Feeling down? Do that hard thing, the one you’re not doing (the one that probably explains feeling down on yourself). Impress yourself.

Objectively good. music.apple.com/us/music-video…

To live well and to live deeply, that is my concern. I used to trouble myself about whether that is the concern of philosophy. It was the concern of philosophy to the Greek and Hellenistic philosophers and to the existentialists. Contemporary philosophers are less inclined to

Goggins is an animal. Some find his extreme training absurd, unnecessary, even unhealthy. Maybe. Sure. But which is worse? Consistently outperforming one’s own expectations (which few do) or consistently falling short and eating shame daily (as most do)?

From Aurelius’ Meditations. Go ahead, keep on degrading yourself, soul.

Motivation from the ordinary — when it comes to a bad habit, often the ruin of a life, one typically has within himself the power to overcome it. Happens all the time.

One’s confidence or shame is in large part determined by his ability to keep promises, most of all the quiet ones he makes to himself.

To the philosophers: what is the aim of philosophy? Curious to know your answers.

Does not the honest seeker of knowledge grow weary of endless dialectic? If one is intellectually honest — has an “intellectual conscience,” as Nietzsche calls it — dialectic IS endless. Insofar as it is endless, it is exhausting, and thus its value gains a question mark.

The advice I received on day one of graduate school was: if you can imagine doing literally anything else, do that.

One of Thoreau’s best lines in Walden is “[We] think there is no choice left [to the common mode of living]. But alert and healthy natures remember that the sun rose clear.“ Barring extreme circumstances, it is never too late to change one’s life. One can wake up and begin.

I don’t have “answers to ultimate questions” on my list of goals. It seems that we won’t have them, at least not here below. I’m more interested in the significance of this strange fact with respect to what it is to be a human — that man and world are mysteries to man.

Life is going so fast because you're not injecting enough silence into your days. Spend an hour reading or writing or walking in silence and watch how your day seems to double in duration

Dostoevsky, life is a gift

"Philosophy is hard." - Peter Van Inwagen Simple and true.

Funny: we walk around every day like we know something about the whence, whither and what for of things.

One should do something, anything, and probably multiple things, that tie him to the seasons and make them matter. Run outside in the winter and anticipate the warmth of spring. Plant gardens and fight against encroachments. Even a daily walk would do it.

Kerouac and the Disciplined Life open.substack.com/pub/artofbecom…