The Collapse: Letter I

April 27, 20XX

My Dear Lucilius:

I am pleased – indeed, entirely overwhelmed – at receiving this communication from you after, what has it been now? A year? Two? Time, as I am sure you can understand, flows much different now than it did before. A great deal of it has to do with my somewhat rushed withdrawal from the world of regular employment - the seasons and indeed perhaps the months are within my grasp but not so often the days. No longer having the press of a work week upon me, my life has returned to a rhythm of seasonality that serves it well.

I had hoped you would respond to my missive – and yes, even in this “backwater”, as you term it, we still have access to the greater wide world. Not as quickly as you would enjoy or desire, of course, but enough for me.

I quite agree with you that the visit I had to which I had referred – that rather confused young woman from the Industrial-Government Cooperation Council – was more jarring to me than I care to admit. That is part of the reason that I reached out to you and others. Sadly, you seem to be the only one who responded to me. That someone was willing to take time and treasure to drive to a small town in the middle of nowhere on the slim hope of convincing a man some years retired to re-enter the labor force suggests that either there is a high degree of efficiency currently in operation in the government – something I have not really seen in all my years – or that desperation is finally starting to take hold.

I am sure you find my concerns slightly overplayed – as you put it, for forty plus years I have looked for the ending of the world and it has yet to arrive. That said, your response convinces me that something is afoot – indeed, if you are concerned, surely I have great reason to be so!

I have not followed the international scene as much as you have, judging from your questions – my interests have become far more local and practical, with the exception of the economy, something even a gainfully retired person takes a great deal of interest in. Even domestic politics have become much less of a concern than they once were, as I seem to have little enough of a voice to use in the modern era and a rather healthy interest in remaining as invisible and unremarkable as possible.

You may wonder that I address this letter to you as Lucilius. There is still some wisdom in being as anonymous as possible – after all, one no longer knows who and who is not viewing these sorts of things and I would just as soon have neither of us identified, or at least make someone work very hard to do it. So in the fashion of Letters to a Stoic we shall correspond, you and I, as did Seneca and his friend Lucilius – not on matters of Stoicism of a former age but rather on life in the changed age in which we live.

I look forward to the conversation, my friend. Be well.

- Seneca