On Festivals and Fasting - A letter from Seneca

Today, I came across a letter written by Seneca from a podcast I was reading about. It's sort of mindblowing that today we have access to the intimate writing of such giants at the click of a button! Anyway, I have recently become a fan of Seneca, and immediately knew I had to take notes. Here are they:

Seneca is writing this letter to his friend Lucilius "On Festivals and Fasting" in December when the entire Roman kingdom is submerged in the holiday exuberance.

• It shows much more courage to remain dry and sober when the mob is drunk and vomiting; but it shows greater self-control to refuse to withdraw oneself and to do what the crowd does, but in a different way, – thus neither making oneself conspicuous nor becoming one of the crowd. For one may keep holiday without extravagance.
• Voluntary hardships: I am so firmly determined, however, to test the constancy of your mind that, I shall give you also a lesson: Set aside a certain number of days, during which you shall be content with the scantiest and cheapest fare, with coarse and rough dress, saying to yourself the while: "Is this the condition that I feared?".
• From the podcast, "Find some things that are hard, even if it’s just skipping the elevator and taking the stairs up to the 15th floor or whatever. If the other people are not doing it, then that’s probably a sign that it’s something that you should do and just record your results; see how much better it makes you feel and then just keep pushing yourself a bit further. Voluntary hardship is a fantastic way to short-circuit hedonic adaptation, where you need more and more and more, almost like an opiate to satisfy your need for x."
• It is precisely in times of immunity from care that the soul should toughen itself beforehand for occasions of greater stress, and it is while Fortune is kind that it should fortify itself against her violence. In days of peace, the soldier performs maneuvers, throws up earthworks with no enemy in sight, and wearies himself by gratuitous toil, in order that he may be equal to unavoidable toil.
• You need not suppose that I mean meals like Timon's, or "paupers' huts,"[5] or any other device which luxurious millionaires use to beguile the tedium of their lives. Let the pallet be a real one, and the coarse cloak; let the bread be hard and grimy. Endure all this for three or four days at a time, sometimes for more, so that it may be a test of yourself instead of a mere hobby. Then, I assure you, my dear Lucilius, you will leap for joy when filled with a pennyworth of food, and you will understand that a man's peace of mind does not depend upon Fortune; for, even when angry she grants enough for our needs. [Importance of pilgrimage in many religions].
• There is no reason, however, why you should think that you are doing anything great; for you will merely be doing what many thousands of slaves and many thousands of poor men are doing every day. But you may credit yourself with this item, – that you will not be doing it under compulsion, and that it will be as easy for you to endure it permanently as to make the experiment from time to time.
• Let us practise our strokes on the "dummy";let us become intimate with poverty, so that Fortune may not catch us off our guard. We shall be rich with all the more comfort, if we once learn how far poverty is from being a burden.
• Even Epicurus, the teacher of pleasure, used to observe stated intervals, during which he satisfied his hunger in niggardly fashion; he wished to see whether he thereby fell short of full and complete happiness, and, if so, by what amount he fell short, and whether this amount was worth purchasing at the price of great effort.
• He alone is in kinship with God who has scorned wealth. Of course I do not forbid you to possess it, but I would have you reach the point at which you possess it dauntlessly; this can be accomplished only by persuading yourself that you can live happily without it as well as with it, and by regarding riches always as likely to elude you.
• Ungoverned anger begets madness. It makes no difference how important the provocation may be, but into what kind of soul it penetrates. Similarly with fire; it does not matter how great is the flame, but what it falls upon. For solid timbers have repelled a very great fire; conversely, dry and easily inflammable stuff nourishes the slightest spark into a conflagration.