I’ve been sitting with this theory for a while that what matters most is who you are when all your stuff is stripped away – your house, your car, your bank account. Who are then then?
I think Sophia Loren is right by focusing in on your skills and your positive impact – and tying that to eternal youth. 🤩 Have you noticed that great musicians like Bob Dylan, Willie Nelson, and Paul McCartney just keep going and going?
There is a fountain of youth: it is your mind, your talents, the creativity you bring to your life and the lives of people you love.
This time he’s riffing on Aristotle’s function argument about what the heck we’re even doing here. Basically, we’re here to be useful.
A musician must make music, an artist must paint, a poet must write, if he is to be ultimately at peace with himself. What a man can be, he must be. This need we may call self-actualization.
(Apparently he was an old-school fan of the “he/him/man” pronoun. 🤷🏻♂️)
It’s one thing to find your purpose — and those who do so should consider themselves fortunate. But the real trick is to actually do something about it.
It refers to man’s desire for self-fulfillment, namely, to the tendency for him to become actually in what he is potentially: to become everything that one is capable of becoming.
Thank you for the reminder, Mazzy. Can I call you that? Because here’s another Mazzy who found her purpose.
Cool quote from this TED talk about almost dying and then living.
Meaning is not found in the material realm; it’s not in dinner, jazz, cocktails or conversation. Meaning is what’s left when everything else is stripped away.
There are lots of way to interpret that quote, of course.
One way I look at it is this: life is about who you are. If everything in your life suddenly disappeared and you were dropped into an empty field in an unknown country, what person would be standing there?
I’m not talking about some crazy Naked and Afraid survival scenario. Suppose you have some money and some clothes. But not much else. Who is that person standing in the field? What does he know? What does he want? How does he move forward? How will he impact the world around him? That’s who you are.
I’m not actually sure if that’s what that quote meant ☝️, but there’s my take. 😆
This goes with Aristotle’s idea that the meaning of life is what you do — how you impact the real world. As humans, we are uniquely gifted with smart brains and “rational faculty”. We are happiest when we use these minds for some purpose in the world.
A poet should write, a teacher teach, and a doctor heal. Not only should each person do their thing, but they should do it well.
I don’t know about you, but I find that pretty inspirational. 😊
Mental Break Town 