. It provided a steady stream of time-tested advice about the human condition, which hasn't changed much over the past two thousand years. I also would like to mention that there is going to be a second part to this episode. In the second episode, David Feidler will tell us about his next book, in which he explores how ideas that gave birth to genius artists such as Michelangelo, Donatello and Da Vinci could be replicated today to create a second wave of renaissance. I hope you will enjoy listening to my conversation with David Feidler and let's begin. Dear David, thank you so much for coming to my podcast. I'm so excited about this conversation. I really enjoyed reading your book called Breakfast with Seneca, and it kind of reminded me of a quote that I read that said that it's not us who find books, it is books that find us at the right time. And right now, with all the things that are happening globally, with the post-pandemic world, with the wars that we witness on the international arena, your book is very helpful and very useful to navigate during those uncertain times. You distill the ideas of Seneca so well and your book is so well written that I think everyone would benefit from reading your book. For those of our listeners who are not yet familiar with you, could you please tell about yourself a little bit? How did you encounter Stoicism? Well, actually, for some strange reason, I've been studying Greek philosophy my whole life. I became interested in it when I was really young. In my early twenties, I would read about the Pythagoreans and I started reading Plato. I did read the Stoics back then. I read Marcus Aurelius when I was in my twenties. I always liked Marcus Aurelius. But it's really strange how I encountered Seneca because I went on to do a degree in philosophy, like a PhD. And I read a little Seneca, but I never felt like a huge attraction. But then back in 2007, Tim Ferriss came out with this book, The Four-Hour Workweek, which is not a philosophy book, but it has a lot of quotations from Seneca and that he was a big Seneca fan. And I read the quotations and I was like astonished. So I went out and I started buying Seneca books. And then I ended up getting all of Seneca's writing. So that was 15 years ago. And that was how I became introduced to Seneca. That is so surprising and interesting that you encountered and found out about Seneca through Tim Ferriss. Because I think when I was 20, I was reading Tim Ferriss's blog and he mentioned the book by Seneca called On the Shortness of Life. I found the title to be really interesting and intriguing and I bought it. And that book really changed my life, the way I look at life in general. And it is so interesting that you encountered Seneca and found out about it through Tim Ferriss as well. Could you please tell a little bit about the title of your book? Why did you decide to call your book Breakfast with Seneca? Where did the title come from? What happened is that I had a rather difficult experience. I just mentioned it in brief in the preface to the book, but I had a female friend who made a suicide attempt. And that inspired a lot of grief in me. And I had been reading Seneca before that happened, but Seneca actually wrote a lot about grief to his friends who wrote five different essays about grief. And so when this thing happened, fortunately she's fine, by the way, but it was a terrible thing to go through really. And so I took Seneca a lot more seriously. And rather than just reading a philosopher, it seemed like his words were like a kind of medicine to me. So I started reading Seneca like every morning when I'd wake up and have a cup of coffee. And then I used to live in the United States. I moved to Europe and I developed this ritual where like on a really good day, I would go out and work out at the gym and grab a cup of coffee. And then I'd sit down and have an omelet and I would always read Seneca's letters. So I can't tell you how many times I've read them, but that's where the title comes from because of this little ritual I developed of reading one of Seneca's letters every day at breakfast. I always find it really interesting how people find out about their favorite writers. You know, there is always a personal story about how people get attached to Seneca, Marcus Aurelius or to any other philosopher. So it is really interesting how you explored his writings and how Seneca helped you in your personal life. And I really like that your book is very personal. You know, it is what I think made your book so enjoyable to read. And the structure of your book is also very interesting because one can read your book from the beginning to the end the way I did, or you can just open your book and read the chapter that is most applicable to your life. You know, if you are going through grief, you can read the chapter that you dedicate to grief. Or if you are struggling with making friends, you can read the chapter that is dedicated to friendship. So I think your book is so well divided. And I was wondering, what's your writing process? How did you decide to divide your book the way it is? And in general, what's your writing process? Well, that's an interesting question. It just actually came from reading Seneca over the course of so many years because I can't tell you how many times I've read his essays and letters because there's always like something new to learn. And the reason I added some personal anecdotes and things like that to the book is because actually Seneca's philosophy is very practical and it's about the art of living. And so when I was writing the book, I had to test out all of these stoic ideas and exercises that he was recommending. So that's why a lot of that material is in there. And it makes it very relatable. But in terms of dividing the book and the ideas, that just came from reading Seneca over a long period of time and becoming familiar with his main ideas that the average reader would find to be useful. And what I did, this is somewhat a scary thought, but I really like Seneca as a person and a writer. And plus I'm a really scrupulous scholar. So what I did is that once I had the different chapter topics figured out, I went through all of Seneca's writings, which is like hundreds and hundreds of pages, and I made a database. And every time he talked about something and there was an important quote, I would put it in the database and tag it by the subject matter. And then I went through the two other main Roman stoics, Marcus Aurelius and Epictetus, and did that with them as well, so that I would have comparison material, because I felt like I had this incredible sort of like moral obligation to Seneca not to leave anything important out of the book. That's such an interesting way to write a book. So you decided to tag each idea so you could easily construct each chapter. That's so interesting. Yes, it made it very easy in the writing process. I mean, it took me like about four months to do that. But when it came to writing the book, I could call up, you know, if, for example, like if Seneca or any of the stoics, they were talking about gratitude, or how to face death or whatever, I could just call up all of those passages and print them out. And I'd have all of that in front of me, which made it very easy to write the chapters in some sense. That's such an interesting way of writing. And the overall writing process is really interesting. And I wanted for our listeners who are not familiar with the stoicism, I would like to explore two core ideas that stand at its foundation. And you mentioned this in your book. The first pillar, let's call it, is knowledge. And this idea comes from Socrates. And the second pillar is that philosophy can act as a therapy to our souls. Could you please explore and elaborate those two ideas, particularly the idea that philosophy can serve us as a therapy for our soul? I guess this is one of the most