🖌️ Making the Best of Things, The False Self, Happiness, and Leading a Life
Monday Muse (Vol. 35)
Dear Friends,
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!
📿 Making the Best of Things
This week’s morning meditation is courtesy of The Wisdom School podcast (Apple or Spotify). Today’s meditation is a short reflection (delivered in a Lectio Divina style) from writings of the ancient Greek philosopher Aristotle.
📌 Perennial Reminder(s)
Our false self is who we think we are. It is our mental self-image and social agreement, which most people spend their whole lives living up to—or down to. It is all a fictional creation. It will die when we die. It is endlessly fragile, needy, and insecure, and it is what we are largely dealing with in the secular West. The false self is inherently fragile and needy because it has no metaphysical metaphysical substance whatsoever. It is formed entirely in psychological and mental time and changes or dies easily. Yet most people spend their entire lives projecting, protecting, and maintaining this fiction. The false self is passing, whimsical, and utterly preoccupied with self-maintenance and not much more. It is not your life at all, but merely your life circumstance passing for you. […]
Source: Adam’s Return by Richard Rohr
💡 Perennial Question(s)
Where do you find happiness?
The ordinary man places his life’s happiness in things external to him, in property, rank, wife and children, friends, society, and the like, so that when he loses them or finds them disappointing, the foundation of his happiness is destroyed. In other words, his centre of gravity is not in himself; it is constantly changing its place, with every wish and whim. If he is a man of means, one day it will be his house in the country, another buying horses, or entertaining friends, or traveling,—a life, in short, of general luxury, the reason being that he seeks his pleasure in things outside him. Like one whose health and strength are gone, he tries to regain by the use of jellies and drugs, instead of by developing his own vital power, the true source of what he has lost. […]
Source: The Wisdom of Life by Arthur Schopenhauer
🔥 Recommendation(s)
This week's recommendation is our upcoming course (free for Perennial Meditations members) titled Wisdom is the Way: The Timeless Art of Leading a Life. This course is an opportunity to start the year with wisdom!
🎧 Recent Podcast(s)
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Thank you for reading/listening; I hope you found something useful.
Until next time, be wise and be well,
J.W.
P.S. As always, if you’re interested in becoming a member but unable to afford it. Feel free to request a complimentary membership or use this discount link if you need a little help.