[Stoicism] - Dịch Seneca (22): Hãy mạnh dạn từ bỏ những thứ không quan trọng, và tập trung vào những thứ có ý nghĩa với bản thân bạn. Hãy mong mình sống tốt, chứ không phải sống lâu!

Lời tựa:

Như đã giới thiệu trong series, Seneca thực sự là nguồn cảm hứng Stoicism của mình. Đọc Seneca không chỉ là về triết học mà còn là một trải nghiệm nghệ thuật, khi những bài học, triết lý quan trọng được phản ánh qua những hình ảnh quen thuộc, bình dị và đời thường, thể hiện cái tinh tế trong quan sát của một thiên tài với sự từng trải của cuộc đời. 
                      
Với hy vọng giới thiệu Stoicism đến với các bạn trẻ Việt Nam, xin gửi tới các bạn bản dịch những bức thư quan trọng nhất trong cuốn "Moral Letters to Lucilius", tác phẩm đã làm nên tên tuổi của Seneca và là một trong bộ ba cuốn sách nền tảng của Stoicism. 

Những bức thư đạo đức là tuyển tập các bức thư của triết gia Seneca về Chủ nghĩa Khắc Kỷ, nhằm trang bị cho con người hành trang để đối mặt và mỉm cười trước sóng gió của cuộc đời, đạt được sự bình thản trong tâm trí. Cuốn sách không chỉ về triết học, mà còn về trải nghiệm nghệ thuật, khi những bài học, triết lý quan trọng được phản ánh qua những hình ảnh quen thuộc, bình dị và đời thường, thể hiện cái tinh tế trong quan sát của một thiên tài.  
                     
Do không phải anh dịch thuật, nên bản dịch này hoàn toàn tập trung vào việc truyền tải thông điệp và hy vọng có thể giúp bạn cảm thấy dễ dàng hơn trong việc tiếp cận với bản tiếng Anh, để có thể thấy cái hay cái đẹp trong việc sử dụng ngôn từ của Seneca (dù thực ra bản tiếng Anh cũng chỉ là một bản dịch). Một anh bạn người Ý của mình đã chia sẻ Seneca được đưa vào chương trình giảng dạy tại Ý như một bậc thầy về việc sử dụng ngôn từ. Vì vậy, xin cam đoan tất cả những gì khiến bạn cảm thấy trúc trắc từ bản dịch là bởi khả năng hạn chế của mình, và rất mong nhận được đóng góp của các cao nhân để bản dịch được hoàn thiện hơn. Sau khi hoàn thành mình sẽ tạo file pdf và chia sẻ free cho mọi người.

Bức thư số 22

Không ai quan tâm mình sống tốt như thế nào, mà chỉ bao lâu – mặc dù sự thật là bất cứ ai cũng có cơ hội để sống tốt, nhưng không ai có thể sống quá lâu.

From Seneca to Lucilius
Greetings
1 Now you understand that you have to get away from those seemingly important jobs that are so bad for you, but you ask how you can pull it off. Some things can only be pointed out in person. A doctor cannot appoint by letters the proper time for eating or bathing: he must feel the pulse. As the old saying goes, “The gladiator takes counsel in the ring”: he gets his instructions from watching his adversary’s expression, the movement of his hand, even a shift in his balance. 2 What is customarily done, what duty requires, can be dictated in the general case, and also written down: such advice is given not only to those who are away but even to posterity. But on the further question, when or in what way it should be done, no one can give advice at a distance: one must make the determination according to circumstances. 3 To note the occasion as it hastens by takes more than being there: you must also be vigilant. So keep an eye out for it, and if you see it, grab it, and act decisively and with all your strength to divest yourself of those responsibilities you have.

Here, in fact, is the advice I have to offer. Mark my words: you must get out—either out of that life or out of life itself! Yet at the same time I think you should walk softly, loosening this terrible knot you have tied rather than breaking the rope, with the proviso that if other means fail, you should indeed break it. No matter how timid you are, you surely would not choose to dangle forever over the cliff; it would be better to fall at once.

4 Meanwhile, the first priority is to avoid further encumbrances. Content yourself with the tasks you have already taken on—or, as you would have it, the tasks that have come your way. Don’t go out of your way to take on more, or you’ll lose your excuse; it will be obvious that they didn’t just come your way. Those things people are always saying are just not true: “I couldn’t help it. I didn’t want to, but what of that? I had to.” No one has to run after prosperity. There’s something to be said for stopping. Even if you aren’t actively resisting, you don’t have to push on in the direction fortune is carrying you.