interesting things about stoicism. Yes, well, you're right, those ideas go back to Socrates. And they were developed by the Stoics and other philosophers after Socrates. There's this very important word in ancient Greek called erete, which means excellence. And it applies pretty much to anything that can be good or excellent. But the philosophers applied that to the soul and to human character. And to have a good character, you need to have an excellence, an inner kind of excellence. And another way that erete is translated is as a virtue, which also means something that's good or excellent. And you've undoubtedly heard about the four cardinal virtues, wisdom, courage, moderation, and justice. And those cardinal virtues were very important to the Stoics. And ultimately, they went back to Plato. But as I mentioned earlier, both Stoicism and the philosophy of Socrates were very practical philosophies. And they were a lot less about theoretical things like professional philosophies today. They were really focused on the art of living, which is a term you can find in ancient philosophical texts. So it's a very practical kind of philosophy. There is so much emphasis in the ancient Greek and Roman philosophy, whether it is Stoicism or any other philosophical school, there is this emphasis on the importance of working on our character. And I wonder why, what's the source of this focus on improving our character, on working on ourselves? What pushed ancient Greeks and Romans to focus so much, to focus their philosophy so much on working on our character and improving it? I think a lot of it was just inspired by bad political leaders. And people realized that to be a good person, you actually had to possess a virtue, you had to have a good inner character. So when Plato first discusses what we now call these four cardinal virtues, and there are like many other virtues as well, but those are very important ones. And he first mentioned them in the Republic, which was really about the state and political philosophy. And Plato said that these are virtues that exist within us, like even justice exists in the soul. But these are things that also should exist in a good government as well. And so he's drawing the parallel between, he's trying to define these virtues as things that exist both within us and in society as a whole. Could you please tell a little bit about Seneca? And you mentioned that bad politicians were flourishing even 2000 years ago back in his time. Surprise, surprise, you know, there is, I guess there's one thing that no period of history will ever escape, and that is bad politicians. Could you please tell a little bit about his life? To explain like kind of what kind of atmosphere or period of time he grew up and built his career, I think it will explain why his ideas are so universal that we follow them until today, you know, 2000 years have passed, but we still find his ideas so universal. Yeah, well, Seneca, he was born in Toledo, Spain. And his father was Seneca the Elder, who taught rhetoric, or public speaking. And that's why Seneca grew up to be such a good writer. So he studied philosophy since he was very, very young. He was also a keen student of human nature. He was very observant psychologically. And one of the ways I describe him in the book actually is as a proto-psychologist, because he was the first to write about the psychology of consumerism and crowd psychology. He wrote about how anger comes into being, how to overcome worry and anxiety. And as I mentioned earlier, he wrote about grief. And he also wrote about psychological phenomena that didn't even have a name until like 50 or 100 years ago. So he was really ahead of his time. And he was a senator. And he served under Caligula, Claudius, and he became the tutor to Nero, which was a bit of bad luck. So he became the tutor to Nero when Nero was 11. And he stayed on with Nero. I think he wanted to, you know, see what he could do to improve the situation. But in the end, it didn't work out very well for Seneca, and Nero had Seneca put to death. Just the names that you mentioned, Nero, Claudius, Caligula, those are kind of like names that already inspire fear and disgust, you know, those who know history know that those were not good people. I wanted our listeners to keep in mind this fact that you mentioned that he was, Seneca was a pioneer about things and ideas that are still relevant today, things such as excessive productivity, you know, today we're obsessed about time management, cleaning our calendars, to do lists and all these kind of things. But Seneca already knew this, like 2000 years ago, he had like this ideas about how we can find work more meaningful, friendships more meaningful, all those kind of gurus that we can find on YouTube, or like podcasts, or those like inspirational speakers, all of them, kind of, whether consciously or not, they inadvertently tell about ideas that Seneca explored back 2000 years ago. So he was a huge pioneer about things that we still care about today. Perhaps the last question about Seneca, like an introduction question to ideas of Seneca, would be, I would like to ask you, could you please explain how Seneca is different from other Stoic philosophers, such as Marcus Aurelius, who is immensely popular right now, his meditations are on the bestseller lists on Amazon. How is he different? How is Seneca different from Marcus Aurelius or Epictetus, who is another very popular Stoic philosopher that Stoic community talk about? Could you please explain the difference between their ideas? Well, what I'd say the main difference is, is that everyone has a different style, and a different personality. So their writings have a different flavor. But if you look at them very closely, the underlying ideas of the Roman Stoics are very similar, because they were Stoics, they followed, you know, this philosophy of the school. But Seneca, he was the first major Roman Stoic. And of all the Roman Stoics, we have more of his writings than anyone else. So a huge amount of his writings. And he was also the greatest writer of his time, aside from the Stoicism that he wrote, tragedies and things like that. And he was just an incredible writer. So these incredible turns of phrase, like in his writings, make his writings on Stoicism a really good pleasure, you know, to read. He had the bad luck of being under the bad emperors. But the next major Roman Stoic after Seneca was Epictetus, who was basically a freed slave, and he started his own school. And he would lecture rich kids from the Roman elite. And we do have a good deal of material from him. But it's basically records of his lectures that were recorded by one of his students. And finally, Marcus Aurelius, he was the last great Roman Stoic, and he was the emperor of Rome, obviously. And he had actually read both Seneca and Epictetus. And Marcus was a wonderful writer. He wrote his meditations in Greek, because Greek was the language of philosophy. Seneca was really the first to write about Stoicism in Latin, do Stoic philosophy in Latin. But what Marcus Aurelius wrote was just a personal philosophical journal for himself. He never expected anyone else to read it. And so even though these three Roman Stoics had very similar ideas, their writings are totally different, because they were addressing, you know, very different kinds of audiences. going to interview so you can send your questions and ask the guests directly. I also wanted to let you know that you can find all the links and references to David's books and his projects on my website, which will also be linked down in the description. Thank you once again for listening to our today's podcast. And let's continue with the rest of this episode. Each of them can be defined with the challenges that they had in their own life. If we take Epictetus, for example, and you can see that Epictetus' theme, like, you know, throughout his