10/09/2026
You take it for granted, but not everyone can do it.
As we said recently, the Roman emperor didn’t have the freedom to take a walk. It was too dangerous. He was too busy. So when Seneca wrote, “We should take wandering outdoor walks, so that the mind might be nourished and refreshed by the open air and deep breathing,” he was talking about a luxury that Nero didn’t enjoy. Seneca had it during his painful exile, but Nero lacked it on the Palatine. When Seneca wrote about the noise of the baths—a keystone of Roman life—and the messy, annoying, even disgusting humanity therein, he was speaking of an experience that, again, Nero, for all his power, would have mostly lost.
It’s not just emperors who lose these things we take for granted. Ask a celebrity what it’s like to lose their privacy or ability to be anonymous. Ask someone who has been injured—as Epictetus was—what it’s like to lose their mobility. Ask a prisoner or someone who has to work two or three jobs to support their family what it’s like to lose their free time.
We have power of movement—literally and figuratively—that not everyone has, that we ourselves might not get forever, either. We should not let it languish. We should appreciate and be grateful for it. We should get up and go for a walk. Instead of complaining about how crowded our favorite restaurant is, we should be glad to be able to share it with our fellow citizens. Instead of complaining about running errands, we should be glad we can do them for ourselves. Instead of complaining about traffic, we should be grateful we have somewhere to go—and the freedom to go there.
Enjoy it while you can. Enjoy it because you can. Not everyone gets to.