🖌️ Monday Muse
The Monday Muse is a weekly collection of reminders, insights, and maxims. The term “muse” has two meanings: (1) a state of deep thought; and (2) a source of inspiration. May the following (in a small way) be a source of contemplation, insight, and wisdom to live your highest good.
📌 Perennial Reminder(s)
The existential philosopher Albert Camus on Sisyphus, meaning, and happiness:
All Sisyphus’ silent joy is contained therein. His fate belongs to him. His rock is his thing. … There is no sun without shadow, and it is essential to know the night. The absurd man says yes, and his effort will henceforth be unceasing. …
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: The Myth of Sisyphus (via Reading & the Good Life)
📜 Perennial Maxim(s)
The Roman statesman and philosopher Marcus Tullius Cicero on the perils of indecision:
How do you avoid becoming ‘stuck’ in difficult decisions as you navigate life?
💡 Perennial Insight(s)
The author and professor emeritus of classics A.A. Long on becoming free:
The first lesson of the Encheiridion, his handbook guide to Stoicism, insists that everything that is truly our own doing is naturally free, unimpeded, and unconstrained. … You can be externally free and internally a slave, controlled by psychological masters in the form of disabling desires, passions, and cravings. Conversely, you could be outwardly obstructed or even in literal bondage but internally free from frustration and disharmony, so free in fact that you found yourself in charge of your own well-being, lacking little or nothing that you could not provide for yourself. The latter, in essence, is the freedom that Epictetus, the ancient Stoic philosopher, made the central theme of his teaching. […]
Source: How to Be Free (via Princeton University Press’s series Ancient Wisdom for Modern Readers)
🎧 Latest Podcast(s)
The Wisdom School podcast is back with clips from In Search of Wisdom and selected readings on the art of living. In this episode, you’ll hear a portion of my conversation with Mark Matousek (author of Lessons from an American Stoic).
🎧 Listen on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
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