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Comment by comboy | Hacker News Reader

Seneca lived in different times. By the time you get "proper education" and then secure yourself financially you are quite old in today's world. So better enjoy the process treating it as the thing rather than the means.

Longer lifespan helps but not that much. Biologically we just tend to peak pretty early.

One thing I may disagree with PG is that if you enjoyed doing something while doing it, then I think the time wasn't wasted, even if later in life you think you may have spent that time better. Otherwise logical conclusion is that you should live with a mind of a very old man.

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Seneca didn't have a "career" (as a senator) until he was nearly forty. Emperor Nero also ordered him to kill himself (around age 68) and Seneca complied. If anything, he had less time than the average person does today.

Maybe that is the point? We are all brainwashed to think we need to secure ourselves financially. Most of us (on HN at least) could probably do barely any work now, and not die. But you'd have to sacrifice a lot of stuff we think we need. Me included, it's a hard trap to escape when everyone is in it.

There's this big "Aha" moment I had while reading a book this vacation; I realised that I wanted to be financially secure since it was the only means available in today's society to be "set" - secure.

If I was to live in a small community where I'd know my neighbours, everyone did the things most valuable to the community - farm, smith, care, socialise, guard - and I knew everyone had each other's back, this would give the same feeling.

Alas, we live in a disconnected society, not even close to having local ties, so we feel we have to earn a ton of money in order to survive by buying our security.

what was the book?

Yeah but those small communities also had rich and poor. You miss one season of rain, and a significant number are now indebted or lose their livelihood.

But what if you had community ways of living but in the modern world with luxuries like irrigation?

Like a homeless shelter? We have that now.

Kids change that equation. All of the sudden you threshold for safety increases many fold.

It does, but how much of this is objectively the parent deciding?

And how much of it is FUD society.

I’m yet to meet the parent whose run the numbers and can tell me what is more likely that their one drink before driving will kill their kids or letting them play out.

So we rely on messages - and the media provides them. Tells us to be scared. The thing to be scared of is the new thing that’s interesting. In the early 2010s it was terrorism - but I haven’t heard that word for a while. Next it will be something else.

So I keep two thought processes going, one is protect kids of course, but the other is “am I being bullshitted”. What is the trade off by wrapping them up in a bubble.

Much of it is FUD, yes, but knowing that somehow does not help me tone it down.

"Enjoyed doing something while doing it"

Yes. I remember a "bullshit" task once: An old version of the FOCUS database query & programming language: It limited the length of a row in the results, and I needed a lot of data in a query. I split it into multiple queries and automated daily outputs. I was working in an ancient VMS system, so I had to write a programs to join them. I'd never used C for any practical purpose, but I managed to write a basic program to join the two queries on a key and append the matching lines, and then automated the whole thing into a SFTP to and ETL system for integration with another system.

It was absolutely a BS task that shouldn't have been necessary if we'd even bothered to install a 15-year old upgrade. But I had a lot of fun figuring it out.

A long-lived Roman would live to their 70s just like today. Fewer of them made it that far due to war disease.

Early Rome had a celebration called a Jubilee. It was held when the last living person from the previous Jubilee died, typically about a century apart.

You can get that "proper education" and be pretty secure financially by your late twenties. Yes, in theory our biological peak is somewhere between 27-30 or so, but it's not like everybody "made it" by thirteen in Seneca's time. You aren't even finished growing until your early twenties.

Roman coming of age rituals varied with time and social status. Still, most Roman males came 'of age' at ~25, with females considerably younger, sometimes as young as 14: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coming_of_age#Ancient_Rome

Strangely, Seneca's wife, Pompeia Paulina, was ~26 years older than Seneca. I'm not super sure I have the sources right on this (Seneca the Younger vs. Seneca the Elder), but from what I could find it seems legitimate.

As is typical with humans, it seems each person comes of age at their own pace, society be damned.

Incredible. I grew up in Italy, studied Latin, and never heard of TWO Senecas. The most famous one is the Younger Seneca. The Elder was simply his father.

From wikipedia:

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (54 BC – c. 39 AD), known as Seneca the Elder.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca (c. 4 BC – AD 65),[1] also known as Seneca the Younger, is the one that married to Pompeia Paulina.

Both born in today's Spain (Hispania, then a Roman province), but both educated in Rome.

From the Wikipedia's page on Seneca the Younger [0]:

In AD 65, Seneca was caught up in the aftermath of the Pisonian conspiracy, a plot to kill Nero. Although it is unlikely that Seneca was part of the conspiracy, Nero ordered him to kill himself. Seneca followed tradition by severing several veins in order to bleed to death, and his wife Pompeia Paulina attempted to share his fate.

Also interesting about Seneca the Younger [1]:

His life took a sharp turn in 41 A.D. once Claudius became the emperor as he exiled Seneca to the island of Corsica on the premises of supposed adultery with Julia Livilla, the emperor’s niece and Caligula’s sister. During his exile, he wrote a letter to his mother consoling her during his exile. Eight years later, in another twist, Agrippina, mother of future emperor Nero and wife of Claudius secured permission for Seneca to return and for him to become her son’s tutor and adviser. Nero later became one of the most notorious and tyrannical emperors in the history of the Roman Empire raising even more questions about Seneca’s character. Not surprisingly, Seneca’s wealth came largely while in service to Nero.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seneca_the_Younger#Death

[1]: https://dailystoic.com/seneca/

This is very wrong. Seneca did most of his writing as an old man. I believe he was in his 50s. You can certainly secure yourself earlier in today’s world.

Furthermore, a tiny fraction of Romans were able to achieve wealth enough to retire. Meanwhile, in today’s world, virtually anyone can do it.

(Before anyone pipes up to argue with that last point, I used to work in restaurant kitchens. All the Mayan and southern Mexican dudes working for minimum wage were on track to retire in the next 10 years. They lived extremely cheaply and bought land where they could afford.)

Are you generating wealth though? For yourself and investors? MASSIVE returns.

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