writings is about freeing yourself, because he was a slave himself. And you could see that he was thinking of how you can free yourself, psychologically, you know, and physically, you know, how, what is it that makes us free? And I've interviewed also, like, I think a year ago, Donald Robertson, who wrote several biographies of Marcus Aurelius, and he told me that Marcus Aurelius was constantly, constantly aware, as an emperor, that he's surrounded by enemies, and he had to maintain his composure. And Stoic philosophy and his meditations for Marcus Aurelius was kind of a way how to survive in the court where everybody could be your potential enemy. And, of course, in case of Seneca, I think it is partially his ideas are defined while he was serving at the court of Nero. So, it is really interesting how each of those philosophers were defined by the things that they struggled in their lives. The things that they struggled with throughout their lives defined their own philosophies, in some sense, I think. Yeah, one of the things that's actually funny or strange about Epictetus is that Epictetus' master was a freed slave, who had Epictetus as a slave, and then he freed Epictetus. So, it was a strange world back then. You would have freed slaves that owned slaves. Very strange, actually. Oh, I didn't know that Epictetus' master was also a former slave. Is that the master who, according to a story, he twisted Epictetus' legs so badly once that Epictetus was left with this kind of limp throughout his life? Is that the master you're mentioning? Yeah. I'm not sure if that story is true. This is a story that came down to us from one of the early Christian writers. They called them the Church Fathers. But I have a friend who really believes in that story. So, I started doing research into that. And I'm not sure that's an entirely reliable source. I don't think we really know because I was able, by going on the internet, I was able to find six different explanations as to why Epictetus had a bad leg. And it may just have been like a birth defect. So, we really don't know because he never spoke about it. And there's no way to verify these sources. It's possible. I don't know. I think the reason why I found this story interesting is because, as you mentioned, Epictetus' master was a slave himself. And it is really interesting that, essentially, if that story is true, Epictetus' master didn't overcome him being a slave. He became a cruel slave owner himself, while Epictetus overcame his slavery. He really reached freedom. And I found this interesting because different people learn life lessons and treat life lessons differently. One can reject slavery. The other one can become a slave owner himself, although they've suffered through slavery. That's why I found this story quite interesting. The reason I question that story, you know, I mean, we don't really know. But the reason I question it is that his master was good enough to actually free Epictetus. So, he couldn't have been all bad. I don't really, you know, I don't think we really know that much about him. But what's the main source of Seneca's ideas? Is it his letters? You mentioned, like, that he wrote plays. He was very prolific. Could you please tell a little bit? Where do we know about Seneca and his ideas? Well, so he wrote 120, well, actually, he wrote more letters to his friend, Lucilius. Lucilius was a friend of Seneca's. And he was maybe like about 10 years younger than Seneca. And Seneca was in his late 60s when he wrote the letters. And they were among his last works before. He was put to death by Nero. And in these letters, Seneca was really acting as a philosophical guide or mentor to Lucilius. Lucilius was the governor of Sicily. And he was going through what we would call kind of like a personal psychological crisis because Lucilius had achieved public fame and fortune. But at the same time, he felt that his inner life lacked meaning. So, this is, you know, exactly the kind of thing that people experience today. And when you start reading Seneca, the first thing that you notice, like, right away is that we live in a world that's different because of, you know, the evolution of technology. But psychologically, as human beings, nothing at all, nothing significant has changed in the last 2,000 years. And I really mean that literally. You know, we still have the same hopes, fears, addictions, neuroses. And you can see all of that in Seneca's writings. He's writing about all of this and the way that people behave were exactly the same as they were in his time. There are three topics that you explore in your book that I would like kind of to share with our listeners, those who haven't read your book yet. And those three topics are friendships, time, and gratitude. And I would like to begin with friendships. And Seneca puts a lot of emphasis on the idea of friendships, on the importance of having true and genuine friends. Why did he have so much emphasis on this idea? Why are friendships so important in the Stoic view, in Seneca's view? Well, all of the Stoics really believed that human community was very, very important, and Seneca believed that as well. And he also believed in the value of person-to-person communication. So if he was alive today, I don't think that you'd find him swiping dating profiles on Tinder or something like that. He was interested in being with people in the real world. But, jokes aside, he believed that having live person-to-person communication was always the best. But if that's not possible, then writing is the next best thing. And in the ancient world, letters were very important. They were tools for building and maintaining friendships. And they were actually until really recently. So I'm really old by now. And when I was growing up, before the world of email, I was a huge letter writer. And that's actually how I learned to write. And I can tell you, since I wrote a lot of letters, that emails, they might be helpful. But it's a totally different experience than writing and receiving letters. And part of that is because emails are usually just quick responses that don't go into much depth. And there isn't usually much art in them either. But it is true you can write a real letter by email. It's possible. It just doesn't happen very often. Let alone WhatsApp messages or short tweets that we can send that do not fully express our opinion or our emotions. It is a feeling as if modern tools of communication increase the distance between each other, between us and the people we would like to communicate with. And I wonder what would Seneca think about this? What would he think if he saw the modern social media, modern ways of interaction? What would he say in your opinion? There's an interesting fact that I didn't put in the book, but it was originally in there. And for some reason that I don't fully understand, some of the editors of the book didn't really like this being in the chapter on friendship. But when I was researching this, I did a Google search, which I encourage you to do this at some point. When we're done talking, Google the phrase, why don't I have any real friends? And I've done this a lot of times over the course of working on the book. And it varies a little bit each time. But the last time I did it, I recall that there were about 7 billion results, which is like the number of people that are on the planet, which is shocking actually. Why would there be 7 billion Google? And I use Google for research a lot of the time for anything. And I can tell you, 7 billion responses is abnormally high. So this is really indicative of something. And I do think that what you said earlier is that the internet, I mean, the internet is wonderful. Look, we can have these long form discussions and things like that. It's wonderful for things like that. But in other ways, I think it separates people like you said, and it makes people feel more lonely. So I