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Seneca and Epictetus on the Hero’s Journey

Seneca and Epictetus on the Hero’s Journey

Last updated on: April 19, 2023 at 4:43 pm by Andrew

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Seneca and Epictetus on the Hero’s Journey 2023-04-19T16:43:42-05:00 Andrew

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Seneca and Epictetus have some powerful sentiments on the hero’s journey. Kicking it off with Seneca, perhaps contemplating what the hero’s path isn’t would be an important start: the comfortable path. I wrote an earlier post on Seneca’s view that lack of adversity guarantees an unhappy (unfulfilled would be a more accurate term) life. A life of fulfillment requires answering the call to adventure. It is only in answering this call and facing adversity that we can actualize the hero within us.

Eventually, in seeking the hero’s journey, Seneca tells us that the pleasurable path and the honorable path will be one in the same:

“How much better to pursue a straight course and eventually reach that destination where the things that are pleasant and honorable finally become, for you, the same. And we can achieve this if we realize there are two classes of things attracting us or repelling us. We are attracted by wealth, pleasures, good looks, political advancement and various other welcoming and enticing prospects; we are repelled by exertion, death, pain, disgrace and limited means. It follows that we need to train ourselves not to crave the former and not to be afraid of the latter. Let us fight the battle the other way round – retreat from the things that attract us and rouse ourselves to meet the things that attack us.”

In no uncertain terms, he warns us that:

“The path that leads to pleasures is the downward one; the upward climb is the one that takes us to rugged and difficult ground. Here let us throw our bodies forward, in the other direction rein them back.”

Epictetus, continues upon this theme and gives the example of what made Hercules:

“What would have become of Hercules, do you think, if there had been no lion, hydra, stag or boar, and no savage criminals to rid the world of? What would he have done in the absence of such challenges? Obviously he would have just rolled over in bed and went back to sleep. So by snoring his life away in luxury and comfort he would have never developed into the might Hercules.”

Getting out of our comfort zone, facing adversity, and answering the call to adventure – the crucible of adversity revealing something stronger and better, where the pleasant and honorable are the same – when choosing the courageous path is the only one that will truly fulfill us. This is the path of the hero’s journey.

Photo by Javier Allegue Barros on Unsplash

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