During the long weekend of the fourth of July I took some nice walks in nature. To keep me company, I decided to get the audiobook of A Guide to the Good Life.
I read the book a long time ago, and some things stuck with me, so I decided to give it another go. It's interesting that as I age, I get a different perspective on the book; less worried about the day to day practicalities, and more interested in having a whole that makes sense.
One of the things I realized is that I never had the illusion of "there is an unlimited amount of time ahead of me" but then again maybe the phrase shouldn't be taken literally. What I have felt before, and feel less as time passes, is that there are things that I sometimes imagine doing at some point in the future that's undefined. More and more, leaving things to an undefined future means they won't get done ever.
And so now I feel like choosing some things over others makes a great deal of difference, because I won't have the opportunity to reverse that decision. I felt this before, but I suppose I feel this way about more things as I grow older.
Back to where I was headed. One of the suggested sources for stoicism is Moral letters to Lucilius. Given that it's available to everyone free of charge on the Internet (yay for the world wide web!), I decided it's about time I read it.
Wish me luck!
Tags: philosophy