How to Become Undefeatable (according to Seneca) | Stoic Philosophy

When Seneca claimed that the wise man is safe from injury, his friend Serenus asked: “What then? Will there be no one who will try to do an injury to the wise man?”. “Yes,” said Seneca, “they will try, but the injury will not reach him.” He argued that the wise man is too far removed from his inferiors so that nothing they’d throw at him would retain its power of harm before it would get near him. He compared such pursuits to an army of bowmen and catapults trying to hit the gods. They would shoot high up into the sky; their darts would reach out of sight but never reach the heavens and fall back on the ground.

But despite Seneca’s plea for inner strength and essentially becoming undefeatable toward other people’s malice, Serenus argued that it would be better if no one wished to harm the wise man in the first place. And let’s face it: if all of humanity would just stop hurting each other, wouldn’t the world be a much better place? But Seneca disagreed and said: “You are expressing a wish that the whole human race were inoffensive, which may hardly be.” Well, doesn’t that remind us of the current state of the world, in which almost anything you say seems to offend someone somewhere?

While the idea of an inoffensive world may come from a good place, the Stoic politician Seneca saw that it’s most likely unrealistic. People always seem to say or do things that offend others, a predicament that lies as much in the power of the offensive as the offended. However, the problem with Serenus’ wish is that other people’s actions are beyond our control. If we, for example, wish to exterminate all people’s negative opinions, we’ll be in for grave disappointment. There always will be assholes spouting offensive language.

And the emergence of social media and massive broadcasting platforms like YouTube, where everyone and their mother can deliver their sincere opinions, has dramatically increased their visibility. And so, the number of people who get offended and demand others to shut up also seems to grow. Even though foul language may be offensive, hurtful, and often nonsensical, it’ll probably occur as long as humanity is around, especially in countries that support freedom of speech. Hence, if we don’t want to be offended, trying to shut up the offensive probably won’t work; it’s like carrying coal to Newcastle.

Therefore, Seneca repeatedly emphasizes in his work that the key to not being offended—not being defeated by other people’s words or actions—lies within ourselves. So, it’s not about defeating those who offend us; it’s about being undefeatable by these people, which lies within our power, according to the Stoics. The question is, of course, how can we pull this off?

This video focuses on Seneca’s Stoicism, particularly regarding becoming undefeatable. When comparing the known Stoic philosophers from antiquity, the emperor Marcus Aurelius is probably the most popular. His Meditations are accessible and resonate with the reader, as they show an insight into his thoughts and struggles. His reflective nature, combined with being an emperor, creates a strong and clear archetype, which is also the case with Epictetus, who was a freed slave.

In contrast, Seneca, though a significant Stoic figure, presents a more complex archetype. He was a statesman, philosopher, and dramatist. His varied roles contributed to different areas, such as literature, philosophy, and politics. Even though he had a prominent place in the Roman hierarchy, his power didn’t reach the heights of Marcus Aurelius. However, he came close, as his authority over the empire was profound during Nero’s first years of reign.

Lucius Annaeus Seneca, also known as Seneca the Younger, was born in Córdoba, present-day Spain. His father, Seneca the Elder, was a famous writer and teacher of rhetoric, and his mother, Helvia, came from a prominent family. Seneca’s education was in rhetoric, but philosophy truly grasped his interest. After a successful career in Rome, Emperor Claudius banned Seneca from Rome to Corsica due to accusations of adultery, where he remained for eight years and where he wrote his famous consolation to his mother.

Seneca created a variety of writings on Stoic philosophy. Aside from in-depth essays on topics such as anger, tranquility, and inner strength, he also wrote many letters containing profound Stoic wisdom. He wrote in Latin, which indicated his literary ambitions as a Roman, as most philosophers would still write in Greek. In this video, we’ll focus on one of his pivotal works, De Constantia Sapientis, translated as On the Firmness of the Wise Man.

As a Stoic, Seneca strived for a state of unperturbedness: a profound inner peace which external circumstances do not disrupt or, at least, minimally. But, from Seneca’s perspective, what does it mean to be unperturbed? Is it akin to being an emotionless rock in the face of the whims of fate? Does it mean being completely indifferent toward the things around you, good or bad? In his work, On the Firmness of the Wise Man, Seneca described in great detail how the tranquil, equanimous individual, the sage, would respond to different situations, which we’ll explore further in this video essay in-depth.

How does one become undefeatable? Seneca’s views on this matter align with the general Stoic view of being tranquil and undisturbed in the face of the external world. Being unshaken by outside circumstances, undefeatable in the face of insults and assaults, the Stoics see as defining characteristics of what it means to be internally strong. However, that doesn’t mean that the wise man is an emotionless piece of stone, letting events pass by in utter indifference, basically being dead among the living.

Stoics aren’t emotionless, which Seneca agrees with, as seen in his letters, especially the famous letter to his mother. There is room for emotion, and the application of reason actually evokes emotions, or at least specific positive feelings integral to the Stoic optimal state of ‘flourishing.’ I’ve dedicated an introductory chapter to the Stoic view on emotions in my compilation book Stoicism for Inner Strength, which contains the musing of a modern mind on this ancient philosophy.

