How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life

How to Die by Seneca

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Feeling apprehensive or unsettled?

Then, get out of the dumps and put a smile on your face. Death is your way out.

This is a well-constructed introduction to Seneca's Stoic philosophy of death. Editor James Romm has extracted various writings of Seneca dealing with death and the issue of how to die. Romm provides informative introductions to each organizational section and provides useful footnotes.

But the main driver of this slim book is Seneca himself. Seneca's writing is logical, persuasive and lyrical. At times, it also incredibly macabre as he describes the ways to effect quietus. He also provides an insight into his world, the Roman Empire during the last half of the first century.

Seneca argues that we should not fear death because death is our sure-fire way to end oppression, slavery and all kinds of indignity. So, on the one hand, death for Seneca is not to be feared, but, on the other hand, life is not as great a good as we make it out to be. For Seneca, life is a finite good. We have a near infinite experience of non-existence before we live and we will return to non-existence after our death. In the middle, we experience a small, trivial, insignificant period of existence. What then, he asks, is the difference between 5 years of life and 80 years of life in that context?

Logical, but it takes a certain toughness, verging on masochism, to find a great deal of consolation in that insight.

But he is a persuasive advocate for his position.

“This desire for life must be knocked out of us. We must learn that it makes no difference when you undergo the thing that must be undergone some time or other; that it matters how well you live, not how long. And often the “well” lies in not living long.”

And:

“Then, if you ask what is the path to freedom, I say: any vein in your body.”

And:

“So, have we watched drop from sight, as time sails hurriedly on, first our boyhood, then our adolescence, then whatever lies between youth and mid-life, spanning the gap between them, then the best years of old age, until at last the common end of all humankind hoves in view.”

The problem with all this focus on death is that it seems so monstrous. Death is not a solitary enterprise because life is not a solitary enterprise. Everyone's death diminishes us. Seneca understands this. In one passage he explains:

“If the soul not only wants to die, but has even begun to, it should order itself to pause and to serve the needs of its family and friends. It's the mark of a great soul to turn back toward life for the sake of others; and great men have often done so.”

There is a lot to ponder in this fairly quick read. Seneca is full of aphorisms that a reader might want to carry around as gems of wisdom.