Why You Should Prioritize Meaning in Your Everyday Life

Psychiatrist and Holocaust survivor Viktor Frankl suggested that the search for meaning is the primary motivation in human beings. It is an essential part of our existence, from young children asking “why” questions to make sense of the world to adults seeking more meaning at work or amid a midlife crisis. Throughout history and across cultures, other social scientists, philosophers, religious scholars, poets, and laypeople alike have grappled with the all-important issue of meaning. Today, mo...
Tags: Parenting, Albert Camus, Annie Dillard, Tagore, Rabindranath Tagore, Frankl, Viktor Frankl, Lahnna Catalino

Podcast #480: Hiking With Nietzsche

Friedrich Nietzsche is one of the most polarizing and misunderstood of modern philosophers. Dismissed by some and misinterpreted by others, the real philosophy of Nietzsche in fact holds some incredibly life-affirming truths for everyone, regardless of belief or age.  My guest today has spent much of both his personal and professional life tracking down those insights. At the age of 19 and then again at age 37, he traveled to the Swiss town where Nietzsche wrote his famous work, Thus Spoke Za...
Tags: Podcast, Life, Switzerland, Philosophy, John, Albert Camus, Basel Switzerland, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche, John Kaag, Podcast Sponsors Kendra Scott Jewelry Affordable, Greater Self Reliance Ubermensch Listen

The Books That Samuel Beckett Read and Really Liked (1941-1956)

Samuel Beckett, Pic, 1" by Roger Pic. Via Wikimedia Commons Clad in a black turtleneck and with a shock of white hair, Samuel Beckett was a gaunt, gloomy high priest of modernism. After the 1955 premiere of Samuel Beckett’s play Waiting for Godot (watch him stage a performance here), Kenneth Tynan quipped, ''It has no plot, no climax, no denouement; no beginning, no middle and no end.'' From there, Beckett’s work only got more austere, bleak and despairing. His 1969 play Breath, for instance,...
Tags: Google, Books, Yahoo, College, Los Angeles, Literature, Around The World, Albert Camus, Samuel Beckett, Agatha Christie, Christie, Facebook Twitter, Beckett, Hollywood Reporter, Theodor Fontane, Suzanne

30 Valentines Day Quotes to Share with Those You Love

Share these Valentines Day quotes with that special person. You might also like these friendship quotes to let your special friend know how you feel. Valentines Day Quotes Valentine’s Day is precisely what the spirit needs. It is hot chocolate for the soul. It is a bright splash of color on a stark white canvas. The day reminds us to reaffirm our love, or perhaps to give voice to that which has remained unsaid.  Dorothy Denneen Volo If I had a flower for every time I thought of you … I could ...
Tags: Quotes, Crafts, Valentine's Day, Charles, Albert Camus, Jodi Picoult, Antoine, Corinthians, Valentine, Judy Garland, Nicholas Sparks, Joan Crawford, Helen Keller, Katherine Hepburn, Jackson Brown, Mahatma Gandhi

Thought for the day, Jan. 4, 2019

Albert Camus, 1957. (United Press International photo/Prints and Photographs division at the Library of Congress) Albert Camus, French author and philosopher “If there is a sin against life, it consists perhaps not so much in despairing of life, as in hoping for another life and in eluding the implacable grandeur of this life.” (from “Summer in Algiers,” in “Myth of Sisyphus and Other Essays,” 1955) Nov. 7, 1913-Jan. 4, 1960 Related Articles Thought for the day, Jan. 2...
Tags: Congress, Sport, Soccer, Albert Camus, Local News, Algiers, San Fernando Valley, United Press International, Thought For The Day

How the Inventor of Dynamite, Alfred Nobel, Read an Obituary That Called Him “The Merchant of Death” and Made Amends by Creating the Nobel Prize

No one can ever fully predict the consequences of their actions. Still, some warning bells should be hard to ignore. Take Alfred Nobel, for instance, the founder of the Nobel Prize. For most of his life, he had a different reputation—as the inventor of dynamite, one of the most destructive technologies of the age. Though he maintained his motives were pure, Nobel had no shortage of signs telling him his creation might do at least as much harm as good. He persevered and lived to regret it...
Tags: Google, Europe, Sweden, College, France, Life, History, Italy, Toni Morrison, Albert Camus, Nobel, Grant, Alfred, Preet Bharara, Wharton School, Facebook Twitter

Learning From Sisyphus

The gods had condemned Sisyphus to ceaselessly rolling a rock to the top of a mountain, whence the stone would fall back of its own weight. They had thought with some reason that there is no more dreadful punishment than futile and hopeless labor. ~Albert Camus, The Myth of Sisyphus Twelve years ago, in December 2006, I accepted a position as a member of the first team of in-house executive coaches at the Stanford Graduate School of Business. Our first year was both exhilarating and insa...
Tags: Leadership, Change, Personal, Albert Camus, Becker, Stanford Graduate School of Business, Camus, Ernest Becker, Edbatista, Self-Coaching, Sam Keen, Ernest Becker Marcus Aurelius, Ann Wuyts Yay Flicker

