The work concerns the rational use of spare time, whereby one can still actively aid humankind by engaging in wider questions about nature and the universe.

[4][5] In the Codex Ambrosianus C 90 (the main source for Seneca's essays) it is simply tacked onto the end of De Vita Beata suggesting a scribe missed a page or two.

He understood it to mean leisure used in service to the community by intellectual activity:[8] ... hoc nempe ab homine exigitur, ut prosit hominibus ... this of course is required of a human, to benefit their fellow humans In De Otio Seneca debates the appropriate life for a Stoic philosopher.

Seneca reports the standard position of the school that wise people will engage in public affairs, unless something prevents them.

[2] The superior position the sage (ho sophos) inhabits of detachment from earthly (terena) concerns, and an according freedom from possible future events of detrimental nature, is a unifying theme of the dialogue.