think there is sort of a modern state of loneliness. It's kind of like a psychological disorder and that people are finding it harder to connect with others than it was in the past. Because you're just like sending these text messages or looking what people are posting on social media and commenting. And social media, it's good for commenting, but it's very difficult for having real conversations. And I think that lack of dialogue and conversation makes people feel isolated and lonely. Yeah, I do agree. And I think like many of our modern tools have those inhibitions, you know, they inhibit us from articulating a fully-fledged argument. And of course, it depends on the tool. Something like Twitter is not designed for a coherent, articulate political debate. It is inhibited by all those limitations. So like having a political argument on Twitter, I think it's a complete waste of time. And I think that's why Twitter can be so toxic very often. But when it comes to a technology such as podcasts, it is very different. Because we, right now, we have all the time in the world to talk about stoicism, you know, we are not inhibited by anything. And we couldn't have done this podcast if not for, you know, podcasting as a phenomenon itself. And I think this is the reason why podcasts are increasing in popularity. But coming back to friendships, I wanted to ask you if you could tell about those three levels of friendship that Seneca describes. And I found those three levels so relevant to me. And I really wish I had read about those three levels of friendships before, you know, when I was in my 20s, because they really describe how we can form deep and meaningful connections with our friends. Could you please tell a little bit about those three levels? Yeah, it's really interesting, because I had that same experience as well, when I read about these three levels of friendship. Aristotle actually wrote about them. And it's amazing, because consider this, Aristotle's book on ethics, the Nicomachean Ethics, 20% of that is devoted to discussing friendships. And if you were to go into a philosophy class today, or a philosophy program, it's probably a topic that would never even come up. But it was so important to Aristotle that he devoted that much space to it. But another thing is that every single philosophical writing from Seneca is addressed to a friend, whether it's an essay or his letters, every single one was addressed to a family member, or a friend. So that really highlights how important personal communication was for him, and how he thought that philosophy was about people. And basically, what Aristotle said is that there are three kinds of friendships. There are advantage friendships, and that's the most superficial level of friendship. And I think of that as like, if you've ever gone to a business networking meeting, and you meet someone, and you exchange business cards, and the whole idea of that is to create friends for professional purposes, rather than really trying to get to know the person. And it doesn't mean that you don't wish the person well, because you do. But it's just a friendship based on mutual advantage. So those are the most fragile kinds of friendships, because they can easily fall apart. The next kind of friendship, according to Aristotle, is pleasure friendships. And that's when you just go out and do something with a friend that you mutually enjoy, like go out and have a drink or go to a movie. And those are good friendships. But the ultimate level of friendship for Aristotle and Seneca, they're called character friendships. And what a character friendship is, is like, you'll meet someone, and you see something like really good in their character that is attractive to you. And hopefully, they'll see something good in your character as well. And so these friends are like mirrors to one another. So you see something good in the other person, the other person sees something good in you, and you're attracted to that person because you think that they're a good person. And Seneca felt that having those kinds of friendships was really, really important because we absorb the qualities of others. And you have to engage in conversations with other people too, to develop yourself. And stoicism was seen as a path of philosophical development. So having those kinds of character friends were like really essential for Seneca. And I assume they are for most people today. But I think that the reason why some people are so lonely is they don't have friends like that, that they can have these really in depth, you know, conversations with and things like that. Yeah, once again, as I said, I wish I've read about those three levels of friendship before when I was 20, or maybe even earlier, that would be great, because most of us form friendships inertly in life, you know, we make connections at work, but those connections are always like very fragile. The moment we switch jobs, the work friendships also disappear. But knowing when you know that, of all those three levels that Stoic philosophers described, it really helps you think about each connection. And also, it kind of changed my mind in terms of how I approach friendships. Because once you start looking for things that you can imitate, admire in your friends, you also start to question yourself, what my friends can admire in me, in myself, you know, most of the people, like myself included, rarely ask this question. And it really changed the way I approach friendships. It is like a unique thing that I read in your book and discovered there. Yeah, there's this famous saying, by a business writer that you're the average of the five people that you surround yourself with. And I think that's true. Actually, I think Seneca would find that to be true. But Seneca also felt that you could surround yourself with great minds from the past. So if you're having trouble meeting good people, you can always read Seneca. We talked about friendships and what Seneca thought about the meaningful connections, but I would also like to explore the subject of time. As I said, I encountered Seneca when I read his book called On Shortness of Life. And there was a sentence there that really changed the way I approach life, you know, changed my own philosophy of life. And the sentence was that it's not that life is short, it's that we waste a lot of it. And I would like to talk about Seneca and what he means when he talks about time, you know, what is time for Seneca as a concept? Well, that was a really important topic for Seneca. And his first letter actually is this amazing, it's beautifully written, this letter on the value of time. And he believed that time was our most valuable resource. And as you said, you quoted that other work on the shortness of life. He says in that, that nature gives us enough time to accomplish, you know, great things if we would only use it wisely. But people don't obviously do that very well. Another thing that Seneca wrote about is, he wrote about the experience of multitasking. So even back in ancient Rome, that was a time. And now some people do a really superficial reading of Seneca. And if you do that, you might assume that he was writing about our modern concept of time management, but that's not true at all. He was writing about people who multitask and run around in a flurry of meaningless busyness, acting as if, you know, they're doing something meaningful when they're just putting on a public show of how busy they are. And Seneca was really into the idea of authenticity. So the idea of like, you're always acting busy, that was not something that he would have approved of. He also wrote a lot of satire. And there's this one particular passage in his writings, which I quoted in the book, where he just rips this kind of behavior apart. It's really funny. I think you were also interested in the question of like, do we waste our lives by focusing on our careers