So, no, being Stoic isn’t being emotionless. Being undefeatable isn’t about being as cold as stone. It’s about avoiding what the Stoics named the passions when confronted with external circumstances. The passions are emotional responses to these circumstances that sprout from irrational thinking. These could be anger (or prolonged anger in particular) as a response to an insult, or prolonged and excessive grief because of loss, or strong desires and lust toward external objects and people. I’ve created an in-depth video about these passions if you want to know more.

So, the absence of these passions entails an unperturbable mind. From the Stoic point of view, a person is undefeatable if nothing in the outside world can shake his unperturbedness. Regarding adversity, being undefeatable means remaining uninjured in the face of unfortunate circumstances, whether it’s someone insulting you, your girlfriend breaking up with you, or someone punching you in the face.

But when can we speak of injury? What does it mean to be injured? In his essay De Constantia Sapientis, Seneca often mentions ‘injury.’ But what does he mean by that? When is someone considered injured? Is it when you’re physically injured, for example, through assault? Or is it when someone verbally insults you, and everyone is laughing at you as a consequence? Or are you injured, perhaps, when you suffer severe financial loss or when you’re subjected to illness?

This may surprise you, but as far as Seneca is concerned, none of these things are injuries in themselves. The injury doesn’t lie in the action done to you, be it an insult or a physical attack, but in how we position ourselves toward this action. Seneca argues that what makes a sage isn’t that his circumstances don’t allow people to attempt to injure him and that his life is so secure and comfortable that he hardly finds himself in situations where he could encounter injury.

Such a person may also be calm, not because of his inner strength but because his life is so darn easy, devoid of difficulty. Put such a person in some difficulty he hasn’t learned to bear, and his unperturbedness will probably fade quickly. It’s like putting some spoiled rich kids born with a silver spoon in their mouths into the shoes of ordinary people. As their strength greatly relied on their wealth, is their character strong enough to continue flourishing?

What makes a sage is his inner strength: the ability not to be injured regardless of external circumstances. I quote: “In like manner you may know that the wise man, if no injury hurts him, is of a higher type than if none is offered to him, and I should call him a brave man whom war does not subdue and the violence of the enemy does not alarm, not him who enjoys luxurious ease amid a slothful people. I say, then, that such a wise man is invulnerable against all injury; it matters not, therefore, how many darts be hurled at him, since he can be pierced by none of them.” End quote.

According to Seneca, a wise man is beyond receiving injury. Whatever life throws at him, he will bear it calmly. “The invulnerable is not that which is never struck, but that which is never wounded,” he stated. Again, we cannot control whether or not the world will be friendly to us; it’s utterly beyond our control. Even if we possess immeasurable wealth, power comparable to a Roman emperor, and influence over all existing media, we cannot control all human behavior.

However, we can develop the ability to become invulnerable (or less vulnerable, at least) to misfortune. How can we do that? According to Seneca, we can pull this off through patience, meaning a long endurance of the adversities we aim to conquer and “trusting to reason.”

Let’s take a look at different life situations and see how Seneca approaches these and how we could conquer them according to his ideas. In his work, Seneca tells us about Vatinius, a man he describes as “born to be laughed at and hated.” Vatinius was also a witty and clever jester who lacked any form of shame and apparently was under much scrutiny. According to Seneca, he had more enemies than diseases.

But because Vatinius didn’t care what other people said about him and frequently applied self-mockery, none of his enemies could hurt him. In a way, Vatinius is a bit like Diogenes the Cynic, who was undefeatable by his enemies because he didn’t care about anyone’s opinion. As he didn’t attach himself to anything, he could lose nothing.

Being offended seems fashionable nowadays. Some people take pride in sharing with the world that something someone said hit a nerve, and they don’t go out of their way to explain why exactly this is the case. It’s probably coming from a good place (but not always), and their sharings are often based on how they think the world should be and how people should behave, perhaps believing that calling them out would change anything.

Aside from this phenomenon, we generally see people not reacting well to insults. In Seneca’s time, this was also the case. For example, he mentions slaves preferring to be flogged over being insulted, which shows how much people loathed it: something Seneca thought of as absurd and a sign of a weak mind and thin skin, as an insult doesn’t wound anyone, as opposed to, for example, the strike of a blade.

Seneca came up with a highly straightforward and rational approach to being insulted, which he explains in this passage: “Do these things befall me deservedly or undeservedly? If deservedly, it is not an insult, but a judicial sentence; if undeservedly, then he who does injustice ought to blush, not I. And what is this which is called an insult? Someone has made a joke about the baldness of my head, the weakness of my eyes, the thinness of my legs, the shortness of my stature; what insult is there in telling me that which everyone sees?” End quote.

