Yesterday, I claimed that luxury is not a preferred indifferent. Is it a dispreffered indifferent then? No. In the passage below Seneca goes into greater depth about why luxury is actually bad for us.
“Just as a flame leaps upward and cannot be flattened, let alone made to rest, so our minds are always in motion, and the more vigorous ones are all the more lively and active. Butit is a fortunate person who directs this energy toward the good. He will place himself outside the jurisdiction of fortune: he will moderate prosperity, minimize adversity, and scorn those things that others admire.
Greatness of spirit despises great wealth; it prefers moderate means to abundance. For moderation is useful and life-giving, while abundance harms a person through excess. It is like a yield of wheat that is so heavy it flattens the stalks; like a load of fruit that breaks the branches; like livestock that bear too many young for all to reach maturity. That happens with minds too when they are spoiled by immoderate prosperity, which they use to the detriment of others and even to their own.
What enemy has ever treated anyone as roughly as some people's pleasures treat them? Their desires are uncontrolled insane and would be unforgivable, except that the damage is all to themselves. And it's not without reason that they are tormented with such frenzy. For desires that exceed the bounds of nature cannot but go on to infinity. Our nature has its own limit, but empty and perverse desires are inherently unbounded. Our needs are measured by utilitylity; beyond that, what line is there to draw?
So they drown themselves in pleasures, having grown so accustomed to them that they can no longer do without them. They are especially miserable in that they have gotten to a point where what were once luxuries have become necessities. Rather than enjoying their pleasures, they are slaves to them; worst of all, they even love what is worst in themselves. The worst of their condition is when they not only enjoy their shameful behavior but even approve of it. Once vice becomes a code of conduct, there ceases to be any possibility of cure”.
"No one is worthy of God unless he has risen above wealth. I do not forbid you to possess wealth; I only seek to make you fearless in possessing it. And the only way to achieve that is if you convince yourself that you will be happy even without it - if you look at it as something that might disappear at any moment".
"why does god allow anything bad to happen to good men?” Actually he does not allow this. He has taken all bad things away from them—crimes and misdeeds and wicked thoughts and greedy designs and blind lust and avarice that hovers over what belongs to another. The men themselves he watches over and protects. Surely no one can demand from god that he take care of good men’s baggage too? They themselves discharge god of this responsibility: they scorn external things. Democritus cast away his wealth, reckoning it to be burdensome to a good intellect."
The post on luxury from yesterday:
https://janniklindquist.substack.com/p/the-importance-of-being-not-just/comments
Perspective:
"No one is worthy of God unless he has risen above wealth. I do not forbid you to possess wealth; I only seek to make you fearless in possessing it. And the only way to achieve that is if you convince yourself that you will be happy even without it - if you look at it as something that might disappear at any moment".
- Seneca, Letters 18.13
"why does god allow anything bad to happen to good men?” Actually he does not allow this. He has taken all bad things away from them—crimes and misdeeds and wicked thoughts and greedy designs and blind lust and avarice that hovers over what belongs to another. The men themselves he watches over and protects. Surely no one can demand from god that he take care of good men’s baggage too? They themselves discharge god of this responsibility: they scorn external things. Democritus cast away his wealth, reckoning it to be burdensome to a good intellect."
- Seneca, On Providence 6.1-2