Dear Readers,
Here is the latest Monday Muse with a guided meditation from the Dying Every Day series, a perennial reminder, and insight to consider.
Be wise and be well this week!
💀 Dying Every Day
The Dying Every Day series delivers guided meditations on the art of living (and dying). Each meditation provides a quote, a selected passage (from an original Stoic text), and a daily exercise to contemplate.
“If you would attain real freedom, you must be the slave of philosophy.”
— Epicurus
Selected Passage
In this week’s meditation, we explore the art of living (and dying) through a selected reading from Seneca.
It is clear to you, I am sure, Lucilius, that no man can live a happy life, or even a supportable life, without the study of wisdom; you know also that a happy life is reached when our wisdom is brought to completion, but that life is at least endurable even when our wisdom is only begun. This idea, however, clear though it is, must be strengthened and implanted more deeply by daily reflection; it is more important for you to keep the resolutions you have already made than to go on and make noble ones. You must persevere and develop new strengths through continuous study until that which is only a good inclination becomes a good settled purpose.
Examine, scrutinize, and observe yourself in various ways, but mark, before all else, that you have made progress, whether in philosophy or merely in life itself.
Philosophy is no trick to catch the public; it is not devised for show. It is a matter not of words but of facts. It is not pursued in order that the day may yield some amusement before it is spent or that our leisure may be relieved of a tedium that irks us. It molds and constructs the soul; it orders our life, guides our conduct, shows us what we should do and what we should leave undone; it sits at the helm and directs our course as we waver amid uncertainties. […]
+Adapted from On Philosophy, the Guide of Life
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Daily Exercise
It’s easy to confuse learning a new theory with making philosophical progress. However, Epictetus told his students, “Do not talk about your philosophy. Embody it.” How can you remember to embody your philosophy in daily life?
📌 Perennial Reminder(s)
The author and professor Ross D. Inman (a previous podcast guest) on philosophy as a therapy for the soul:
For ancient philosophers, both Christian and non-Christian, philosophy’s chief aim is to help one structure one’s life to properly see and orient oneself to the world, ultimately for the sake of living well. Philosophy, in the words of the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca, ‘tells us how to live, not how to talk.’ ... Philosophy was a kind of care or therapy of the soul, not in the thin, modern sense of making you feel better about yourself but in the older, thicker sense of promoting the objective health of the soul. […]
Source: Christian Philosophy as a Way of Life (via In Search of Wisdom)
💡 Perennial Insight(s)
The professor and author Alan Jacobs on wisdom and discernment:
If it is foolish to think that we can carry with us all the good things from the past—from our personal past or that of our culture—while leaving behind all the unwanted baggage, it is a counsel of despair and, I think, another kind of foolishness to think that if we leave behind the errors and miseries of the past, we must also leave behind everything that gave that world its savor. Wisdom lies in discernment, and utopianism and nostalgia alike are ways of abandoning discernment. […]
Source: Breaking Bread with the Dead
🎧 Recent Podcast(s)
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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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