“It is the month of December, and yet the city is at this very moment in a sweat. License is given to the general merrymaking. Everything resounds with mighty preparations, – as if the Saturnalia differed at all from the usual business day! So true it is that the difference is nil, that I regard as correct the remark of the man who said: ‘Once December was a month; now it is a year.’”
Poor Seneca. Saturnalia used to be a single day! Then suddenly it's stretched out to a week? Add in the preparations and the shopping and the holiday Muzak in every elevator and what's a Roman senator to do...can't we all just settle down and remember to keep Saturn in Saturnalia!?
I sure love reading thoughts like those in Seneca's letter on Festivals and Fasting. The lines feel contemporary, but that's because complaining about change is as old as humanity. I guarantee 200,000 years ago some crotchety old guy complained that, "we used to feast only on the blue moon and now it's every full moon? Bah!"
Of course, most of us modern Stoics are not worried about Saturnalia, but we do have holidays to celebrate. I'm a Christmas man, myself. How should I approach the holiday as a Stoic? Does Stoicism care? Seneca pondered these questions as well. Continuing in his letter, he says:
“ If I had you with me, I should be glad to consult you and find out what you think should be done, – whether we ought to make no change in our daily routine, or whether, in order not to be out of sympathy with the ways of the public, we should dine in gayer fashion and doff the toga. As it is now, we Romans have changed our dress for the sake of pleasure and holiday-making, though in former times that was only customary when the State was disturbed and had fallen on evil days. I am sure that, if I know you aright, playing the part of an umpire you would have wished that we should be neither like the liberty-capped throng in all ways, nor in all ways unlike them; unless, perhaps, this is just the season when we ought to lay down the law to the soul, and bid it be alone in refraining from pleasures just when the whole mob has let itself go in pleasures; for this is the surest proof which a man can get of his own constancy, if he neither seeks the things which are seductive and allure him to luxury, nor is led into them. It shows much more courage to remain dry and sober when the mob is drunk and vomiting; but it shows greater self-control to refuse to withdraw oneself and to do what the crowd does, but in a different way, – thus neither making oneself conspicuous nor becoming one of the crowd. For one may keep holiday without extravagance.”
Here we find Seneca laying out two Stoic solutions. The first is to give a hearty BAH-HUMBUG to the whole idea of holidays and simply continue on in Stoic soberness. Considering that Saturnalia often consisted of drunk mobs staggering around in the streets, this tactic isn't unsound. Our Stoic aim is to live with virtue so who cares what people think? Go home and remain content. However, I'm a bigger fan of solution two.
Two consists of remaining Stoic while participating in festivities. As Seneca says, "it shows greater self-control to refuse to withdraw oneself and to do what the crowd does, but in a different way.' If a Stoic is above being swayed by the crowd, what danger is the crowd to them? This is the tactic that we see recorded by the Roman author Gellius.
“We were spending the Saturnalia at Athens quite pleasantly and modestly. We did not, however, let our minds go lax—for, Musonius says, “to let one’s mind go lax is, in effect, to lose it”— but we did take it easy and loosen them up a little with the pleasant and honest delights of conversation.”
Here are some real Stoics at a party! They're enjoying themselves. They're drinking wine, but not bottles of it. They're talking with their friends and they'll remember it tomorrow. They're living out what I like to think of as sustainable merry-making; avoiding burning the candle at both ends, but definitely lighting the candle.
As I'm writing this my wife and I are sharing a wonderfully boozy homemade eggnog. After I save and publish we'll enjoy the light of the Christmas tree as well as each other's company. Later in the week I'll take part in local San Diego festivities. Later still we will fly halfway across the country to have Christmas with my family. At all these moments I can live stoically, fully participate, and enjoy life.
Merry Christmas and Io, Saturnalia!
I realize that Seneca is speaking of mass festivals and not so much the at home gatherings many of us will soon be attending. For anyone that needs Stoic council concerning the emotions that come up during these smaller gatherings, might I suggest 9 Ways to Stop Being Upset by Others?
