Key Seneca’s insights to implement today

Stoicism tends to make a deeper impression on individuals who enjoy solitude, or at least, who don’t dislike it. The reason is not difficult to fathom. Solitude begets #thoughtfulness , which then begets a drive for #selfimprovement . Seneca was conscious of this fact. In his 7th Letter to Lucilius, #seneca advises that, without a fair measure of #solitude , it is difficult to focus on what really counts in life. In contrast, if we are surrounded by crowds and noise all the time, chances are that we’ll align our behaviour with our peers. Gregarious people tend to succumb to social pressure far more readily than loners do. The warning against exaggerated gregariousness is one the key insights from Seneca’s #philosophy . He had nothing against socialising, especially with friends and family, but only to a reasonable extent. Why did #seneca call for setting limits to gregariousness? Because it can become too much of a good thing. If we engage in exaggerated socialising, Seneca explained, we run the risk of undermining our moral autonomy. In his 7th Letter to Lucilius, Seneca enunciated this principle negatively and positively, providing us examples of what to avoid and what to do. Those examples will still resonate with today’s readers. Seneca’s negative formulation is warning readers against the worry and anxiety ensuing from adopting other people’s values without having thought them through. Don’t adopt the ideas of the loud, thoughtless crowd, wrote Seneca, because erroneous ideas might lead to catastrophe. In his positive formulation, Seneca praises self-reliance and non-conformity, not as acts of blind rebellion, but as signs of reason. The important thing, explained Seneca, is to align our actions with reason, even doing so places us in a minority. Here is the link to the original article: https://johnvespasian.com/key-senecas-insights-to-implement-today/