Moral Letter 9: On Philosophy and Friendship

 This is a long and complicated letter, so I'll do my best to share what I think lies at the heart. Thank you in advance for thinking with me.

"Hecato says : 'I can show you a philtre [potion], compounded without drugs, herbs, or any witch's incantation: 'If you be loved, love.' " And what is love? Later in this letter, Seneca defines love as "friendship run mad." 

He goes on: 

"Now there is great pleasure, not only in maintaining old and established friendships, but also in beginning and acquiring new ones. There is the same difference between winning a new friend and having already won him, as there is between the farmer who sows and the farmer who reaps. The philosopher Attalus used to say: 'It is more pleasant to make than to keep a friend, as it is more pleasant to the artist to paint than to have finished painting.'" 

What is the purpose of friendship? Is it to collect people for the purpose of support or help? Seneca suggests the purpose of friendship is to nurture virtue. How does one do that? By gathering people in order to provide comfort to one who is sick, to share what you have with someone who is need.

There is a difference between mere existence and a happy existence. Mere existence is self-serving and uses people that could be friends. A happy existence does not seek it's own fortune but serves others; that is, it is an existence that relates to, contributes to, invests in others and is able to call them "friends." And one can still say he or she is self-sufficient.

But there is another factor to consider:

Should a man lose his property, his family, his friends--has he lost everything? No!
He had property and now it is gone.
He had family and they are gone.
He had friends and they are gone.

Has one lost or merely "returned" what was given for a little while? The people and property one has is for a time (the Stoics said that nothing that can be taken is "good"), but he is happiest when able to nurture virtue with others. So one needs relationships, friends, in order for this to happen.

But when friends, family, property are gone, he "can retire into himself and give himself over to his own thoughts."