Why and how life deserves to be lived

“Life does not consist in living, but in being healthy” (

): with a single line from one of his epigrams —miracle of good poetry!—, Marco Valerio Marcial invites us to capture to the flight the importance of "living well".

Indeed, for the Latin writer what matters is not "living" itself, but the "quality" of the life we ​​live.

Life can only be considered life if it deserves to be lived.

And it can be lived fully especially when you are in good health.

In other words: those afflicted with illness and suffering could, in particular, lead an existence without the necessary prerogatives to make it worth living.

If life is reduced to mere biological survival, can it be considered life?

And what is the dividing line between life and non-life?

It is not easy, if not impossible, to answer questions that inevitably affect all human beings.

In the face of such delicate issues, there are no universal thresholds;

It is up to each one to decide at which specific point to draw the limit between one shore and the other.

A limit that cannot be predetermined theoretically, but should be grasped only when, in fact, our precarious physical conditions make us aware of the impossibility of continuing, of the loss of our dignity, of the lack of interest in what until yesterday it had stimulated our vitality.

It is no coincidence that Marcial's verse —which bases the essence of life precisely on “good health”— returns insistently in the current debate on euthanasia, often encouraged by religious or ideological prejudices.

Some argue that it is better to wait for the end decreed by nature.

Others, on the other hand —relegating earthly life to a mere parenthesis at the service of the "beyond"— think that the human being is not allowed to decide on his existence, because life is a divine gift and, therefore, only corresponds to the divinity grant it and remove it.

But why impose these points of view, legitimate for those who agree with them, also on those who want to determine their lives?

Why prevent a human being from drawing the line between life and non-life for himself?

Why prevent a human being from drawing the line between life and non-life for himself?

It is necessary to resort to the splendid pages of Seneca to approach the issues we have just mentioned from a different angle.

In one of the letters addressed to Lucilius, the Roman philosopher mocks the "embarrassing prayer" of Maecenas, the influential adviser to Augustus and protector of writers and artists.

The generous benefactor, in effect, says he is willing to accept “sickness and deformity” and even the sharp pain of a torture post as long as “the breath of life lasts longer”: “Make me weak in hand, / weak-footed crippled, / make me grow a great hump, / let my trembling teeth fall out: / as long as I have life, all is well;

/ even if I had to sit on the top / of a piercing post, let me keep it.”

Seneca, attacking Maecenas, harshly criticizes those who, for fear of death, would like to preserve life at all costs.

Is it worth submitting to torture and suffering to prolong life?

“But can it be defined as life”, writes the Latin philosopher, “a creeping death?

Is it possible, then, to find someone who wanted to rot under torture and die limb by limb and exhale the soul drop by drop instead of exhaling it all at once?

For Seneca, in short, "it is not convenient (...) to preserve life in any case" because it "is not a good in itself";

what counts “is to live as one should” (

).

But here, with respect to Marcial's verses, the horizon widens.

Living well is not just about having good health;

it also concerns the wider universe of intellectual and moral activities.

Those who aspire to wisdom, according to the Stoic view, "are always concerned with the quality of life, not the quantity of life."

Living well is not just about having good health;

it also concerns the wider universe of intellectual and moral activities

To live well, each individual must fight to give meaning to their life, to make it worth living.

But even in this case there is no global model to propose.

Throughout the centuries, philosophers, artists, writers and scientists have tried to guide their lives towards goals that could make it more worthy.

Giordano Bruno, for example, dedicated extraordinary reflections to the theme of the dignity of life, making his existence coincide in an exemplary way with the effort to seek truth and perfection.

It is this effort, regardless of the result, that gives true meaning to our existence: even a defeat can become glorious if we have committed ourselves with all our strength on the path to the goal.

This is an essential knot that covers many pages of his Italian and Latin works.

And precisely in this context, Bruno wonders about the attitude that should be adopted in the adventure of knowledge and in life.

Thus, in his first Italian dialogue,

(1584), the philosopher inquires about the difficulties inherent in any difficult undertaking.

The skills required and the tests to pass are many.

But the most important thing is not so much "winning the canopy", but running with dignity: "Although it is not possible to reach the point of winning the canopy, run nevertheless and do everything you can in such an important matter, resisting until the last encouragement of your spirit (...) Not only does the only individual who has won the race deserve honors, but also all those who have run so exalted as to be judged equally worthy and capable of having won it, even if they were not the winners”.

The fundamental element is the attitude, not the result.

Victory does not depend only on us.

But the end of our competition is not the canopy.

What matters is the experience we have in running towards the finish line.

In fact, only during the trip will it be possible to enrich oneself, acquiring the knowledge that will make us heroic human beings, worthy human beings, human beings capable of fighting every day to be better.

Human beings capable of transforming their philosophy into a way of life.

Cervantes' Don Quixote could be considered the quintessential hero who struggles to give meaning to his life.

Contrary to the opinion of his contemporaries —convinced “that all books of chivalry are false, liars, damaging and useless for the republic” to the point of mercilessly burning them at the stake—, the brave hidalgo does not hesitate to take the difficult path of chivalry, inspired by gratuitousness, by the sole need to enthusiastically serve their ideals.

Cervantes, in short, makes contradiction one of the great themes of his novel: if the invectives against chivalric books sound like an incitement to disappointment, in Don Quixote we also find the exaltation of illusion that, through passion by ideals, manages to give meaning to life.

The futility and gratuitousness of his adventures can still leave their mark;

they reveal the need to bravely confront even doomed ventures.

There are glorious defeats from which great things can emerge over time: "The truth thins and does not break, and always walks on the lie, like oil on water."

In Don Quixote we find the exaltation of the illusion that, through the passion for ideals, manages to give meaning to life

And among the noblest goals that can give meaning to our lives is also that of cultivating human solidarity.

Auguste Comte wrote: "Duty and happiness consist equally in living for others."

And the happiness of living for others has been evoked several times in literature.

I think of Goethe's Wilhelm Meister, or Tolstoy's

in their profound reflections on the joy generated by their effort poured out to humanize humanity.

Living well, in short, does not consist only in taking care of our body: the pleasures we experience with sports, the Mediterranean diet and the so-called "wellness centers" are not enough.

And in the same way, to defend ourselves from the risk of diseases, it is not enough to follow the precepts of the medical industry, which sometimes become insistent obsessions.

For self-care, it is also necessary to pay attention to mental and moral health.

Cultivating physical health as a moment of recharging and then resuming, in daily life, the crazy rhythms of production based on the speed and accumulation of material goods is not only dangerous, but also unrewarding.

Putting aside the ideal lifestyles offered by rampant consumerism and rapacious neoliberalism, we should learn to waste time,

to devote our attention to activities that have nothing to do with profit or any material interest.

Learning to look away from ourselves for a moment would allow us to become aware of the progressive destruction of the planet and the terrible inequalities that are widening the abyss between a privileged few and many who suffer.

Reading a book, listening to music, visiting a museum, watching a sunset does not mean wasting time, but earning it to feed our spirit, cultivate our human relationships and give dignity to our lives.

These are alternative models, in clear opposition to the dominant fashions that impoverish the idea of ​​living well.

Models on which the classics and art invite us to reflect.

Living with dignity does not mean thinking only in the narrow perimeter of our abject selfishness.

Because, as Albert Einstein also recalled in an epigrammatic statement published in

“only a life lived for others is a life worth living”

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