The real sting here lies in Seneca's diagnosis of our *consistency problem*—we don't simply want too much, we want badly, which is different. We're cautious about mortality when it comes to our vulnerabilities (our health, our loved ones' safety), yet we scheme and strive for desires as though we have infinite time and consequence-free outcomes. A person might spend decades postponing a difficult conversation with an estranged parent out of fear that death could come tomorrow, then splurge recklessly on status symbols they convince themselves they "need," betting on decades of future income to justify it. The paradox isn't that we're contradictory—it's that we're selectively rational, applying the arithmetic of scarcity where it serves our caution and the arithmetic of infinity where it serves our hunger.