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Happy Tuesday. Each week I share some thought-provoking insights of my own, along with wisdom from the great thinkers I’ve encountered through books, other media, and my network.
Top of Mind: Keeping Things Light
Something that is a constant practice is reminding myself to “stop taking things that are supposed to be fun, and finding ways to make them stressful”.
Big Idea: Defining Love
Last week I had a wonderful coffee meeting with a long-time mentor and friend. We often find ourselves trying to define the indefinable, and this week we were talking about love.
I thought back to an article I wrote a few years ago called Love and Alignment about the people in our lives over different seasons of life.
For purposes of this exploration, I believe love can be defined as is simply wanting the best for someone or something.
I like this definition because it’s sufficiently broad. It’s an act of love to take yourself to the gym. It’s an act of love to pursue a promotion that allows you to lead better and differently. It’s an act of love to tend to a garden, or to have a hard conversation that inspires growth in another.
When I think of love, I also think of the importance of capacity. As we increase our capacity, a process that I describe as emotional-spiritual growth, it gives us the opportunity to love more things.
For example, with increased capacity comes a greater comfort with self and underlying sense of trust, which gives you greater ability to be happy for more people rather than experience emotions such as envy, jealousy or greed, which can be inspired by the same stimulus, depending on the state and capacity of the receiver.
Borrowed Wisdom: Richard Feynman
Richard Feynman is one of the most brilliant theoretical physicists and intuitive thinkers of the 20th century. His advice on living: “Fall in love with some activity, and do it! Nobody ever figures out what life is all about, and it doesn’t matter. Explore the world. Nearly everything is really interesting if you go into it deeply enough. Work as hard and as much as you want to on the things you like to do the best. Don’t think about what you want to be, but what you want to do. Keep up some kind of a minimum with other things so that society doesn’t stop you from doing anything at all.”
Reading, Watching, Listening: Italian Cinema
Over the years, I’ve come to appreciate Italian films because I feel they capture themes of beauty, nostalgia and seasons, better than most. If you can put up with subtitles, here are a few of my favorites.
La Dolce Vita by Federico Fellini (1960) - 95% on Rotten Tomatoes, 4/4 stars from Roger Ebert
Cinema Paradiso by Giuseppe Tornatore (1988) - 90% on Rotten Tomatoes, 3.5/4 stars from Roger Ebert
The Great Beauty by Paolo Sorrentino (2013) - 91% on Rotten Tomatoes, 4/4 stars from RogerEbert.com (reviewed after Roger’s death)
Let me know if anything stands out. Hope you have a great week.
Adam
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