3 of Seneca's Metaphors for Taking Notes
"We should see to it that whatever we have absorbed should not be allowed to remain unchanged"
We all have our own particular relationship to notes. Historically, conversations about notes have produced many metaphors to describe the unique alchemy that occurs when we inscribe ideas onto the pages of our notebooks. Indeed, something magical seems to happen when we write out quotes and ideas from various sources in such a way that we are able to blend them into an entirely new piece of writing.
Of course, notes don’t always oblige us. Sometimes my notes feel like a tangle of yarn; if I could only pull the right thread the mess would unravel, and I’d be able to write. Other times, my notes feel like a treasure-chest of invaluable ideas, and I’m overwhelmed by my bounty.
Seneca the younger (c. 4 BC – AD 65) recorded several of history’s most common metaphors for note-taking, including the honey-bee. For this reason, I’ve anointed Seneca the patron saint of Noted.
Reading, Seneca claimed, is indispensable. When tired from writing, he found that reading “nourishes the mind and refreshes it.”1 To explain how reading benefited him, Seneca offered several evocative metaphors—including my all time favorite, the honey-bee!
1) The Bee
The Spider and the Bee have fought one another since antiquity. In Aesop’s parable, the two industrious creatures argue over which is the better artist. The Spider, entirely dependent upon itself, spins a web from within. On the other hand, the Bee can do little alone; instead, it searches for pollen while flying among flowers. Afterwards, the Bee combs through its supply and blends the best parts into a honeyed whole. The metaphor of the Spider and the Bee is fundamentally about the act of creation, and, historically, the Bee has emerged victorious. After all, the Spider proves to be a less sympathetic character: it kills with its industry, while the bee nourishes.
Seneca beautifully captured how the honey-bee’s work resembles copying out quotations in one’s notebook. He suggests that we ought to vary our reading and extract useful material from various sources.
We also, I say, ought to copy these bees, and sift whatever we have gathered from a varied course of reading, for such things are better preserved if they are kept separate; then, by applying the supervising care with which our nature has endowed us, – in other words, our natural gifts, – we should so blend those several flavours into one delicious compound that, even though it betrays its origin, yet it nevertheless is clearly a different thing from that whence it came.2
(As Seneca admits, science was inconclusive at the time as to whether bees gathered honey from flowers or another substance that they then used to produce honey.)
2) The Stomach
Like the honey-bee’s work, the stomach synthesizes diverse materials to nourish the body. With this metaphor, Seneca highlights the importance of “digesting” our reading so that we can make it our own.
So it is with the food which nourishes our higher nature, – we should see to it that whatever we have absorbed should not be allowed to remain unchanged, or it will be no part of us. We must digest it; otherwise it will merely enter the memory and not the reasoning power. Let us loyally welcome such foods and make them our own, so that something that is one may be formed out of many elements…3
Our food holds little value to us if it is not digested. Similarly, gathering information does little for us if we don’t synthesize it with the rest of our knowledge. Failing this, we merely memorize information. In fact, scholars have argued that simply copying information (without reflection) is the biggest problem with keeping a commonplace book.
3) The Chorus
Continuing with his theme of blending a variety of different ingredients to create a new entity, Seneca introduces the metaphor of a choir.
Do you not see how many voices there are in a chorus? Yet out of the many only one voice results. In that chorus one voice takes the tenor another the bass, another the baritone. There are women, too, as well as men, and the flute is mingled with them. In that chorus the voices of the individual singers are hidden; what we hear is the voices of all together. 4
With the chorus, we learn that each individual component matters, but not as much as the overall whole.
Notes on Seneca’s Notes
Prioritize the whole rather than the parts: when it comes to writing, often we want to share more than would benefit the piece. In my final edits, I often delete factoids and quotations that interest me but detract from my overall message. As I tell my students, good writing is good editing. Take out all the bits that don’t benefit the whole.
Good input=good output: to be a great writer, we must be great readers. I’ve found that the quality of the texts I read influences the quality of the writing I produce. This is not to say there isn’t a place for simple entertainment—we all need a break! My point is that we should reserve time to sit with sophisticated ideas because doing so trains our minds to think on a higher level, which, in turn, benefits our writing.
It’s all in the combination: many thinkers (including Einstein) discuss creativity as a kind of “combinatory play.”5 Reading gives us more pieces to play with—more combinatory possibilities. Just as honey from different regions takes on different flavors, the combination of our reading produces different flavors in our own thought and writing.
Thank you for your support, which allows me to keep writing these posts! Your ❤️’s and comments inspire me. As always, I would love to know your thoughts.
What metaphors come to mind when you think of your own note-taking process?
Till Monday,
Seneca, Lucius Annaeus. Epistle LXXXIV, Loeb Classical Library, Harvard University Press, 1971.
Seneca, Epistle LXXXIV.
Seneca, Epistle LXXXIV.
Seneca, Epistle LXXXIV.
I resonate with what Lynda Barry says: “For me the trick is to see the page as a place rather than a thing. I’m just wandering in this place as a stranger.”
Thank you for this post! I once watched a painter for about an hour, and it changed my understanding of creativity. Over and over, the painter would pause, waiting, in front of her half finished canvas, then suddenly gather some color on her brush and swoop in. Sometimes she would lay in a new element; most times, it was a single stroke. Then another pause, waiting. I saw how writing, for me, was exactly like that, each successive thought arriving ONLY after the last one had been received and laid down in words. The painter could only know where to put the next dab of paint after seeing the last one, and my words are simply translations of a dialog between me-the-writer and some other place of knowing.