Greetings Readers!
Here is the latest Monday Muse with a morning meditation, perennial reminder, question, and recommendation(s) to consider.
Be wise and be well this week!
📿 Morning Meditation
This week’s morning meditation is courtesy of The Wisdom School podcast (Apple or Spotify). Today’s meditation is a short selected reading (delivered in a Lectio Divina style) inspired by the Tao Te Ching by Lao Tzu.
📌 Perennial Reminder(s)
I leave Sisyphus at the foot of the mountain! One always finds one’s burden again. But Sisyphus teaches the higher fidelity that negates the gods and raises rocks. He too concludes that all is well. This universe henceforth without a master seems to him neither sterile nor futile. Each atom of that stone, each mineral flake of that night-filled mountain, in itself forms a world. The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man’s heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.
Source: Myth of Sisyphus by Albert Camus (via Reading & the Good Life)
💡 Perennial Question(s)
What does it mean to be productive?
This strange moment in history, when time feels so unmoored, might in fact provide the ideal opportunity to reconsider our relationship with it. Older thinkers have faced these challenges before us, and when their wisdom is applied to the present day, certain truths grow more clearly apparent. Productivity is a trap. Becoming more efficient just makes you more rushed, and trying to clear the decks simply makes them fill up again faster.
Source: Four Thousand Weeks by Oliver Burkeman (Listen to the conversation).
🔥 Recommendation(s)
This week’s recommendation is from the series Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers by Princeton University Press. Specifically, the book How to Grow Old: Ancient Wisdom for the Second Half of Life by Marcus Tullius Cicero. It connects with our perennial question about productivity and discerning what truly matters.
Another recommendation to consider is a recent episode of The One You Feed, hosted by Eric Zimmer (a previous podcast guest). In a recent episode, Eric connected with Krista Tippett from the On Being Project to discuss living the questions, contemplative reading, and other topics.
Thank you for reading/listening; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
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Sisyphus/Camus: “Amor fati”?!