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Stoics’ Guide to Friendship.
“Nothing will ever please, no matter how excellent or beneficial, if I must keep the knowledge to myself… No good thing is pleasant to possess without friends to share it.” ~ from Seneca’s Letters.
Knowledge and wisdom lose all their wealth if you do not use them in daily life; if you do not apply them to help someone, who finds himself in need. You can read all the books in the world, for example, but what will be its purpose if you have no one to share that knowledge with?
Seneca mentioned this wisdom multiple times in his famous Letters from a Stoic. In those letters, written two thousand years ago, he laid down the key ideas and principles of Stoic philosophy.
In fact, the only reason why philosophers and thinkers continue to read and re-read those letters over two millennia is because Seneca wrote them for a very practical and particular reason. He wrote those letters to help his good friend Lucilius, who found himself lost in life.
Lucilius, like Seneca, held a significant position in emperor Nero’s administration, governing the region of Sicily. Nobody knows why exactly, but he wanted to retire from this position. (One possible reason for this desire might had been Nero’s habit of killing everyone who ‘bored’ him. He forced Seneca to take poison, but that’s a story for another article.)
