🖼️ Monday Muse
The Monday Muse is a weekly collection of reminders, insights, and maxims on the art of living. 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 American Jungian analyst and author Robert A. Johnson (1921—2018) on the shadow:
The shadow: What is this curious dark element that follows us like a saurian tail and pursues us relentlessly in our psychological world? What role does it occupy in the modern psyche?
The persona is what we would like to be and how we wish to be seen by the world. It is our psychological clothing that mediates between our true selves and our environment, just as our physical clothing presents an image to those we meet. The ego is what we are and know about consciously. The shadow is that part of us we fail to see or know. …
Curiously, people resist the noble aspects of their shadow more strenuously than they hide the dark sides. To draw the skeletons out of the closet is relatively easy, but to own the gold in the shadow is terrifying. […]
Source: Owning Your Own Shadow (via Reading & the Good Life)
📜 Perennial Maxim(s)
The Stoic philosopher Lucius Annaeus Seneca (4 BC—65 AD) on the importance of finding direction:
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💡 Perennial Insight(s)
The Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813—1855) on understanding life:
I will not lament the past—why lament? I will work energetically and not waste time in regrets, like the person stuck in a bog and first calculating how far he has sunk without recognizing that during the time he spends on that, he is sinking still deeper. …
Philosophy is perfectly right in saying that life must be understood backward. But then one forgets the other clause—that it must be lived forward. The more one thinks through this clause, the more one concludes that life in temporality never becomes properly understandable, simply because never at any time does one get perfect repose to take a stance—backward. […]
Source: The Essential Kierkegaard
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Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W. Bertolotti
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