Philosophical Punch in the Mouth, Vol. #1

As I've read various Stoic authors, I've come across many sections of writing that perform two functions. The first being a raw deliverance of the truth that stinks of reality so harshly that it burns away your nostril hair. The second function being a style of delivery that calls you out where you are put in a Neo-esque position of choosing between the comfortable lies you tell yourself everyday or dislodging your cranium from your rectum. That feeling of discomfort and simultaneous realization is what I equate to taking a philosophical punch in the mouth.

This is the first such section I've decided to highlight in the blog. This comes from Seneca: Letters From a Stoic, Penguin Books (181-182).

"So the spirit must be trained to a realization and an acceptance of its lot. It must come to see that there is nothing fortune will shrink from, that she wields the same authority over emperor and empire alike and the same power over cities as over men. There's no ground for resentment in all this. We've entered into a world in which these are the terms life is lived on - if you're satisfied with that, submit to them, if you're not, get out, whatever way you please. Resent a thing by all means if it represents an injustice decreed against yourself personally; but if this same constraint is binding in the lowest and the highest alike, then make your peace again with destiny, the destiny that unravels all ties. There's no justification for using our graves and all the variety of monuments we see bordering the highways as a measure of our stature. In the ashes all men are levelled. We're born unequal, we die equal. And my words apply as much to cities as to those who live in them. Ardea was taken, and so was Rome. The great lawgiver draws no distinctions between us according to our birth or the celebrity of our names, save only while we exist. On the reaching of mortality's end he declares, 'Away with snobbery; all that the earth carries shall forthwith be subject to one law without discrimination.' When it comes to all we're required to go through, we're equals. No one is more vulnerable than the next man, and no one can be more sure of his surviving  to the morrow."

What a great reproach against two things that are an abomination to our existences: 1) whining and complaining about life. 2) attempting to transcend our shared fate with material things and these legacies which  die with those who were around us.