Albert Camus on meaning, Bruce Lee’s never-before-seen writings and more
3 new ideas on smarter living
Hello everyone,
Postanly Weekly is a reader-supported smarter living newsletter. To support my work, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $7 per month or $40 for an entire year. With a modest yearly contribution you’re not only helping keep Postanly Weekly going, you also get free access to Thinking Toolbox (mental models for life) and Mental Wealth Toolbox (practical concepts for smarter decisions).
In partnership with Week Plan
Inspired by "7 habits of highly effective people" and "Getting things done".
Week Plan is an online weekly planner that helps you be more effective rather than productive. The app pairs your tasks with your goals and helps you claim back time and focus on what's important for yourself, family and work. Clarify your roles (as a busy parent, manager or team worker).
Albert Camus on the real meaning of life
The meaning of life has been a big philosophical question since the beginning of time. Life is full of uncertainty and tragedy. It’s easy to feel lost and confused. But there’s also beauty in the world.
We all crave answers to the big questions about life. Who are we? What is our purpose? Why are we here? How should we live? And so on.
And it’s important to try to find beauty in everything you do. That can help give your life some meaning.
I like what Lao Tzu once said, “Life is a series of natural and spontaneous changes. Don’t resist them; that only creates sorrow. Let reality be reality. Let things flow naturally forward in whatever way they like.”
When you look for meaning, you’re trying to find something that makes sense.
Albert Camus is one of the most important and influential writers in the history of existentialism. His works span a variety of genres, including fiction, plays, journalism and essays. He was a philosopher, author, and journalist.
His most famous work of literature is The Stranger, which was published in 1946. This short biography will tell you more about Albert Camus and his life as an influential philosopher.
Many people regard him as one of the most influential thinkers of the 20th century because he had such a profound influence on modern thinking regarding ethics, logic, history and human existence.
The truth of absurdism
“You will never be happy if you continue to search for what happiness consists of. You will never live if you are looking for the meaning of life.” — Albert Camus
Albert Camus wrote brilliantly about the absurdities of human existence, challenging conventional thinking on various subjects.
Camus was the pioneer of absurdism — a philosophical idea that life is meaningless and humans are forced to recognize this truth.
At the heart of his philosophy is the idea that life is absurd. “The absurd is the essential concept and the first truth,” he said.
Camus believed that this realization was liberating because it freed us from the need to cling to false beliefs and traditions. When faced with unavoidable truths or completely meaningless events, we find ourselves in a state of absurdity.
Camus believed that we must learn to accept and embrace the absurdity of life if we are to live in peace with ourselves. “There is no love of life without despair of life,” he once said.
Camus, in his essay “The Meaning of Life” (1956), poses a question that is often discussed. He asks: “What is the meaning of life?” Although there is no one answer to this question, Camus’ essay offers many insights into what this question means and why it should be considered important.
His essay begins by taking a philosophical look at life’s purpose. Camus asserts that life has meaning when we live it well and make the most of our limited time on earth.
He says that our lives have meaning when we are true to ourselves, take responsibility for our actions, and make the most of our time.
Camus emphasizes that we should live our lives with purpose and meaning in mind. Camus also discusses the meaning of life in the context of work.
He argues that work has meaning when we do what we love, contribute to society, and are good stewards of our environment.
Camus believes that work can give us a sense of purpose and fulfilment in our lives. “Without work, all life goes rotten. But when work is soulless, life stifles and dies,” he says.
In essence, life is not always easy, but it can be rewarding if we choose to live by its values. Life is a test of our moral character, and we have to prove ourselves time and time again if we want to succeed. But if we fail, there is always another chance at redemption.
Life is not linear — embrace the long process rather than dreading the end result
“Don’t worry about failure. Worry about the things that might go wrong if you’re successful” is one of Camus’ powerful statements for anyone wanting to be successful in any endeavour.
He believed that the meaning of life is up to each person to decide for themselves and not be constrained by society’s expectations of what makes someone a good or worthy person.
If you can accept this idea, there’s no reason you should worry about what others think of your potential failure(s). Instead, worry about the things that might go wrong if you’re successful, like being unable to maintain the level of success you’re currently enjoying.
While life is inherently tragic, meaning is hidden in the appreciation of everyday experiences
“Basically, at the very bottom of life, which seduces us all, there is only absurdity, and more absurdity. And maybe that’s what gives us our joy for living, because the only thing that can defeat absurdity is lucidity. — Albert Camus
Living in a world where we constantly seek to make sense of unique experiences, humans inevitably encounter situations that cannot be understood, which ultimately leaves us feeling frustrated and empty.
Camus believed that these moments of emptiness are what make life meaningful, as they force us to confront our own mortality and let us appreciate the beauty of our surroundings.