Let’s simplify this. If someone says something you don’t like about you, and it’s true, then why is it an insult? According to Seneca, it’s not. It’s the truth. But what if someone says something you don’t like about you, and it’s not true? Then, again, why is it an insult? It’s just nonsense. So the person who said it has more reason to be ashamed than you.

For example, I’m a pretty short guy, and people have often made jokes about my height. I used to get very angry about this; how dare they humiliate me like that? Also, short-shaming seems to be one of the rare forms of body-shaming that’s acceptable these days, which adds a sense of injustice to the injury. It’s unfair!

But Seneca would just wipe such arguments off the table and say: “Listen, man, what insult is there in telling you that which everyone sees? You’re a short dude! People are simply pointing out the obvious for whatever reason, well, probably because they’re stupid assholes. Don’t let it get to you, Einzie, and you’ll go from short dude to short king.” End fictional quote.

According to Seneca, the wise man stands above insults. If he lowers himself to being affected by them, he’ll make himself instantly vulnerable. He won’t feel safe anywhere he encounters people, as their words could harm or destroy him. Insults will be injurious; words will be darts piercing his body. His inner tranquility will depend on the whims of bullies and jerks, and he can only pray for them to leave him be. He might as well isolate himself from the human race entirely to prevent being harmed.

Seneca’s philosophy of firmness doesn’t stop with insults. It goes much further than that. Being undefeatable in the face of mean remarks is only the beginning of the art; being unperturbed when experiencing physical harm is ‘next level’ Stoicism. As opposed to insults, physical harm is an actual ‘injury;’ the occurrence Seneca mentions so often in his essay.

But when reading closely, it becomes apparent that physical harm, be it a bloody nose or a stab wound, still isn’t quite what Seneca means by injury. Sure, we can’t deny that the body is injured. But despite this, the actual injury still occurs in the mind. Seneca states: “We do not deny that it is an unpleasant thing to be beaten or struck, or to lose one of our limbs, but we say that none of these things are injuries. We do not take away from them the feeling of pain, but the name of ‘injury,’ which cannot be received while our virtue is unimpaired.” End quote.

A wise man’s ability to endure suffering is mighty. Therefore, physical harm won’t cause him distress, and the anticipation of it won’t evoke anxiety; he remains passionless, unshaken by either pain or the prospect of it. With such an amount of inner strength, the wise man enjoys a significant advantage: people cannot use physical harm as a means of manipulation, of making him do things against his will.

Epictetus later worded it beautifully in one of his lectures, stating that someone could put him in chains and fetter his leg, but even Zeus cannot touch his free will. Considering the magnitude of physical pain, the way it makes us feel, the agony, the fear of encountering it that most of us experience, not being fazed by it is very challenging to do. Having an undefeatable resolve not to speak while being tortured, for example, is something even superheroes struggle with, let alone the average person.

So, it undoubtedly takes practice and patience to develop, as Seneca states: “Think that the wise man belongs to this class, that of men who, by long and faithful practice, have acquired strength to endure and tire out all the violence of their enemies.”

Seneca’s undefeatableness doesn’t stop with verbal and physical harm. And let’s face it: one wouldn’t be truly undefeatable if one could endure Nero’s tortures or Cicero’s sarcastic remarks that Vatinius was subjected to but couldn’t bear one’s lover breaking up with him. From Seneca’s point of view, a true sage remains steadfast in the face of any misfortune. He states: “He who says that the wise man can bear this and cannot bear that, and restrains his magnanimity within certain limits, does wrong; for Fortune overcomes us unless she is entirely overcome.” End quote.

Seneca doesn’t ascribe the wise the hardness of stone or iron; she does feel misfortunes, such as losing loved ones, but is conscious of her endurance. She may shed a tear or two after losing someone dear to her, but she’ll rise superior to it and heal her wounds. Hence, after his banishment to Corsica, Seneca suggested that his mother grieve and let reason console her afterward.

According to Seneca, trivial misfortunes the sage doesn’t even feel. At most, he laughs at them. Beyond minor to major disturbances, Seneca challenges us to face what many consider the greatest misfortune of all: death. He not only saw the acceptance of death as a necessary thing to conquer (as it’s an inevitable part of life), but he also argued that if we can overcome death, then other misfortunes would be easier to endure.

He states: “If we accept with an undisturbed and tranquil mind that greatest terror of all, beyond which the angry laws and the most cruel masters have nothing to threaten us with, in which fortune's dominion is contained—if we know that death is not an evil, and therefore is not an injury either, we shall much more easily endure the other things, such as losses, pains, disgraces, changes of abode, bereavements, and partings, which do not overwhelm the wise man even if they all befall him at once, much less does he grieve at them when they assail him separately. And if he bears the injuries of fortune calmly, how much more will he bear those of powerful men, whom he knows to be the hands of fortune.” End quote.

So, what do you think about Seneca’s philosophy on being undefeatable? Have you experienced moments of strength and unperturbedness akin to what Seneca describes? Please let us know in the comment section. Thank you for watching.