Choosing Your Inner Circle Wisely — Letters from a Stoic

Seneca's time is free, and he insists on keeping it that way. Letter 62 opens with a refusal to excuse himself to people who claim their affairs leave no room for philosophy. Their engagements, he says, are merely with themselves. His own approach is different: he loans himself to his affairs without surrendering to them.

No matter where he is, his thoughts fly to the best minds of every age, Demetrius above all, the philosopher who lives half-naked and owns almost nothing. Seneca travels with him as a companion. Why hold Demetrius in high esteem?

Because he has found that Demetrius lacks nothing. The observation is precise: it is in the power of any man to despise all things, but of no man to possess all things. The shortest cut to riches is to despise riches.

Demetrius hasn't merely learned contempt for worldly things, he has handed them over to others. He lives as though he has already given everything away.