Your 3-Part Micro Morning Routine
1. 🧘 Morning Contemplation
🎧 You can find the audio version of this morning’s contemplation below.
Good morning.
In his 108th Moral Letter to Lucilius, the Stoic philosopher Seneca tells his friend of his admiration for Attalus, the man who played a major role in teaching him Stoicism.
One lesson Seneca found particularly inspiring was Attalus’ promotion of temperance:
Whenever he castigated our pleasure-seeking lives, and extolled personal purity, moderation in diet, and a mind free from unnecessary, not to speak of unlawful, pleasures, the desire came upon me to limit my food and drink.
As Emily Wilson points out in The Greatest Empire, her book about Seneca’s life, the Roman statesman, following Attalus’ example, prided himself on his ascetic habits, including an avoidance of over-eating and over-drinking.
As he explains to Lucilius in the aforementioned letter:
When I returned to the duties of a citizen, I did indeed keep a few of these good resolutions. That is why I have forsaken oysters and mushrooms for ever: since they are not really food, but are relishes to bully the sated stomach into further eating, as is the fancy of gourmands and those who stuff themselves beyond their powers of digestion: down with it quickly, and up with it quickly!
The significance of Seneca's abstinence from oysters and mushrooms is that they were symbolic of luxury within Roman culture. They were the antithesis of the moderation in diet that Attalus had preached.
As Wilson goes on to say about Seneca, and as could be applied to any ancient Stoic, being a philosopher was not simply a matter of theoretical understanding; it influenced, first and foremost, his daily life—including, especially, his eating habits.
When it comes to studying philosophy, Seneca concluded, we should not hunt out archaic or far-fetched words and eccentric metaphors and figures of speech, but we should seek precepts which will help us, utterances of courage and spirit which may at once be turned into facts.
We should so learn them that words may become deeds. Then, we don’t just accept the theory that moderation in diet is good for us, we actually experience it in practice.
2. 🎧 Morning Meditation
Now it's time to sit down in a safe, comfortable spot, close your eyes, and take a few minutes for yourself to meditate on this morning's theme.
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