5 Will you be annoyed if I bring in some experts to supplement my own advice? These are better counselors than I; indeed, I consult them myself when I am considering a course of action. Read the letter of Epicurus that concerns this issue. It is one written to Idomeneus, telling him to get away, as much as he can, and to hurry, before some stronger power comes to interfere and he no longer has the freedom to retire. 6 He adds that nothing should be attempted except at an opportune time—but that when the long-anticipated moment does arrive, one should spring up at once. “If you are planning escape,” he says, “you must never take naps”; and, “Even if circumstances are very difficult, I expect that retirement will be beneficial, provided we neither rush to it before it is time nor hang back from it when the time comes.”

7 I suppose you are now looking for a saying from the Stoics as well. Don’t let anyone around you criticize them for being rash: they are more cautious than they are bold. You are perhaps expecting them to tell you, “It is shameful to bend beneath a burden. Come to grips with the responsibility you have assumed. A man who flees from labor, whose courage does not increase with the very difficulty of the situation, is not a brave and energetic person.” 8 Those are the things they will say to you, but only as long as there is something gained by such perseverance, and as long as one does not have to do or undergo anything unworthy of a good man. Otherwise a person of character will not wear himself out with paltry and demeaning labor: he will
not engage in business just for the sake of being busy. Neither will he do what you are expecting him to do, that is, continue to be caught up in an ambitious career, enduring its trials. When his involvement begins to seem burdensome—uncertain—perilous—he will retreat from it. It is not that he will turn his back; rather, he will withdraw by degrees toward safety.

9 It is easy to escape from your job, dear Lucilius, if you have no regard for the rewards of the job. It is the rewards that hinder us and keep us at it. “What? Am I to abandon such great expectations? Am I to walk away just when the harvest is ripe? Shall I be stripped of my escort? Shall my sedan chair be unattended, my reception hall deserted?” These are the things people are unwilling to leave: they love the profits of misery even as they curse the miseries themselves.

10 They complain about their career in the same way as they complain about a girlfriend—which is to say that if you examine their true feelings, they don’t hate it at all but only have a quarrel with it. Scrutinize those who are whining and threatening to flee, and you will see: their detention is voluntary. The things they say are making them miserable are the very things they wanted, the things they cannot do without.

11 That’s how it is, Lucilius: slavery holds on to a few; many hold on to slavery. But if you mean to lay aside your slavery—if your desire for freedom is genuine—if your sole purpose in asking for encouragement is to do what you have to do without being worried about it forever, then the entire troop of Stoics will cheer you on. Why shouldn’t they? All the Zenos and Chrysippuses will urge you to choose the course that is moderate, that is honorable, that is your own.

12 But if the reason you are looking over your shoulder is to ascertain how much you will be able to take with you—that is, how large your retirement income will be—then you will never find release. As long as you hang on to the suitcase, you cannot swim to safety. Get your head above the water, and live a better life. May the gods bless you, but not in the way that they bless some people, with kindly visage according them great miseries. For such gifts—gifts that burn, that torture the receiver—they have but one excuse: they gave what was requested of them.

13 I was just sealing up this letter, and now I must open it up again, to make sure that it doesn’t leave here without its little ritual offering, but takes along some fine saying. One does occur to me; I hardly know whether it is more true or more eloquent. “Whose is it?” you ask. It belongs to Epicurus, for I am still drawing on other people’s coffers. 

14 Each of us leaves life as if he had just entered it. Take anyone you like, young, old, or somewhere in between: you will find them all equally fearful of death, equally ignorant of life. No one has any achievements: we put off for the future everything that belongs to us.

What pleases me most about this saying is that it reproaches the elderly for being infantile. 15 “Each of us leaves life just as he was born,” he says. Wrong: we are worse when we die than when we are born. The fault rests with us, not with our nature. Nature should register a complaint against us, saying, “What’s this? I brought you into the world with no desires, no fears, no superstitious credulity, no disloyalty, nor any of those other things that plague you. Just go out the way you came in!” 16 Anyone who dies with the same tranquility he had at birth has achieved wisdom. As it is, though, we tremble when danger approaches. The breathing grows labored—the face is drained of color—tears fall, and to no avail. We are at the very threshold of tranquility, and yet we worry. What could be more disgraceful? 17 But here’s why: because we are devoid of every good, we find the loss of life troublesome. For among us no part of life ever accrues to our benefit. We spend it all; it slips through our fingers. No one cares how well he lives but only how long—despite the fact that every one of us has the chance to live well, and no one can live long.

Farewell.

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