You Can Never Do This Twice | The Freedom Of Contempt

The first time was revelatory. The first time you watched Mad Men. Or The Godfather. Or cracked open Marcus Aurelius’ Meditations. Or heard Tom Petty’s Free Fallin’ or listened to Fantine sing, I Dreamed a Dream from Les Mis. Or stood in front of a Caravaggio painting.

It hit you with all the power that new and brilliant art has. It shook you. It opened up something in you. It taught you something. But in some way, the power of these moments is actually overrated or at least overstated. It’s powerful because it’s new and immediate. But what’s actually more transformative is what happens when you return to those works of art, lingering as Seneca said, on the words of the master thinkers.

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And in today's Daily Stoic Journal excerpt reading, Ryan discusses how the practice of treating the luxurious things that we yearn for with contempt through thoughtful and intentional language serves to remind us of what really matters in life.