“Do you suppose that human life can seem any great matter to a man of elevated mind who has embraced the whole of time and the whole of reality in his thoughts?" -Marcus Aurelius
John Keats is known for terming the phrase negative capability—that of being able to exist with mental uncertainty. As a poet, the particular context in which the concept originated for Keats was that of art and the pursuit of artistic vision even when it leads to uncertain conclusions. In other words, the best art required an acceptance of what one does not know, and that one does not know things. In Keats’ eyes, requiring complete and utter certainty was a hinderance to possibility, versus an assurance.
Playwright and philosopher Seneca provocatively quipped that the person without difficulty, and for these purposes, uncertainty, "has not been permitted to prove themselves." In other words, a slight bit of uncertainty could be seen as a useful edge in the pursuit of any endeavor. It is precisely the not knowing that generates the behaviors and choices we may consider to be our most productive.
Tantalizing as complete and utter certainty is, the most compelling future may require that we lean into the mystery, so aware of the variables of life that our focus turns to bringing our best selves to it.
And so it follows that any future is the byproduct of the intent brought to today.
Read more"Who can doubt...that life is the gift of the immortal gods, but that living well is the gift of philosophy?" -Seneca
We hear it time and time again: enjoy the process. A step further, many esteemed individuals hold fast to the idea that success requires an enjoyment of, or at least a commitment to, the process. While true for anyone who seeks to accomplish anything of note, we needn’t isolate the significance of process only to pursuits of particular feats of achievement. Contentment in life itself and in its component parts requires an acknowledgement of the following: much of life is process. Much of life is the in between. Life can be milestones (particularly when we imagine the reel of our lives), but most of life’s experiential content is what happens between them—the small comprising and enabling the context for the big. Life is as much ceremonies and summits as are the days of hoping, seeking, sulking, and training that went into them. Life is the whole and the parts, the beginning, middle, and end. It’s you on vacation and the you working diligently before and after it. It’s the business launch and the buildup, as the latter is where the meaningful work took place.
Living well requires the diligent referencing of our own internal barometer. Bombarded with imagery of what living "should" look like, it becomes critical to determine what it looks like for us, and at times even more revealingly, what it doesn’t.
Read more“Philosophy has taught [us] to be grateful for life and yet unafraid of dying.” -Donald Robertson
Death occupies the dissonant space comprised of things that are both discomfort-inducing and yet entirely natural. It is life’s natural constant, and yet we’re terrified by it. We fear death because we feel it threatens something—likely a reality we’ve yet to realize, or one of which we’re just on the brink. Rather than fearing the inevitability that is death, perhaps we should fear not living in a way that, when death approaches, we can face it contentedly.
It could be said that many people who fear death aren’t living in a way that justifies that fear. Our tendency to be jolted into action only when we sense a window of opportunity closing indicates our general comfort with coasting. We coast until we can’t anymore, until someone holds us accountable or until our livelihoods depend on taking an action we’ve put off. Our aim, however, is to not require extreme circumstances to show up for our lives.
Read moreWhy does philosophy matter? The answer to this is as complex as it is simple, and for the purposes of kicking things off, we’ll start simple. Philosophy matters because whether consciously or subconsciously, some philosophy is guiding your life. Depending on how much control you’ve taken over your guiding philosophy, this fact should be either wonderfully empowering or completely horrifying. So, if there is indeed a philosophy guiding your life (be it one of your conscious choosing or not), why wouldn’t we want to take complete control over which one? Philosophy, in my opinion, is best defined as this- the set of thoughts and ideas that inform how we perceive our lives and the world at-large.
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