On the Happy Life, Section 14

Seneca — The Senator

I can push this comparison even further. Think about a hunter who tracks wild animals back to their caves. He values setting traps to catch wandering beasts and making his hounds surround the forest so he can follow their tracks. But doing this means he ignores far more important things and leaves many duties undone. The same thing happens to someone who chases pleasure. He puts everything else second to it. He ignores the most important thing of all — his freedom — and trades it away to satisfy his appetites. He doesn't buy pleasure for himself. He sells himself to pleasure.

Seneca — The Senator Original

I may even press this analogy further: as the man who tracks wild animals to their lairs, and who sets great store on—

"Seeking with snares the wandering brutes to noose,"

and

"Making their hounds the spacious glade surround,"

that he may follow their tracks, neglects far more desirable things, and leaves many duties unfulfilled, so he who pursues pleasure postpones everything to it, disregards that first essential, liberty, and sacrifices it to his belly; nor does he buy pleasure for himself, but sells himself to pleasure.

Seneca — The Senator

This happens because people lack self-control and secretly love what's bad for them. It's dangerous to chase evil instead of good — because you might actually get it. Think about hunting wild animals. It's hard and risky work. Even after you catch them, they're trouble to keep. They often turn on their handlers and attack them. Great pleasures work the same way. They become great evils that take control of their owners. The more pleasures you have, and the bigger they are, the more you become a slave to them. Yet this is the person most people call 'happy.'

Seneca — The Senator Original

This arises from an exaggerated want of self-control, and a hidden love of evil: for it is dangerous for one who seeks after evil instead of good to attain his object. As we hunt wild beasts with toil and peril, and even when they are caught find them an anxious possession, for they often tear their keepers to pieces, even so are great pleasures: they turn out to be great evils and take their owners prisoner. The more numerous and the greater they are, the more inferior and the slave of more masters does that man become whom the vulgar call a happy man.