too much? And I don't think Seneca, he wasn't against the idea of making progress in a career because he felt very strongly that we shouldn't just like float along, but have some kind of destination in life. But on the other hand, since he was a Stoic, he felt that we could always develop our characters because that's something within our controller. As the Stoics would say, it's up to us. But we can't really fully control our careers or even the kind of work we do. And so Seneca's own case, you know, he became a tutor of Nero when Nero was only 11. And he had no idea at the time that, you know, this would turn out badly. He had no idea that Nero would become emperor when he was just short of turning 17 years old. And I think Seneca wanted Nero to develop a very good character, but it was just a failed project. And when Nero grew older, he ended up killing his mother. He killed his brother, dozens of others. And in the end, he killed Seneca too, before killing himself, of course. And Seneca had no idea that this would happen when he signed on to become Nero's tutor. It's kind of for him, appreciation of time was also kind of an acknowledgement that he wasted so much of his own time by investing in Nero, who in the end turned out to be a terrible ruler who killed everyone he disliked, including Seneca in the end. Yes. Well, the first five years of Nero's reign were good, because it seems that Seneca and the head of the Praetorian Guard, his name was Burrus, was running the Roman Empire, actually. I mean, a 17-year-old cannot run the Roman Empire. So they were running it, apparently. And those were very good times for Rome. But then, as Nero grew older, he became murderous and started killing people. Of course, I need to ask, what does Seneca mean when he uses the word waste to waste time? What does it mean for Seneca to waste time? Well, actually, you know, Seneca believed quite a bit in the value of leisure time. And he even, you know, wrote an essay about leisure. And I think that what he would really say is that if you're a workaholic, you know, which I can be at times, actually, but if you're a workaholic, you're wasting your time, in a sense, because he thought that people should work hard. He did believe in that, obviously. But as we say today, he believed that people should not live in order to work, but work in order to live. So I've always liked that saying. I think that really explains what Seneca was talking about. And so it's important to find a balance in life. You can't work all the time. I don't think he really wasted so much time, actually, because he did all of, he created all of these wonderful writings, he probably did have a sense that he wasted time, you know, being in Nero's circle when he could have been doing something that was more productive, because after a certain time, it just became obvious there was nothing that could be done, you know, to help Nero. I also really liked the idea that you mentioned in the book that Seneca thought that reading helps us to not to be trapped by the present. Because by reading, we can have conversations with the dead, we can understand that our life is just a part of, it's just a small part of like a period of time, you know, that there were thousands of lives before us. And I really, I really like this idea, you know, that reading helps us not to be trapped by the present. How important it was for Seneca, you know, could you please tell us a little bit about this about reading and present? Well, I think it was quite important, really. Because, you know, the people who misread Seneca on time and make him into like a ancient time management guru or something like that, they must totally overlook this part, because what he's saying is that actually, time is very valuable. And one of the valuable ways that we can use time is by not being trapped in the present. And if you're a workaholic, obviously, you're always trapped in the present, you know, you're always trying to do the next thing on your list. And one way to do this, Seneca says, is through reading and through, you know, as he puts it, developing friendships with minds who lived in earlier times. And I think this is incredibly important for us today, not to be trapped just in our own time, but to have relationships with minds and ideas from the past. I just think that's so important, because if we don't have that, what do we have instead? We just have the horrible news feed from the internet, you know, all the kinds of things that we need to do, things that, you know, the news makes us very unhappy. And then we end up with this lifestyle also, where people are walking down the street staring into their smartphones. Now, I'm not against the internet, per se. Like everyone else, I use it on a daily basis. But as Seneca said, if we develop our minds sort of like philosophically, we'll be able to link the past, present and future together. And I think that's so important. I can't think of anything worse than being trapped just in the present time and looking into a smartphone as you walk down the street, you know, unless you're simply looking at a map, which is a very good use for smartphones. But to be trapped just in the present, I think, is very damaging, in a sense, to the human character. I always found reading to be such an extraordinary gift, you know, to be able to explore the lifetimes of others. I just like cannot even imagine not being able to read, not to be able to find out about Seneca, about Marcus Aurelius, and to feel trapped at the present moment by the current events and not to know anything about the past. It's kind of like a superpower. Reading is kind of a superpower, in my opinion. And I think very often, we don't appreciate this privilege that we have, particularly as people of the 21st century, when most of us are literate and can easily access books, quite often. Yes, yes. Now, there's another side to that, too, because Seneca said we should live in the present moment, because when people experience worry and anxiety, it's because they're imagining things that might happen in the future and their minds are rushing ahead. And so he suggests different ways to deal with that, which is very helpful, because actually, in the United States, about 20% of the population suffers from anxiety. And Seneca has some very good ways of dealing with that. How can we find the balance between those two? Because, yes, you mentioned that reading and just focusing on the past can be like a very toxic refuge for those who do not want to deal with the present problems. And there were many poets and writers who explored this, saying that don't be trapped by the past. But at the same time, we can be trapped by the present, as we discussed, just focusing on our lifetime and ignoring about everything that happened before, not using the wisdom. How does Seneca tell us how can we find the balance between those two, to be able to appreciate the past, get the value from it, to be present and enjoy the moment and live meaningfully in the present, but at the same time, not to be afraid of the future? And it is particularly relevant in our time when we witnessed what's happening, for example, in Ukraine, when the nuclear threat is just hanging over us all around the world. What would Seneca's advice be here about the balance? Well, he says that we shouldn't regret the past and that we shouldn't fear the future. And the reason that we should be present... Now, Seneca is not saying that we shouldn't think about the past and the future. He thought that we should. He thought we should plan ahead and things like that, but we shouldn't have negative emotions associated with them. So we shouldn't worry about the past or we shouldn't worry about what we did in the past that maybe wasn't a good thing to do because the past and the future don't exist. The only thing that really exists is the present moment. And the reason why we should