中文导读
《论短暂人生》是塞内卡写给岳父保利努斯（Paulinus）的哲学散文，约作于公元 49 年。核心论点看似矛盾：人生不是太短，而是太长——我们只是把它浪费了。"自然给我们足够的时间去完成任何伟大的事业，如果我们善用它的话。"
塞内卡区分了两种人：一种人活着（vixere），他们把时间花在有价值的事情上——阅读、思考、友谊、哲学；另一种人只是存在（fuerunt），他们把时间花在琐事上——社交应酬、赌博、追逐名利、讨好权贵。后者抱怨人生太短，但其实不是时间不够，而是他们自己把时间丢弃了。
最有名的段落是对"忙碌的人"（occupati）的描写：那些整天忙忙碌碌却不知道自己在做什么的人。他们为别人的葬礼化妆、为别人的诉讼奔走、盯着股市行情、在宴会上拼酒、追踪八卦……最后发现一辈子就这样过去了。塞内卡说，只有哲人真正"拥有"自己的时间——因为哲人通过阅读和思考与过去所有时代的人对话，他的生命不限于短短几十年，而是延伸到人类文明的全部历史。
本文据公版英译全文收录。
On the Shortness of Life
Most human beings, Paulinus, complain about the meanness of nature,
because we are born for a brief span of life, and because this spell
of time that has been given to us rushes by so swiftly and rapidly
that with very few exceptions life ceases for the rest of us just when
we are getting ready for it. Nor is it merely the common man
and the feeble-minded crowd that bemoans what it calls the harshness
of our lot—the same feeling has called forth complaints
from the lips of the distinguished men. Hence the cry of that
most dignified of physicians, "Life is short, art is long."
Hence too the grumbling of Aristotle, who, when Nature was arraigned
before the bar of philosophy, laid to her charge the unfairness
of having bestowed on brutes a long span of existence,
while man's life is so brief. It is not that we have a short time
to live, but that we waste a great deal of it. Life is long enough,
and a sufficiently generous amount has been given to us
for the highest achievements, if it were all well invested.
But when it is wasted in heedless luxury and spent on no good activity,
we are forced at last by death's final constraint to sense
that it has passed away before we knew it was passing.
So it is—the life we receive is not short, but we make it so,
nor do we have any lack of it, but are wasteful of it.
Just as great and princely wealth is scattered in a moment
when it passes into the hands of a bad owner, while wealth
however limited, if placed in the custody of a good steward,
increases by use, so our life extends far enough for the man
who manages it properly. Why do we complain of nature?
She has shown herself kind; life, if you know how to use it,
is long. But one man is possessed by an insatiable greed,
another by a laborious diligence in useless tasks;
one man is soaked in wine, another is numbed by sloth;
one man is exhausted by political ambition, which always
hangs on the judgment of others; another is driven on by the greed
of a trader, being blown hither and thither over all the earth
by the hope of profit; some are tormented by a passion for war,
and are always either endangering others or anxious about their own
danger; some wear themselves out in voluntary subservience
to persons of higher rank, in the hope of advancement;
many are occupied by either the pursuits of others or their own
jealousy; some have no fixed purpose in life and are swept along
by the shifting winds of fate, some are discontented with whatever
their lot may be.
Can anything be more foolish than the men I have mentioned?
They are busy about nothing; they squeeze their bodies
into the seats at the theatre; they rush to the forum
and push their way into the crowd; they besiege the houses
of the great; they hover about their tables; they act as witnesses
for hire in the courts. What is the point of all this?
It is not life that is short, but the time we waste.
We have been given enough; but we squander it. The man
who uses his time wisely, who devotes himself to study and reflection,
who learns from the great minds of the past—the life of such a man
is long and fruitful. For he has not merely lived through
his own years; he has lived through all the centuries
of human thought and experience.
Those who have devoted themselves to philosophy
have no reason to complain about the shortness of life.
For they have absorbed into their own minds the wisdom
of all the ages. Socrates, and Plato, and Zeno, and Epicurus—
all of them are their contemporaries, their friends,
their daily companions. They converse with the great minds
of the past as if they were still alive; and in this way,
they extend their own lives backward through the centuries.
So, my dear Paulinus, do not be one of those who waste
their lives in idle pursuits. Withdraw from the crowd;
give yourself to study and reflection; and you will find
that life is not short at all, but long enough for every
great and noble achievement.