To The Holy Land: Jericho | Part 2 of 4

by Zainab Chaudry Our group’s first stop after crossing the border into Palestine is the historic city of Jericho. Located in the occupied West Bank near the Jordan River, this is said to be the oldest inhabited city in the world. An oasis amidst the desert because of its natural springs, it is situated 800 feet below sea level. The Dead Sea, the lowest point on Earth, is visible off in the distance. The air quality is noticeably different. You can almost taste the salt and minerals on your lips...
Tags: Israel, Religion, Jerusalem, Earth, Culture, Nelson Mandela, Gaza, Middle-east, Palestine, West Bank, Islam, Albert Camus, Jericho, United Nations General Assembly, Jordan River, Dead Sea

6 essential books on existentialist philosophy

Existentialism deals with the search to find meaning through free will and choice, among other things. Philosophers considered existentialists hailed mostly from Europe in the 19th and 20th century. Many existentialists believe that humans should make their own worth regardless of rules, laws or tradition. There is a wide variety of diverse ideologies that makes up the existentialist school of thought. These views may vary, but each is concerned with the individual and their freedom within the w...
Tags: Psychology, Europe, Space, Time, Intelligence, Innovation, Mother, Philosophy, Albert Camus, Kafka, Oscar Wilde, Sartre, Meursault, Dorian Gray, Friedrich Nietzsche, Nietzsche

20 Awesome Quotes on Beginning

1."Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 2. "There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth -- not going all the way, and not starting." - Buddha 3. "Be willing to be a beginner every single morning." - Meister Eckhart 4. "All great ideas and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning." - Albert Camus 5. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Lao Tzu 6. "Beginnings a...
Tags: Quotes, Innovation, Albert Camus, Buddha, John Galsworthy, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Happiness is in the Harvest – Fall Fun for Friends

“Autumn is a second Spring where every leaf is a flower.” Albert Camus I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a fan of sauerkraut. Finely cut cabbage fermented by various lactic acid bacteria is one step away from eating Kale (for you Dana!) – it hardly seems to me to be something to bring about happiness; much less something an entire town and its inhabitants would plan a fall festival around. But each fall, Waynesville, Ohio does exactly that, drawing thousands upon thousands of people – in...
Tags: Autumn, Fall, Life, Friendship, Festivals, Celebrate, Albert Camus, Dana, Waynesville, Girlfriends, Gather, Fall Festivals, Waynesville Ohio, La Crescent Minnesota, Pumpkin Fest, Crest Hill Illinois

Thought for the day, Nov. 10, 2018

Albert Camus, 1957. (Photo by United Press International/Library of Congress’ Prints and Photographs division) Albert Camus, French author, philosopher and recipient of the Nobel Prize for Literature “Life continues, and some mornings, weary of the noise, discouraged by the prospect of the interminable work to keep after, sickened also by the madness of the world that leaps at you from the newspaper, finally convinced that I will not be equal to it and that I will disappoint everyone—all ...
Tags: Sport, Soccer, Albert Camus, Local News, San Fernando Valley, Thought For The Day

Highlights Oct. 29-Nov. 4, 2018

Storytime and the Inevitability of Change Dates and times are given for U.S. Pacific Time zone. Click them to see the date and time where you are. A Fairy Tale M y sister and I shared a bed when we were small. We were gigglers, and mom and dad periodically lost patience with us. After several warnings went unheeded, our parents quickly traversed the tiny gap between their bedroom and ours to make the point a little clearer via a swat to the behind. We were a bit quieter after that, gigg...
Tags: Moon, Leo, Jupiter, Albert Camus, Cate Blanchett, Terry Pratchett, Neptune, Venus, Mercury, Scorpio, Astrology, Persephone, Weekly, José Eduardo Agualusa, Weekly highlights, U S Pacific Time

Facebook Users Turned to the Absurd in September, According to Facebook IQ

Life had no meaning for Facebook users in September, as absurdism--along with associated topics ethical egoism, nihilism, pessimism, existentialism, skepticism, surrealism, anarchism, Albert Camus, philosophy and meme--was one of Facebook IQ's Topics to Watch for September 2018. Conversation on those topics was up nine times compared with September 2017 and 0.8 times versus August, dominated...
Tags: Facebook, Advertising, Albert Camus, Facebook IQ, Social Pro Daily, Facebook Users Turned

Ben Okri: 'I was nearly shot because I couldn’t speak my dad’s language'

