Why Is It Hard to Make Arrangements With Yourself?

So this week, there's a string of letters from Seneca that deal with the same basic theme: it's better to be in solitude and live a life of contemplation than it is to be in society, "out in the crowd," living an active life. I have difficulty agreeing, but I can certainly identify with his sense of bewilderment about the kinds of activities "the crowd" frequently engage in. Seneca refers specifically to gladiatorial contests, which he describes with some detail.

Part of me wanted to relate the gladiatorial scene Seneca describes in "Letter VII" to "reality TV," but I know it's not the same. Still, there are some striking similarities. I mean, in some of the crueller incarnations of the "reality" fad, viewers really do see people fight to a kind of death, moral and spiritual if not physical. "The spectators insist that each on killing his man shall be thrown against another to be killed in his turn; and the eventual victor is reserved by them for some other form of butchery; the only exit for the contestants is death" (Seneca). Surely, some reality shows are better than others. But I wonder, is the only exit from, say, Fox's "Moment of Truth," death?

In "Letter VI," the tension between the social and the solitary twists the other way: "there is no enjoying the possession of anything valuable unless one has someone to share it with." There's a line for Hallmark if I've ever heard one.

Seneca is, as usual, particularly concerned about personal education and edification, and here he points out that "personal converse [...] and daily intimacy with someone will be of more benefit" than any amount of time spent with a book. Having spent lots of time with books, I think I can verify Seneca's observation. "The road is a long one if one proceeds by way of precepts but short and effectual if by way of personal example," he says, and then goes on to list classical philosophers, from Aristotle to Zeno, who would not be the thinkers they were had it not been for their personal interactions with their mentors.

Yet, at the end of the letter, just when you thought Seneca had settled on the overall value of society, he quotes Hecato: "'What progress have I made? I am beginning to be my own friend.' That is progress indeed. Such a person will never be alone, and you may be sure he is a friend of all."

As I write this, now, alone in my apartment, I can tell you that I'm not always completely convinced by what I read in Seneca.