Seneca's Afterlife

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I know that something that helped me work through it was imagining how I would be treated after death. And in my own backyard, we have a tree which has my great uncles ashes incorporated into the root system so that it nourishes the tree. That's exactly the kind of afterlife that Seneca wants us to imagine, that we're going to become part of a greater whole. We're going to contribute to the growth of the world and increase of the universe. So then we are perhaps using death as a way of understanding that we have a limited amount of time to be useful... But at the same time, we're also seeing death as an opportunity to continue our utility. To put

Many listeners have written in expressing difficulty in accepting death and reframing it as the Stoics framed it. So, in today's episode, I speak with Professor of Classics at Bard University and author of "How to Die: An Ancient Guide to the End of Life" and "Dying Every Day, Seneca at the Court of Nero." During our conversation, James shares much about Seneca's life with me, and much about why overcoming death is critical to living a good life. We also discuss the concept of "dying well."

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