develop friendships with minds in the past to sort of like differentiate this is because this gives us a lot of depth to our life. And so there aren't any negative emotions associated with that. It's actually deepening our experience of being alive. That's the way that I would put it. There is one quote that constantly comes back to me. And this quote from Seneca, where he says that we often suffer more in imagination than we actually do in reality. And this quote is constantly with me almost like every week, at least every week, I think, because I noticed that most of the time I'm stressed not about the things that happen to me right now in the present. I more get stressed by the things that I think might happen in the future. So nothing happened yet, and I'm already stressed. And reminding myself of this quote kind of reduces the stress so much. And I really like this quote. So we talked about friendships and just amazing advice that Stoics give us and Seneca. And we talked about time. And I would like to talk about the third topic that I find to be really crucial in our lives. And that is gratitude and why we should be grateful and why is this another pillar in Stoic philosophy. And I liked how you say about complaining and complaining is one of the ways of not being grateful. Could you please explain why do we complain? What does it tell about us? There are actually two different chapters in the book. And so one of them is called Why You Should Never Complain. The Stoics were really against complaining. And there's another one called Love and Gratitude. And there is a link between gratitude and not complaining. So they do connect with one another. And when I was writing the chapter on why you should never complain, I researched a lot of psychological literature. It seems really that complaining is essentially a bad habit that people develop. It's a way of expressing emotional dissatisfaction with things. But if you want to go back to the topic of time, in almost every case, complaining is a total waste of time and it doesn't improve anything. So I think that's a really important thing. So this is the modern perspective on it. And one of the things that I came across, which I was just astonished by, is that people in workplace situations waste about 30 percent of their time either complaining or listening to other people complain. That's a huge amount of time. And it's just emotional venting. It usually doesn't change anything at all. So, for example, what a modern psychologist would say is, if you're really upset about something, you just should have a conversation about it because that could actually change things. That's the way to go. But complaining usually doesn't have any effect whatsoever, except creating a kind of toxic atmosphere. In my experience, I often complain when I feel that there is something that I would like to change, but at the same time, I cannot. I feel helpless. You know, it could be something at work most of the time. But if we don't complain, what's the alternative to complaining? Well, the stories really wanted to approach everything rationally. And so I think what Seneca would say is that if you're upset about something, you should just take a look inside and question yourself and analyze what is it that's upsetting you and what is it that you could do to remedy the situation. I mean, that's just a rational response. If you probably went to a psychologist today, that's probably what they would tell you. And it is interesting about them focusing on what actually you can change. If you can control something, you know, if it is in your control, try to fix it. If it is out of your control, therefore, like, what's the point of complaining at all? Like, you know, just move on. It creates a very toxic atmosphere to be around people who are complaining. And the Stoics had their own answer as to why you shouldn't complain, which to modern readers is just maybe a shocking idea, but it's something that I love. And so that chapter, why you should never complain, explains the real Stoic explanation about it. And so it's almost like a trick ending to the chapter. There are a few chapters like that with trick endings or what seemed like trick endings. But the Stoics in Seneca, they believe that the universe is basically rational and it's fundamentally good. And they feel that if you're like a person who's complaining about all these trivial things that anyone is going to experience in life, you're basically complaining about or insulting the good nature of the universe itself. And I think a lot of modern readers will find that to be sort of a mind blowing thought. But I try to fully explain that perspective in that chapter. And I actually think that's something that modern readers, you know, should consider. Yeah, I've recently interviewed Professor Stephen Nadler, who wrote an incredible book on philosophy of Baruch Spinoza, a Portuguese Jewish philosopher. And the book is called Think Least of Death. And I think everyone should read that book, because it is an incredible read. It is well written. It has a lot of ideas that can change your perspective on life. You can find the episode. It is one of the previous episodes. But there were a lot of similarities between what Spinoza was saying and what Stoics say, particularly similarities about nature and following our nature. Spinoza says that if we follow our nature, that's the only way we can reach a happy and fulfilling life. And there is also an emphasis in Spinoza about following our reason. And there are lots of echoes with what you say Stoics thought leads to meaningful and happy life. I would like to ask you about what does it mean to follow your nature? What does it, you know, when Stoics say amor fati, love of your fate, what does it mean? You know, how can we practically apply it to our daily lives? Because I assume my listeners, our listeners, as well as me, for me, this idea is very vague, very philosophical. You know, I don't know, what do they mean exactly when they say follow your nature? Well, there are a lot of different interpretations of what, so the Stoics had this saying, follow nature, or live in accordance with nature. And obviously, if the universe is rational, if there are rational laws in the universe, then if you don't follow nature, you're just going to be creating a lot of problems for yourself. But I think what the Stoics really tended to mean by this is that they wanted people to follow their own nature. And the Stoics saw human beings as being rational creatures. And so they wanted human beings to cultivate their own rationality. And in that way, you have a smoothly flowing life. And you could look at things from a rational perspective. So you wouldn't be, you know, just swept along, you would be able to think your way through different situations. And also, they had this idea of fate as well, and that certain things are fated to happen, and that we just have to accept those things and what they would even call the providential order of the universe. For example, there are certain laws in nature, and you can't fight those laws. They had this image, actually, of a dog that was tied to a cart. And the cart's like going down the road, and the dog had a choice. The dog could go along with the cart as the cart goes down, and the dog would be happy and panting and everything like that. Or the dog could resist the flow of the cart and be dragged along by it. And so that was really what the Stoics were getting at. They used that as a metaphor for fate. So we had to basically accept, you know, the things that are fated in the world, because otherwise, we're going to be dragged along by them anyways, and it will be more painful. That's such a great metaphor, you know, because yeah, essentially, we don't choose what period of history we are born, we don't choose our family, we don't choose what nationality we are. We are just given so many