S

December    23rd

WHAT    ARE YOU SO  AFRAID  OF  LOSING?

“You    are afraid  of  dying.  But,    come    now,    how is  this    life    of  yours   anything    but death?”

—SENECA,    MORAL   LETTERS,    77.18

eneca tells an amazing story about an obscenely wealthy Roman who was carried around by slaves
on a litter. On one occasion, after being lifted out of a bath, the Roman asked, “Am I sitting down
yet?” Seneca’s point was essentially: What kind of sad pathetic life is it if you’re so disconnected from
the world that you don’t even know whether you’re on the ground? How did the man know whether he
was even alive at all?
Most of us are afraid of dying. But sometimes this fear begs the question: To protect what exactly? For
a lot of people the answer is: hours of television, gossiping, gorging, wasting potential, reporting to a
boring job, and on and on and on. Except, in the strictest sense, is this actually a life? Is this worth
gripping so tightly and being afraid of losing?
It doesn’t sound like it.