MICROSTORY OF ART

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Dedicated to Seneca

(Picture: I, Calidius)

(17.5.2022) Once again Seneca was in trouble. Or better: he had brought himself into trouble. By deciding to write on how to retain peace and quiet – despite of living just above a bathing establishment in ancient Rome. Even the most stoic person, as one might say, could thus bring himself into trouble.
In this text, the 56th letter to Lucilius, we see Seneca as an acoustic voyeur, as one might say. Which means that, from his ›land bridge‹ atop the bathing house, he is in some sort fishing for acoustic impressions, which, as a skilled writer, he is also able to translate into visual impressions. Analytic qualities also do help, since Seneca is also able to organize his impressions (voices, which disturb more, vs. mere noises, which rather seem to float around a person, being less disturbing).
But the text seems forced. ›I’ll be damned‹, Seneca says, right in the beginning, ›if, for my studies, indeed I would be in need for tranquility.‹ Inner tranquillity is what you need, he goes on to demonstrate, which is hardly surprising. But in the end Seneca has to admit that he has failed. Or better: that also the stoic position has its limits.
Perhaps this is exactly what, in this text, he wants to teach us, but I don’t think so. Because of the inner contradictions in the text. ›I have perfectly managed to ignore everything around me‹, he claims (suggesting that he is the most succesful sportsman in such respect). But why has he to admit at the end of the text that he does not need that torture anymore? If he had been that succesful? And he finishes his text by referring to Ulysses, who had presented his sailors with a useful tool against the song of the sirens (liquid wax).
Seneca, obviously, is not able to state that the stoic teachings have its limits. He does demonstrate it, yes, but it rather seems that his pride does not allow him to state it explicitly. At some point one has, perhaps, to leave a place. ›I don’t need that‹, he is more or less saying (and certainly Seneca, famous for being rich, did not need to harden himself up in that way – late in life).
But why not stating it explicitly? Because this would also have two advantages. It would show modesty (while it would still be possible to point to the strengths of stoic teachings); as it would console people – who are also struggling as ›acoustic voyeurs‹, and perhaps less succesful as Seneca claims to be, at other places.

By comparing the text by Seneca with the poem by Tao Yuanming, we might learn two things, and above all: it might be the most beautiful thing, if one’s heart is full of enthusiasm, relativizing everything around you (and certainly the more trivial noises around you), but, as we might learn from Seneca: to allow such experience, to delve enthusiastically into the contemplation of nature or to delve, enthusiastically, into intellectual studies, it is indeed helpful, if you already have reached inner tranquility. Tao Yuanming, as his poem in which he is complaining about his children, seems to demonstrate, experienced not only enthusiastic moments. And we should also treat Seneca as fair as possible. The sheer (and more or less speechless) joy transmitted by the poem of Tao Yuanming, however, does remind us, that, perhaps Seneca is getting too much into his own way, by showing himself merely as an intellectual. Why is his heart not filled with something better than a sporty ambition? Seneca might have tended to address human life too intellectually. And this might not be the most effective way to beat the noises. Indeed something greater is needed to fill your heart, transforming the place where you are to the place where the heart is, a place, perhaps, far away from an apartment just atop a bathing house in ancient Rome.

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ONLINE JOURNAL FOR ART, CONNOISSEURSHIP AND CULTURAL JOURNALISM
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