Should I Laugh or Cry at the World?
Seneca, Serenus, and being seasick on a calm sea
There is quite a peculiar kind of disquiet that arises from feeling unsettled when nothing is actually wrong. For example, today: my homework is done, my home is quite placid, and the weekend nears. Yet, as I scroll through the news before bed, a sort of ineffable queasiness begins to settle in. There is another conflict, another catastrophe, another scandal, and a societal issue which no one online seems to agree on. My own life is by all accounts perfectly fine and as it was a few minutes ago. Still, I set my phone down with an inexplicably worse feeling than when I picked it up.
Seasick on a Calm Sea
As it so happens, nearly two thousand years ago, a young Roman man named Serenus articulated this sentiment of malaise more eloquently than I ever could. On Tranquillity of Mind, written by Seneca, a Stoic philosopher and advisor to the emperor Nero, opens with his close friend Serenus confessing that he is neither sick nor well. Serenus reveres simple living, only to find himself beguiled at the sight of the resplendent luxury of a wealthy friend’s home. Serenus resolves to immerse himself in public life, but contrastingly yearns for nothing more than to withdraw from it. In other words, he wavers. Back and forth and back and forth and back again. He is seasick on a calm sea. No tempest rages around him, yet he cannot seem to keep his spirit steady.
A Philosopher Who Weeps and One Who Laughs
Seneca’s reply to Serenus pertains to many different subjects, but one passage in particular has lingered with me. He describes two philosophers with diametrically opposed reactions to humanity. Heraclitus, it is said, wept whenever he ventured out in public, overwhelmed by the foolishness of those who surrounded him. Democritus, by contrast, laughed in the face of the same situation. Both gazed upon the same world, but one perceived a tragedy and the other a comedy.
But how can this be? How can such wise men arrive at such different conceptions of societies, each seemingly precluding the other? Perhaps the answer lies in the one looking at the world rather than in the world itself.
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More importantly, though, which reaction do I have? Funnily enough, usually neither. I never weep at the news, nor do I find it particularly mirthful. Instead, I seem to languish in a grey zone in between. I scroll, enjoy positive stories, feel afraid at the negative ones, and always have a faint nauseousness while being unable to avert my eyes. This feeling, I suspect, is precisely what being seasick on a calm sea feels like.
Neither Laughter nor Tears?
Seneca, perhaps surprisingly, sides with Democritus. Laughter, he posits, is more humane than weeping; one who weeps at the world has deemed it worthy of despair, whereas one who laughs at it retains at least a faith that people might yet be capable of better. Yet Seneca does not simply stop there. He writes that “it is better to accept public morals and human vices calmly,” regarding the follies of the world with equanimity instead of either laughter or tears. For, to lament every misfortune that one comes across is to condemn oneself to a perpetual state of misery. To take delight in misfortune would simply be cruel.
Finding My Sea Legs
At first, this equanimity struck me as not much more than a state of apathy. Of course, the problems of the world are objectively real, and often harrowing. That cannot be argued. But, I have come to believe that Seneca’s supreme calmness resembles what is called finding one’s sea legs on a boat, which are the bodily adjustments sailors learn to make to keep their balance on a moving ship. The sea does not cease its incessant motion, but one simply learns to stop resisting every wave. One learns to stand upon the deck regardless of the motion.
Perhaps this is what Serenus needed, and what I need too: to remain attentive to the world without letting every harrowing headline or humorous development affect me too much.
So, the next time that familiar queasiness creeps in before bed, I will try to laugh first, gently, as Democritus might have. Should laughter elude me, I will set my phone down and wait for my sea legs to hopefully kick in.
Originally published at https://hdssblog.substack.com on November 12, 2026.