Camus was profoundly influenced by Greek philosophy, which he believed represented a realistic approach to understanding reality.
The Greeks believed that while life is inherently tragic, it can also be beautiful and beautiful things hold meaning beyond themselves.
For Camus, “beauty is nothing more than the harmony of form, colour, and content,” He argued that “form is everything.”
In other words, we should not only appreciate the beauty of nature but also strive to achieve harmony in all aspects of our lives.
Food for thought
Bruce Lee’s Never-Before-Seen Writings on Willpower, Emotion, Reason, Memory, Imagination, and Confidence [The Marginalian]
WILL POWER: —
Recognizing that the power of will is the supreme court over all other departments of my mind, I will exercise it daily, when I need the urge to action for any purpose; and I will form HABIT designed to bring the power of my will into action at least once daily.
Micro Self-Discipline: How Small Wins Lead to Big Rewards [ Ivaylo]
What is Micro Self-Discipline? We are typically encouraged to think big about our lives. The job title, the house we want to spend decades repaying, the places we want to visit… This grandiosity prevents us from tailoring how our day-to-day existence should look. What will we do on a micro level.
Where All the Time Went [Raptitude]
The reason time seems to speed up over the years is that novelty naturally declines as we age. Life’s elements become increasingly familiar and routinized. You take fewer risks, become less adventurous, move house less often, change jobs less, meet fewer people, stay home more, and so on. You can probably see where I’m going with this. When the pandemic emergency was declared, we were at first catapulted into the unfamiliar.
How to Cultivate Taste in the Age of Algorithms [Behavioral Scientist]
The benefit of the slower, self-managed approach to culture is that it might lead to a greater appreciation of the content at hand, and you might be able to lead another person down the same path that you followed, showing them how to appreciate the same things. It’s more sustainable and more respectful of culture, treating it as something important rather than ephemeral, merely fodder for brief attention spans.
3 ideas on smarter living
Therapist Esther Perel on the importance of relationships
“Life will present you with unexpected opportunities, and you won’t always know in advance which are the important moments. Above all, it’s the quality of your relationships that will determine the quality of your life. Invest in your connections, even those that seem inconsequential.” Source: Tribe of Mentors
Artist Vincent van Gogh on taking action
“I tell you, if one wants to be active, one mustn’t be afraid to do something wrong sometimes, not afraid to lapse into some mistakes. To be good — many people think that they’ll achieve it by doing no harm — and that’s a lie, and you said yourself in the past that it was a lie. That leads to stagnation, to mediocrity…
You don’t know how paralyzing it is, that stare from a blank canvas that says to the painter, “You can’t do anything.” The canvas has an idiotic stare, and mesmerizes some painters so that they turn into idiots themselves. Many painters are afraid of the blank canvas, but the blank canvas is afraid of the truly passionate painter who dares — and who has once broken the spell of “You can’t.”
Life itself likewise always turns towards one an infinitely meaningless, discouraging, dispiriting blank side on which there is nothing, any more than on a blank canvas. But however meaningless and vain, however dead life appears, the man of faith, of energy, of warmth, and who knows something, doesn’t let himself be fobbed off like that. He steps in and does something…” Source: Ever Yours: The Essential Letters
Questions worth asking
What is best in the short-term? What is best in the long-term? What is a mistake you seem to repeat each year? What can you do to prevent it this time? Has the most important thing changed? Am I chasing an outdated target?
Tools for life/career
Week Plan is an online weekly planner that helps you be more effective rather than productive. The app pairs your tasks with your goals and helps you claim back time and focus on what's important for yourself, family and work. Clarify your roles (as a busy parent, manager or team worker). Learn more
Morning Brew covers the latest news across business, finance, and tech in the most digestible way to save you time. The day's most important stories into a short, quick, and entertaining read. It’s read by over 4 million professionals. I read it every day. Try it, it’s free.
Meco — Read all your awesome newsletters on a single app. Meco is a distraction-free space for reading and discovering newsletters, separate from the inbox. Add your newsletters in seconds and liberate your inbox. Move your newsletters to a space built for reading and declutter your inbox in seconds. Enjoy newsletters in a space designed for reading. Learn More
Work with Postanly. Partner with us here.
Thanks for reading!
Until next week,
Thomas
Medium | Thinking Toolbox | The Write Life | How to Live: Lessons in Stoicism
Postanly Weekly is now a reader-supported publication. To support my work, you can upgrade to a paid subscription for $7 per month or $40 for an entire year. With a modest yearly contribution you’re not only helping keep Postanly Weekly going, you also get free access to Thinking Toolbox (mental models for life) and Mental Wealth Toolbox (practical concepts for smarter decisions).