Friday, November 30, 2012

What I've Been Reading

On Anger by Lucius Annaeus Seneca. I am not qualified and don't even feel like commenting on someone like Seneca - I wish... I started reading him sooner...but it's never too late.

Believe me, the things which cause us such great heat are trifles, the sort of things that children fight and squabble over: there is nothing serious, nothing important in all that we do with such gloomy faces. It is, I repeat, the setting a great value on trifles that is the cause of your anger and madness.

A message to remember until the last breathe:

Nothing will be of greater service than to bear in mind that we are mortal: let each man say to himself and to his neighbour, "Why should we, as though we were born to live forever, waste our tiny span of life in declaring anger against any one? Why should days, which we might spend in honourable enjoyment, be misapplied in grieving and torturing others? Life is a matter which does not admit of waste, and we have no spare time to throw away.


This breath that we hold so dear will soon leave us: in the meantime, while we draw it, while we live among human beings, let us practice humanity: let us not be a terror or a danger to anyone. Let us keep our tempers in spite of losses, wrongs, abuse or sarcasm, and let us endure with magnanimity our shortlived troubles: while we are considering what is due to ourselves, as the saying is, and worrying ourselves, death will be upon us.


Anger: The Misunderstood Emotion by Carol Tavris is sort of a modern critique of Seneca.

Check out Alain de Botton's brilliant documentary (Seneca, On Anger) based on his book The Consolations of Philosophy.




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