I always feel somewhat suspicious when rating older books, because for some reason they are still being sold today.
We live (or perhaps continue to live) in a constant state of historical presentism. Today’s catharses are monstrous, and all the problems we have would be incomprehensible to those who do not live in the same generation as ours.
That is why I love this type of book.
They completely break that way of thinking. In this book, Seneca shows that the human essence has been the same for (almost) 2000 years (probably since forever), and that the wasting of time, the weakness of spirit in the face of lust, and perpetual anxiety, among other modern ailments, are as old as we are.
For me, besides being a book whose writing is quite fluid and beautiful, it ends up touching my soul given the way it addresses observations that we rarely put into words, and for its highlighting of clichés as famous as “don’t waste your time,” which may have started to gain fame here, in this book.
