As you can tell from the title, this is the third time I'm doing a seneca sunday. As always, I'll be posting a quote by the famous stoic philosopher Seneca in the original latin, a german and an english translation.
In his 11th letter to his friend Lucilius, Seneca talks about how people with never be able to lose certainy weaknesses that were given to them by nature, no matter how much they try. As an example Seneca talks about getting red and nervous when having to talk in public, something the ancient romans knew just as well as we today.
| latin | german | english |
|---|---|---|
| Nulla enim sapientia naturalia corporis aut animi vitia ponuntur: quicquid infixum et ingenitum est, lenitur arte, non vincitur. | Denn mit Hilfe von keinerlei Weisheit werden die natürlichen Schwächen des Körpers oder der Seele abgelegt: was immer eingeprägt und angeboren ist, wird gelindert durch Kunst, nicht überwunden. | For no wisdom will free someone from the natural weaknesses of the body or the mind: whatever is fixed and implanted, will be mitigated by art, but not overcome by it. |
At first, this may sound a bit depressing, as in that Seneca is saying that certainy weaknesses and flaws will always be part of a person, no matter how much you try to work on yourself (by studying philosophy).
But I think it is actually quite an uplifting thought: You accept that you will never be ride of a certainy flaw, which releases you from a lot of presure. But at the same time Seneca gives you hope that you can mitigate said weakness to a certainy degree.
Let's say, the flaw/weakness implanted in you, is that you are quite lazy. Seneca tells you, that no matter how hard you try, you will never be ride of your laziness. So now you don't have to have unrealistic expecations of a "highly producitve" version of yourself. But at the same time, you have hope that by working on yourself, you can at least be a little bit less lasy. And wouldn't that also be worth working towards?
What a certainy flaws that you would like to mitigate in the near (or far) future?