On the Happy Life

What Hacker News says

1. kashyapcJun 2021
   The article mentions Epictetus (incorrectly as "Roman"; he's actually Greek). While he's fantastic[1] on his own, I think Seneca (the Roman Stoic) writes more beautifully about pleasure and virtue—particularly in his essay 'On the Happy Life', a letter he wrote to his brother. Two out-of-context quotes from it (excuse the length):

   • "But pleasure is extinguished precisely at the time when it delights. It does not have much space, and so it fills it quickly and it becomes tedious, fading after its first onset. And nothing is ever stable whose nature consists in motion. Thus there cannot even be any substance to a thing that comes in and passes through so speedily, and will perish precisely in its usage. You see, it hurtles toward its cessation, and even as it begins it looks to the end."

   • "Just as in a field that has been plowed for corn some flowers grow up in between, yet all that work was not undertaken for this little plant, however much it pleases the eyes (the sower had another outcome in mind, and this supervened)—so too, pleasure is not the reward or the motive of virtue but an accessory [...]"

   Read the essay in full, it contains evocative "word pictures" and several parts of it are laugh-out-loud funny.

   (The translation I used for the above quotes is 'Hardship and Happiness'; Chicago University Press.)

   [1] I strongly suggest to immerse yourself into this edition 'Epictetus Discourses, Fragments, and Handbook' (Robin Hard and Chris Gill; Oxford World's Classics). This is the most accurate and readable English translation.

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2. jamesk14022Dec 2017
   1) De Vita Beata ("On the Happy Life") - Seneca

   2) Shoe Dog - Phil Knight

   3) Surely You're Joking Mr. Feynman! - Richard Feynman

   No. 1 is a bit of a tricky read but completely worth it in my opinion, never have I read anything that has changed my everyday mindset so much.

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3. BakaryJul 2017
   I suggest reading its twin On the Happy Life, as well as Letters to Lucilius.
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4. thingsgobyNov 2015
   I strongly recommend that you read some Epicurus, Epictetus and Seneca ;) Start with Senecas "On the Happy Life"
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5. nickjjJul 2017
   Thanks. I haven't heard of On the Happy Life before. Letters to Lucilius is on my list but I haven't gotten to it yet.
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6. holriAug 2013
   On the Happy Life Seneca (First Century A.D.)

   http://thriceholy.net/Texts/Happy.html

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