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“Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

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Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#51

Post by whistlerbrk »

netc wrote: post #14
tw1010 wrote: post #12

For some reason HN has been mimetically pulled into the seneca philosophy. Just so you guys know, there are many many many other philosophies and really great books about ways to look at life and how to live it than just stoicism. Don't let something as important as a life philosophy be steered by social media influencer culture. Take some time to read from sources outside your filter bubble. Your 70 year old self wi…

Can you suggest few readings?

All bhuddist philosophy takes the understanding of your impending death, and the background fear of it, as absolutely critical to determining meaning in your life.

I can not highly recommend enough "The Meaning of Life : Perspectives from the World's Great Intellectual Traditions". It's one of The Great Courses and I found, extremely easy to listen to. The topics covered range from the Bhagavad Gita, to the Book of Job, to Stoicism, to Daoism, Confucianism, Bhuddism, and all the way into modernity (Hume, Mills, Kant, Tolstoy) and post-modernity (Nietzsche).

A pervasive theme of ALL cultures with a philosophical tradition is the necessity of living one's life with the moment to moment realization of one's death.

Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#52

Post by Tossrock »

killjoywashere wrote: post #11

I think the specialization of our society has really cost us in terms of becoming acquainted with death. My career path (military, medicine, pathology) has brought me in closer contact with death than most. And I'm a huge fan of Stoicism. Have read everything from Epictetus, Seneca, Aurelius. The act of witnessing death, the event itself, has had a profound centering effect. Be careful with the arrow of causality her…

Your comment, and this piece reminded me a lot of one I read about the perception of death in Bhutan[1]:

“Rich people in the West, they have not touched dead bodies, fresh wounds, rotten things. This is a problem. This is the human condition. We have to be ready for the moment we cease to exist.”

[1]:http://www.bbc.com/travel/story/20150408-bhutans-dark-secret...

Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#53

Post by maroonblazer »

freeloop3 wrote: post #49
replicatorblog wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I pour a lot into retirement because I don't want my final days to be a time of financial hardship or to be a burden on my children. Today, I can easily move around, feed/wash myself, and but that won't be true forever. Putting money away for later gives me some measure of confidence I'll be able to pay someone to help me when the time comes.

Why not kill yourself when you get too old to wash/feed yourself? I'm being serious. I've asked myself that many times and can't find a good reason why not.

It's not even about washing/feeding yourself. I simply don't want to have to work all my life. I'd like to spend my days reading, watching movies, traveling, eating out, etc.

To your question though, I find that as I get older life is increasingly more interesting. I suspect that will be the case regardless of whether I'm hobbled by my body.

Also, if I have grandchildren I can imagine wanting to hang around to see them grow up.

Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#54

Post by bg4 »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #41
beefinethan wrote: post #25

I've been an avid reader of Stoicism, and was introduced to it by, you guessed it, Tim Ferriss. I have been conciously trying to adopt the philosophies and mantras into my day to day life. Have compiled the following tangible techniques/approaches to thought feel free to add your own: * Premeditatio Malorum (premeditation of evils or Negative Visualization) * Stoic Fork - Make the best use of things in your control a…

I'm genuinely curious - what is this mindset supposed to accomplish?

Freedom from anguish

Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#55

Post by petercooper »

pmoriarty wrote: post #2

I strongly recommend Seneca's On the Shortness of Life . It's one of the best books I've read, and at the very top on the subject of Carpe Diem. https://www.amazon.com/Shortness-Life-Penguin-Great-Ideas/dp...

I wrote up some notes and summaries of this book several years ago when I read it for anyone without the time: http://peterc.org/pedia/seneca-shortness-of-life/ (though I do recommend reading the book, it is not very long!)

Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#56

Post by [deleted] »

beefinethan wrote: post #25

I've been an avid reader of Stoicism, and was introduced to it by, you guessed it, Tim Ferriss. I have been conciously trying to adopt the philosophies and mantras into my day to day life. Have compiled the following tangible techniques/approaches to thought feel free to add your own: * Premeditatio Malorum (premeditation of evils or Negative Visualization) * Stoic Fork - Make the best use of things in your control a…

[deleted]

Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#57

Post by geofft »

ianai wrote: post #36
HiroshiSan wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bible edit: For those of you down voting me for whatever reason, can you at least contribute to the discussion and explain how my answer was a poor one? The bible is one of the greatest stories ever told containing a myriad of different ways at looking at life.

In the current era, I think the bible has gotten enough press. Far fewer people have read Seneca than the bible - and the bible permeates US culture. It's like telling someone learning about IT who's only ever worked with Windows to keep right on developing their Windows background. It's not awful advice, and it's not comment worthy.

But there's so much about Windows that the average end user doesn't know - just like there's so much about the Bible that the average American doesn't know. If you want to learn about operating systems, NT is genuinely worth taking a deep look at, for both the successful and unsuccessful things about it, and "I've been using MS Word my whole life" isn't a reason not to look at NT. And even if you just want to work at the operational level, running a Windows environment with AD / Group Policy / etc. is so different from maintaining your personal Windows laptop

Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#58

Post by bkohlmann »

I've recently started participating in Funeral Honors Details as a Navy Reservist.

We fold the flag, present it to the next of kin, play taps, and provide an honorable exit for anybody who has served.

It's been the most meaningful part of my 14 years of military service - which included a combat deployment.

Simply walking through the cemetery before the service is profound. All that remains of a life time of stories is usually just a name and a date. It's humbling to reflect that within 100 years (at the very very most), I too will be there...and some random stranger may come across my grave.

Death makes life all the more meaningful for me. Engaging with mourning families at least monthly helps me cherish my moments doing the things I love all the more.

Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#59

Post by happy-go-lucky »

Here's an interesting read:

Parallels in Hindu and Stoic Ethical Thought

http://www.studiesincomparativereligion.com/public/articles/...

> Krishna reminded Arjuna that "Thinking about sense objects will attach you to sense objects. Grow attached and you become addicted. Thwart your addiction, it turns to anger. Be angry and you confuse your mind. Confuse your mind, you forget the lesson of experience. Forget experience, you lose discrimination. Lose discrimination, and you miss life's only purpose".

Re: “Study Death Always”: Seneca’s advice for living centered on dying

#60

Post by merpnderp »

pmoriarty wrote: post #13
merpnderp wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I just read it a few weeks back and was disappointed. His views on life seemed to boil down to something like "make as much wealth as possible, so you can retire as fast as you possibly can, so you can spend all of your time on whatever is meaningful in your life, and by no means ever have any fun." It seemed full of selfish anti-social advice for the extreme curmudgeon. But I also listened to it while on the road, s…

This is a short book, but it's full of ideas and already very concentrated as it is. So if you really think you can boil it down to a single sentence, I think you are in fact missing quite a lot. I'm not going to go through the entire book point by point, but here are some salient points your summary misses: One of the main points of the book is that when most people complain that life is short and they don't have mu…

That brought back a few memories of the book. I remember being extremely turned off when he listed all the things a person shouldn't do for a living and wondering if this book was only targeted at those who were born independently wealthy.
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