We love countdowns. The last seconds of the year are flashed in a big screen on a New Year’s Eve party. Where I live, we get daily reminders on how many days are left before Christmas Day. In the middle of the work week, we anticipate the coming weekend and silently hope that the days go faster.
But there is something that we do not realize. We are not just counting down towards some event, we are actually counting down towards our eventual demise.
One of the reasons why I like to study Stoicism is that its practitioners come from vastly different backgrounds. Slaves, businessmen, artists, soldiers, and even rulers, like the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius. This demonstrates that Stoicism is a practical philosophy, something that can be applied in life regardless of circumstances. This philosophy is not just for pondering ideas, it touches on the common aspects of humanity.
And what could be the greatest common ground for all of us, regardless of wealth, social standing, or fame, other than the reality of death. No one comes out of this earth alive. Death comes to us all; it is unfortunate that we don’t think about it as often as we should have.
What is the measure of whether someone has truly lived? Is it based on the number of birthdays that person celebrated? Is it the amount of wealth one was able to accumulate? Or perhaps how well-traveled a person is?
In Seneca’s letter, On Old Age, he referred to Heraclitus that said:
“One day is equal to every day“. This can be interpreted in several ways:
At work, I was trying to figure out performance issues in our application. To aid in finding out the root cause, I analyzed our monitoring tools and found that our application transaction times had “spikes” throughout the day.
These can indicate potential problems such as:
What does it mean to be self-sufficient? According to the dictionary, it is defined as “needing no outside help in satisfying one’s basic needs”, or “emotionally and intellectually independent”. Self-sufficiency means we are not dependent on others to fulfil our needs, both physically and emotionally. If we strive to be like this, does that mean we should no longer need others?
In Seneca’s letter On Philosophy and Friendship, he asked the question: Does a self-sufficient person need friends? If someone is already emotionally and intellectually independent, what would friendship bring to that person’s life?