Enough or Not Enough?

Adopt either one of the following claims as your own truth:

(A) If I were to die tonight, my life will have been long enough

(B) If I were to die tonight, my life will have been too short

Whichever claim you have chosen, that claim will be the very first sentence of a 600-word composition. In the remainder of the essay,I want you to accomplish two tasks. First, examine and explain why you chose to own the claim. What sense of life and purposedo you stand for in adopting this belief about your longevity? Second, I want you to accurately represent and respond toPlato's or Seneca's approval or disapproval of all or part of your explanation. There is plenty of room for personal explorationin the first taskand there is plenty of responsibility for a careful study of Plato's Phaedo and Seneca's "On the Shortness of Life" in the second task.

I cannot imagine doing this job adequately with fewer than 600 words, so you should accept this as the target minimum length for your essay. If you fall short, you should take a close look again at your work to see that you haven't missed something essential or significant. Your essay must be free of misspellings and grammatical defects. If you would like to get some professional help on this job, here are two things you can do:

1. Make an appointment with a tutor at the Writing & Learning Center. The staff there are experienced and effective editors who can help you in any stage of the writing process. Call them at 283-6326 to schedule an appointment.

2. Send me a draft of your work before 1:00 pm on Saturday, February 20. I will send you comments and suggestions before class on Monday, February 22, which gives you a couple of days to revise your draft.

Lastly, this may be useful to you for planning your time wisely. If I were writing this essay, I would think of it as a 7-hour task, start to finish, as follows:

1 hour- Exploring my own ideas, experiences and values in relation to the choice of (A) or (B), writing notes as I reflect.

3 hours- Studying Plato's Phaedo and the essays in Seneca's On the Shortness of Life, making notes on strong points of agreement or disagreement with my own ideas.

2 hours- Organizing and writing a good draft of my essay

1 hour- After allowing the first draft to cool for a day or two, revise, edit, and proofreak carefully.

Reading - On the Shortness of Life LUCIUS ANNAEUS SENECA TRANSLATED BY GARETH D. WILLIAMS.