Key ideas 

1. A wise person is not overcome by anything, least of all by pleasure. 
2. Someone who excessively indulges in pleasure cannot face life’s challenges. 
3. You cannot combine virtue with pleasure, because virtue is supreme. 
4. Those who indulge in extravagant pleasures are ill at ease with themselves. 

A wise person is not overcome by pleasure 

When I say I do nothing for the sake of pleasure, I have in mind only that wise person who is capable of pleasure. I do not call a person wise who is overcome by anything, let alone pleasure. How can those who are immersed in pleasure guard themselves against toil, danger, want and all the problems that surround and threaten their lives? How will they bear the sight of death or of pain? How will they endure the chaos of the world, overcome so many active enemies, if they are defeated by such weak attackers? They will do whatever pleasure advises them to do! Don’t you see how many things it will advise them to do? 

You cannot combine pleasure with virtue 

Our challenger replies: 

But pleasure, when combined with virtue, will not prompt us to do shameful things. 

What kind of “highest good” is it if it needs a guardian to make sure it is any good? If virtue follows pleasure, how can it rule pleasure? What follows is subordinate to the commander. Would you put something that commands in the background? According to your school, virtue is a dignified preliminary tester of pleasures. We will see if virtue can still remain virtue when you treat it with such contempt. Virtue cannot be virtue if it leaves its place. 

People who indulge in excessive pleasures are ill at ease 

Meanwhile, let me show you many people, on whom Fortune has showered all her gifts, overcome by pleasures. You have to admit that they are bad people. Look at those who digest all things they call good—things of the sea and land—and have the entire animal kingdom on their dining table. Look at them as they lie on beds of roses rejoicing over their feast. Delighting their ears with music, their eyes with carnivals, their palates with flavours. Their whole body is titillated with soft and soothing applications. Even their nostrils, the place in which they solemnized the rites of luxury, is not left idle but is scented with various perfumes. You will say these people live in the midst of pleasures. Yet they are ill at ease because they take pleasure in what is not good. 

Think about this 

I do not call a person wise who is overcome by anything, let alone pleasure. How can those who are immersed in pleasure guard themselves against toil, danger, want and all the problems that surround and threaten their lives? How will they bear the sight of death or of pain? How will they endure the chaos of the world? 

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In the ELEVENTH chapter of his discourse ON THE HAPPY LIFE, Seneca tells us that, to be happy, we should stop pursuing pleasure, but instead pursue virtue. This is an excerpt from Stoic Happiness, a plain English version of Seneca’s On the Happy Life, published by The Stoic Gym. 

https://amzn.to/2I0mbVW 

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