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Seneca to Lucilius: 63, on grief for lost friends
Have you ever lost a friend? If so, you are lucky, because it means you had a friend in the first place. And friendship, according to the Stoics (but also Aristotle and the Epicureans, not to mention Confucians), are a major source of joy and meaning in life. That said, you may be taken aback when you read the beginning of Seneca’s 63rd letter to his friend Lucilius, where he says:
Let not the eyes be dry when we have lost a friend, nor let them overflow. We may weep, but we must not wail. (LXIII.1)
How typically heartless of the Stoics, right? Suppressing emotions, and all that stuff. But that isn’t what Seneca is getting at. The point, rather, is that of course grief is an all too human emotion, and if we do not feel it for a lost friend (or partner, or other loved ones) then there is something problematic about our own humanity.
Conversely, though, if we indulge in despair we are acting unreasonably, as if we never expected death to come to those near us. As if death were not both inevitable and natural, even necessary, in order for our lives to have meaning in the first place. We live with urgency precisely because our lives are finite. What makes every moment, and every person we love, precious is that the moment will soon be gone, and eventually so will the other person (unless we happen to die first, of course). What, then, would a better attitude toward death and grief be? Seneca continues:
Let us see to it that the recollection of those whom we have lost becomes a pleasant memory to us. (LXIII.4)
We should cherish the memory of those who are gone, not regret their passing. That’s because loss is inevitable, and to long for people who are no longer here, to use Epictetus’ lovely phrase, is to wish for figs in winter time. But the converse of that is the idea that we should do our best to enjoy the figs while they are in season.
Too often — and I speak from personal experience here — we take other people for granted, as if they were always going to be there for us. I did that with my grandfather and grandmother, with whom I grew up. As well as with my father, and then my mother. They are all gone now, and whenever I think of that I try my best to follow Seneca’s advice: don’t let regret take over your mind…