crucial things when we are born, and complaining about the cars that we are dealt with is worthless, because we can't change it. And I really, really enjoyed the metaphor for the dog, you know. I think there are certain things that we need to accept, you know, we need to amor fatis, love our fate and deal the cards and use the cards that were given, you know. The Stoics believe that everyone is going to be dealt a bad hand in life at some point, and we're all going to have bad things happen to us. So they wouldn't say that you should think of yourself as a victim, actually. They would say that, you know, this was a situation that happened to you that was beyond your control. But what the Stoic approach is, is that in whatever, you know, maybe bad situation you find yourself, you just start working at it, and see what you can do step by step, and keep moving forward, and eventually things will get better then. But you shouldn't develop this kind of psychological attitude that, you know, you're a victim, because these bad types of things happen to everyone. At some point in your life, something bad is going to happen to you. And these are ways that you can improve your character, actually, by embracing them as challenges, you know, setbacks, give us a way to improve our character. This reminds me of a quote by Marcus Aurelius, when he said that the obstacle is the way. And I find Stoic philosophy so phenomenal, just because they can condense so much wisdom into such a short quote. And we've mentioned several of them, that Seneca said that life is not short, it is more that we waste a lot of it. We also mentioned about that we shouldn't suffer in our imagination more than we do in reality. And what also comes to my mind is Epictetus, who said that wealth consists not in having great possessions, but in having few ones. And each of those quotes is just so phenomenal. It's so easy to remember. And I think this is the reason why very often, when I feel stressed, those quotes start to appear from my memory, you know, and they help me so much to reduce my stress and to reduce my anxiety levels. There is one advice that I actually wanted to ask your opinion about. This is not Stoic advice, but very often I hear this, that we should just accept who we are, just be who you are. And while I acknowledge that there are things that we should accept about ourselves, but I think that this advice can be very toxic, because it tells us not to work on ourselves, not to work on our characters, not to try to be our better selves, but instead to be complacent with who we are. And this is very bad advice when you are struggling in life, because very often we struggle in life when we should change something in our character, not accept it and embrace it. What do you think about it? Should we work on our character? Is there a virtue on just being who we are? Or is there more virtue in working hard on improving our character? Sorry for a long-winded question. Well, that's a very good question. And actually, in some way, the Stoics accepted both perspectives, but they definitely believe that we should work on ourselves and strive to become better people, because it does take practice over time. If you don't make an effort to develop a good character, it's just not going to happen on its own, probably. So they did believe that we should work on ourselves and try to become better people, surround ourselves with good people. It will become easier to do that. On the other hand, they thought that everyone is also unique in some way. So we're all individuals and we have our own personality traits. They had this theory of personality traits. So not everyone is suited for the same job or every occupation. For example, the early Stoics said that you should go into government and you should work in politics if nothing's preventing you. Well, not everyone is well-suited for that. And if it's a bad government, then it might be a big waste of time to actually go into politics. You might not be able to do anything. But what Seneca said is that in terms of understanding what we should be doing in life, at least professionally, we need to understand our personality traits and talents. And we should also try to become more excellent and more virtuous people at the same time. Is there a way, are there tips of understanding our character and who we are? Are there ways that Stoics can suggest? Seneca was following this earlier Stoic writer who was a Latin Stoic as well, Pen Atheist, when he wrote about this. And it's just basically based on self-observation. I mean, for example, some people are stronger than other people. So maybe they would be good at wrestling, or maybe they would be taller, and maybe they would be good at playing basketball. And everyone has their own unique personality traits. So I think I'm a better writer than I am a public speaker. But I'm happy to have these conversations anyways. But it's just realizing, you know, what your own personal nature is like, because people are not all the same. It is really interesting that you're mentioning the public speaking, because intellectual pursuits are much harder to measure, because like physical, you know, sports, for example, is easy to measure. Like, anybody who looks at me instantly will understand that I was not born a basketball player. I'm way too short, and I never played basketball, just precisely because of this reason. And how do we measure the intellectual pursuits in contrast? You know, it is, what is the Stoic advice here? You mentioned the public speaking, but how did you understand that you were not good at it? You know, maybe you just didn't practice it enough? Well, I think that's a really good question. I think it just involves trial and error and experimentation as well. And obviously, two people can become better at things. You know, like you said, you can become better at something if you practice it. So this was a metaphor that the Stoics used. For example, they use this metaphor of wrestling, you know, and basically, developing a better character is like someone who's a wrestler. And you might lose one match, but you have to keep going back to the ring. You have to keep practicing. And then if you keep practicing over time, you get better at things. I really like the advice of trial and error, trial and error, because it's the only way we can understand whether we have a room for improvement, a room for progress. You know, it's only by trying and then seeing how much progress we've made. I would like to talk a little bit about freedom before we'll finish with Stoicism and we'll move on to your next project. I wanted to ask you about what is the idea of freedom for Stoics? What do they mean by that? Because is it like kind of a goal that we should strive towards but we might never achieve? Or can we achieve freedom in the end if we practice everything that Stoics say? Well, that's a very good question. And it's funny how close Seneca and Epictetus are about this because they both wrote about freedom a lot. And for us, freedom involves this idea that, well, you should be able to go out and do whatever you want. But for the ancient philosophers, it's something else that you should be free from things that disturb you or, you know, extreme negative emotions. But they were certainly obsessed with this idea. And it was the ultimate value for Seneca achieving this kind of freedom. And they used this metaphor of slavery. Like I said earlier, Epictetus was a former slave. So obviously, freedom would have been an ultimate value for him. And, you know, we now live in a world where people reject the idea of slavery, even though there still are slaves in the world, unfortunately, it still exists. But the Romans lived in a world where slavery was commonplace. And so they use this idea of slavery as a metaphor. And the idea of being enslaved to certain things, as we might say today. Today, we would