On the Shortness of Life

When Seneca opens his letter to his friend Paulinus, he comments that “most human beings complain about the meanness of nature because life is brief” (1), introducing his main theme—The Impermanence of Time. There may be deliberate irony or comedy in the fact that this first sentence, on brevity, is in fact extremely long. Immediately flowing from this, Seneca introduces his main thesis: “it is not that we have a short time to live, but that we waste a lot of it” (1). Seneca believes that each human being has the capacity to correct this misconception and take hold of their life through their own agency. This notion of agency is an expression of Seneca’s Stoic philosophy, which encourages inner introspection and contemplation to achieve inner wisdom. The reliance on the self that Seneca promotes in counter to aspects of the presiding polytheistic belief system that dominated Roman culture at the time; the gods were revered and respected because of their influence over the human world. In assuring humans that their life is long enough if they alone use it well, Seneca reclaims for humans the power that divine forces such as Fate and the gods were thought to have over people’s lives.