I Can't Get No Satisfaction (But If I Try, I Find I Get What I Need)

The first letter in my Penguin edition ("Letter II") of Seneca's Letters makes a couple of interesting points. The main idea in this letter is "don't go after more than you need; seek satisfaction, not excess." He begins by observing that frequent moves, "restlesness," is unhealthy behavior, "symptomatic of a sick mind." "Nothing," he says, "is better proof of a well ordered mind than a man's ability to stop just where he is and pass some time in his own company." Making frequent moves (physically) is dangerous in the same way that scattered reading habits are: "To be everywhere is to be nowhere. People who spend their whole life travelling abroad end up having plenty of places where they can find hospitality but no real friendships. [...] A plant which is frequently moved never grows strong." Finally, he comments on individual wealth: "It is not the man who has too little who is poor, but the one who hankers after more. [...] You ask what is the proper limit to a person's wealth? First, having what is essential, and second, having what is enough."

This really goes against a lot of the conventional thinking of our own day, as it undoubtedly did when Seneca was writing (i.e. around Nero's reign). Our culture values excess, and often doesn't understand the person who says "I have enough." "Settling down" is sometimes perceived as "giving up," surrendering to the grip of family or circumstance. We always want to be "moving on" and "moving up."

I've felt the same urge to move "onwards and upwards" recently in my applications to Ph.D. schools. I've tried to mediate that urge to some extent (I didn't apply to anywhere terribly far away from home), but the feeling that I needed to move on and go elsewhere for my Ph.D. was definitely there.

But Seneca's point is a sharp one: the person who is poor is really just the person who feels he or she does not have enough. How it is possible to feel poor in an age of excess like our own (or like Seneca's) is difficult to grasp, but as the recent credit crisis shows, there are many in our society who find it impossible to get by without spending more than they earn, making themselves truly poor in the process.

My own desire to move from DeKalb reflects, to some extent at least, an unrealistic feeling of poverty on my own part, or sense of dissatisfaction with where I am. But, like I said, when I applied to Ph.D. schools I made a conscious decision to limit myself to the midwest. As it has turned out, it looks like I'll be moving back to Michigan to attend MSU, which is really ideal for a number of reasons. It lets me "move up" in the sense that I'll be attending a school with more resources and a better department than the school where I'm at now, but it also lets me stay somewhat close to friends I've made in DeKalb, while moving back closer to some close family and friends in Michigan. While MSU (and Michigan generally) is not perfect, it's not bad, either. I'm looking forward to moving on but also moving back, and especially to moving someplace where I'm sure to stay for at least another four years (there is no such thing as a "fast-track" Ph.D.).

The only way out of the present economic crisis is, much like the way I have found satisfaction with where my life is headed, a general acceptance of "enough." You can blame the credit crunch on high gas prices, bad economic policy by the Bush administration, or the Iraq war, but the bottom line, it seems to me, is excessive spending habits. The "hankering after more" that causes us to max out credit card after credit card, until we are stuck with debt that we cannot pay off.

Only when we recognize "enough," Seneca suggests, will we recognize the true wealth available to us all: the wealth that comes in being content with where we are, in letting our roots sink in, and in passing time with familiar company. There is a real danger in restlessness, be it physical, mental, or economic. As Seneca warns, "to be everywhere is to be nowhere."