🖼️ 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 Danish theologian and philosopher Søren Kierkegaard (1813—1855) on understanding life:
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
📜 Perennial Maxim(s)
The Chinese philosopher Zhuangzi (Chuang-Tzu, 369—298 B.C.E.) on happiness:
Follow Us: Instagram | Youtube
💡 Perennial Insight(s)
The American developmental psychologist Robert Kegan on making meaning:
Thus, it is not that a person makes meaning but rather that the activity of being a person is the activity of meaning-making. There is thus no feeling, experience, thought, or perception independent of a meaning-making context in which it becomes a feeling, an experience, a thought, or a perception because we are the meaning-making context. ‘Experience is not what happens to you,’ Aldous Huxley said, ‘it’s what you do with what happens to you’ (1972). And the most fundamental thing we do with what happens to us is organize it. We literally make sense. Human being is the composing of meaning, including, of course, the occasional inability to compose meaning, which we often experience as the loss of our own composure. […]
Source: The Evolving Self (1982)
—
Thank you for reading; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W. Bertolotti
P.S. If you’re interested in becoming a member but cannot afford it, feel free to request a complimentary membership or use this discount link.