On Hannah Arendt's birthday, link in profile for her timeless meditation on love and how to live with the fundamental fear of loss. (If you crave something more substantive than Instagram, try the weekly Marginalian newsletter, free and ad-free 18 years running: themarginalian.org/newsletter)
The art of living . . . is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past . . . on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive. —Alan Watts, The Wisdom of Insecurity: A Message for an Age of Anxiety
Living clearly and presently takes courage. Don’t live in the haze of the abstract, live with the tangible and real, even if—especially if—it’s uncomfortable. Be part of what’s going on around you. Feast on it, adjust for it. There’s no one to perform for. There is just work to be done and lessons to be learned, in all that is around us.
To quote Marcus Aurelius again, “Each man only lives in this present instant…all the rest either has been lived or remains in uncertainty.”