speak of it as, you know, maybe like an addiction that people have. That's a form of being enslaved to something. And one of the goals of Stoicism was to be free and not to be addicted to anything. The other thing that Seneca meant by this is being free and not subject to fortune or chance, fortuna. And it's somewhat funny because we've come to this point in the discussion, but we didn't mention this idea in much depth that the main idea in Roman Stoicism is that we can't control the things that happen to us, but we can control how we react to them. And so this is a form of freedom because we're free to react to things, you know, in a rational way, whereas the things of fortune and chance are things that we cannot control. So there are going to be many things that happen to us that are beyond our control. And while we can't control those things, we can respond to them. And that's the basis of true freedom, that we can decide how we respond to things. And Seneca has this idea here of reaching a point where you have self-sufficiency, where you rise above fortune or chance. So basically, you don't let these things bother you. And there's actually this fantastic quote from him, which is just like one sentence, which I want to read because he was such a good writer. He says that once you actually just have to find it here. He said that once you achieve this kind of freedom, he said, all the arrows of fortune that attack the human race bounce off a wise person or a philosopher like hail hitting a roof, which then rattles down the roof and melts away without harming the person inside. So you become sort of like this center of calm in a world that is really beyond your control, but you've risen above fortune. So whatever happens, it's not going to bother you. And the final point I'd add to this relates to gratitude as well, because we can't control what happens in life. But the Roman Stoics felt that when our life comes to an end on our deathbed, that we should be grateful for the life that we've had and for everything the universe has given us. And that's the opposite of regret. And the whole point of Stoicism is to live a life that's truly worth living. And that would be the Stoic meaning of this Greek term eudaimonia, which means living a good life, a flourishing life. And so if you're on your deathbed and you can leave this world with gratitude for everything that you've experienced, that's the absolute mark of living a good life and being free or not being, maybe you could say, enslaved by false values. It shows that you've really reached a point of development where you can appreciate everything in life. This reminds me of an essay that was written by one of my favorite science writers, Oliver Sacks. Unfortunately, he passed away several years ago, and two months or three months before he passed away, he published an essay in the New York Times called The Gratitude or Just Gratitude, I think. And in that essay, there are a couple of lines that really touched my heart when I read it. And he said that he's just grateful to the world to be able that he was able to live all those years that he lived all those years and enjoyed studying the world, learning, reading, feeling, falling in love. And I thought that essay was so inspirational, because he was really grateful at the end of his life, he was grateful for all of his experience. And I think that gratitude as a quality, as a virtue, is one of the key things that one can possess, you know, if a person is not grateful for what he or she has, it's nothing else matters, you know, all the life collapses around them. Yes, we should be grateful. I mean, gratitude is a virtue. And Cicero said that it was the mother of all the virtues. And Seneca said, the worst thing that you can be is, you know, ungrateful, really. So we're human beings, we're not machines. And we receive all of these gifts from nature or the universe. And we should be grateful for them, we should be grateful for the people in our lives. So one of the side effects, I think, of studying stoicism is actually becoming more grateful, you realize, you know, what the limitations are, you realize that we're all mortal beings. But when you realize that you're a mortal being, and that even your family members are mortal, they're not going to be with us forever. It makes you feel more grateful in the present moment for the time that we have together. I asked this question to all of my guests. If I could put your book into a parcel and send it back to Seneca 2000 years ago, and he could read your book, he would know how to speak English and read in English. What do you think he would think about your book? That's a good question. Well, I think he would like it because as I said earlier, I do take Seneca very seriously. So I made it a point to really faithfully, you know, present his ideas. And so I think he would enjoy it, you know, for that reason. Here is another question from the realm of imagination and fantasy. If I had magical powers, and I could replace myself right now, and instead of me, you would see Seneca, he would be like just sitting in front of you on this zoom call. What would you ask him? Is there a question that you would like to ask Seneca? Well, I can tell you what I would ask him. I wouldn't ask him so much about philosophy, because I think that he was very thorough about explaining his philosophical ideas. I mean, it might be fun to talk about that. But what I would really ask him is what was it like being around Nero? But the real question I have, this is something that's very interesting, is that Seneca had a lung condition, and it was hard for him to breathe the air in Rome because it was very dirty. And so Seneca, when he was 25, he was sent to Alexandria, Egypt. And he stayed there for 10 years. One of his relatives was there. So he stayed there for 10 years before he came back to Rome and became a senator. We don't know a single thing about what happened to Seneca in Alexandria over those 10 years. So if I was having a real breakfast with Seneca, that's what I would like to, you know, discuss with him and learn, you know, what did you do in Alexandria, Egypt for 10 years? That'd be amazing to know. Yeah, I wonder why I didn't know about it. I would like to ask you if you could recommend a book or maybe several books on stoicism. It doesn't matter whether it is a contemporary book or a book by written by ancient Stoic philosophers. But is there something that our listeners should definitely check out? That's such a good question. I never thought of that. Well, one is, there's a book by John Sellers, and I have a short review of it on my Stoic Insights website. So if you go to the website, you'll find that particular book there. It's called The Pocket Stoic. It's a very, very short book in the United States. And I'm remembering it now in Europe and England. It's called Lessons in Stoicism. And it's a really good basic introduction to stoicism. He's a very good writer. It's beautifully written. So I would recommend that if someone just wants to read about stoicism in general. If you've got so far and you're listening to this, I would like to say, congratulations! You are a true lover of wisdom. Once again, thank you all for listening and supporting Artidote Podcast. This project wouldn't have been possible without your book suggestions and messages of support. If you enjoyed listening to this episode, please consider leaving a review. It helps Artidote Podcast to reach more philosophy lovers. You can also join my monthly newsletter, where I share my favorite books, leave reviews and tell you about the future guests. The second part of this episode about Renaissance will be released in a week. So stay tuned by following me on Instagram and Twitter at Arminikos. Everything will be linked in the description of this episode. My name is Vasek Arminikos, and this was Artidote Podcast. I'll see you in the next one.