溫故知新 Old wisdom, today’s insight — ONGO
Seize the Day — How Much Do We Trust Tomorrow?
If tomorrow cannot be promised, how should we live today to leave no regret?
Seize the day, trusting tomorrow as little as you can.
Carpe diem, from a single line of Horace, became a symbol of the Western view of time. The song grew from the same Stoic and Epicurean root as Seneca's "reclaim today" and Aurelius's "only the present is ours." Yet later the phrase split two ways — one an existential waking to live today earnestly, mindful of death (memento mori); the other a slogan of pleasure, enjoy today and never mind tomorrow. Robert Herrick carried the spirit with "gather ye rosebuds," and modern existentialism revived it as resolve before finite time. What it means to seize the day still lives on the fork of that interpretation.
For us, so often pawning today to tomorrow's plans, this ancient counsel to gather the day makes us ask again what we are living for.
Horace offers this famous line to a friend trying to divine the future.
📝I, Too, Stand Before It
Horace offers this famous line to a friend trying to divine the future. Do not ask how much time the gods will grant us — the question is vain; only gather today and trust tomorrow as little as you can. The line is often mistaken for a slogan of pleasure, but its meaning is otherwise. I sense this question is counsel not of dissipation but of maturity: do not pawn your life to a tomorrow that has not come, but gather whole the day now in hand. Did I gather today, or let it slip? I too receive this question each dusk.
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