Massimo Pigliucci

And that reminds me of one of my favorite passages in Epictetus, where he says that we should not pine after figs in winter.

And what he meant by that is like, you know...

Figs are available during the summer.

When they are available, eat them.

Enjoy them.

Not a problem.

But when the winter comes, accept the fact that this is not the season for figs.

Don't say, oh, if only there were figs in winter.

Well, there aren't.

That's just the way nature works.

And the idea is to apply that to our life and enjoy our friends, our loved ones,

When they are around, sometimes we have this attitude of taking things and people for granted and then only realizing later on when they're gone that, oh, I should have spent more time.

I should have been doing this or that or the other.

So she did exactly the right thing.

She enjoyed the figs when they were in during the summertime.

Now, of course, then comes the regret, the grief, the part of the figs in winter stuff.

Now there, I would say...

One of the best things that I've read about grief from a Stoic perspective is Seneca's letter to his friend Marcia.

Marcia had lost an adult son.

I think he probably went off to war, and that's a perilous thing to do, so he didn't come back.