Dear Fellow Mortals,
What do we turn to when life seems outwardly complete but still feels empty?
In this episode, recently brought to YouTube, “Therapy for the Soul” explores philosophy as a practice of examining our assumptions, clarifying our values, and asking what makes life meaningful.
Additionally, you’ll find another entry from Mortal: A Journal for Finite Living.
I hope you find something useful for daily life.
Mortal: A Journal for Finite Living
Mortal is a 91-day journal that pairs a short reading from Stoics, saints, and sages on how to live with two questions, one for the morning and one for the evening. It is less about death than about the days before it.
Listen to Dying Every Day on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, ...
Day 10: Never Quite Living
Mortal: A Journal for Finite Living
“So we never live,” wrote the French mathematician Blaise Pascal, “but we hope to live; and since we are always preparing to be happy, it is inevitable that we never are.”
He had not spent a day without pain since the age of eighteen, he told his sister.
In his notes, he described the habit behind that sentence: we never stay in the present. We reach toward the future as if it were too slow in coming, or back toward the past to stop its flight, and we wander through times that are not ours while neglecting the only one that is.
The reason, he thought, is that the present usually hurts.
So we hide it from view and use it only to arrange a future we may never reach.
The present is the only time that belongs to us, and a life spent getting ready is never lived.
Attend
What deserves my attention today?
Review
Where did my attention actually go?
This Week on Dying Every Day
Listen to Dying Every Day on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, ...
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Thank you for reading/listening this week; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, remember to live.
J.W.
P.S. Feel free to share your thoughts or suggestions.