Why was Ben Okri so keen to adapt L’Étranger, Albert Camus’s dark novel about the killing of an Arab, for the stage? He talks about his battle with the French writer’s daughter, his days living on the streets – and the swearword that saved his lifeAs the child of a mixed marriage growing up in Nigeria during the country’s civil war, Ben Okri had a powerful introduction to the dangers facing the outsider. His father was Urhobo, while his mother was Igbo. After spending his early years in London w...
Tags: Books, London, Fiction, Nigeria, Africa, Theatre, Society, World news, Culture, Race issues, Stage, Fiction in translation, Colonialism, Identity politics, Albert Camus, Ben Okri

"I've just been trying to get into a little bit of reading. I've got a few books from Camus I want to get to. I always liked his writing style. I want to start cracking away at those."

I've selected these 15 seconds from a 2-hour "Reviewbrah Friday Live Stream and Eating Show!" — in response to a question about what video games he plays:In case you're wondering why this young man has a million subscribers on YouTube, the answer might be he reads... and he reads Camus. So get cracking away. Read your Camus. He's got a good writing style. And maybe you'll pick up some language that will enrich your conversational style and cause a million people to love you. Maybe those million ...
Tags: Video Games, Law, Reading, Conversation, Albert Camus, Speaking, Camus, Ann Althouse, TheReportOfTheWeek

Sunday with Ron Rolheiser: Restlessness is not depth

Nashville Cowboy (2017) Sunday with Ron Rolheiser Restlessness is not depth Thirty-four years ago when I launched this column, I would never have said this: Restlessness is not something to be cultivated, no matter how romantic that might seem. Don’t get Jesus confused with Hamlet, peace with disquiet, depth with dissatisfaction, or genuine happiness with the existential anxiety of the artist. Restlessness inside us doesn’t need to be encouraged; it wreaks enough havoc all on its own. But I’m a...
Tags: Religion, Amy Winehouse, Jesus, Albert Camus, Doris Lessing, Cross, Karl Rahner, Nashville Cowboy, Ron Rolheiser, Ron Rolheiser Restlessness, Plato Augustine John

See Albert Camus’ Historic Lecture, “The Human Crisis,” Performed by Actor Viggo Mortensen

Back in 2016, New York City staged a month-long festival celebrating Albert Camus' historic visit to NYC in 1946. One event in the festival featured actor Viggo Mortensen giving a reading of Camus' lecture,“La Crise de l’homme” ("The Human Crisis") at Columbia University--the very same place where Camus delivered the lecture 70 years earlier--down to the very day (March 28, 1946). The reading was initially captured on a cell phone, and broadcast live using Facebook live video. But then c...
Tags: Google, Facebook, Twitter, College, New York City, Literature, Philosophy, Columbia University, Viggo Mortensen, Albert Camus, Columbia, Facebook Twitter, Mortensen, Dostoyevsky, Camus, Maison Française Note

"Believe me, the hardest thing for a man to give up is that which he really doesn’t want, after all."

Wrote Albert Camus in "The Fall."I encountered that quote in a book I'm reading, "The Gift of Therapy: An Open Letter to a New Generation of Therapists and Their Patients" by Irvin Yalom. Context:Occasionally individuals can recognize what they desire only when it is taken away from them. I’ve sometimes found it useful in working with individuals confused about their feelings about another to imagine (or to role-play) a telephone conversation in which the other breaks off the relationship. What ...
Tags: Psychology, Law, Albert Camus, Camus, Ann Althouse, Things Are Not What They Seem, Irvin Yalom

The Simpsons Take on Ayn Rand: See the Show’s Satire of The Fountainhead and Objectivist Philosophy

Say what you will about the tenets of Objectivism—to take a fan favorite line from a little film about bowling and white Russians. At least it’s an ethos. As for Ayn Rand’s attempts to realize her "absurd philosophy" in fiction, we can say that she was rather less successful, in aesthetic terms, than literary philosophers like Albert Camus or Simone de Beauvoir. But that’s a high bar. When it comes to sales figures at least, her novels are, we might say, competitive. Atlas Shrugged is so...
Tags: Google, Politics, Comedy, Television, College, Roald Dahl, Economics, Philosophy, Albert Camus, Maggie, Rand, Christopher Hitchens, Facebook Twitter, Josh Jones, Trunchbull, Flannery O'Connor

The Causes & Prevalence of Suicide Explained by Two Videos from Alain de Botton’s School of Life

“Suicide,” writes Albert Camus in “The Myth of Sisyphus,” has never been dealt with except as a social phenomenon.” And yet, as Alain de Botton argues in his School of Life video above, at least when it comes to media and government priorities, contemporary societies prefer to hardly deal with the problem at all, even though it claims the lives of some 800,000 people every year. “It remains entirely strange,” says De Botton, “that through the media we should hear so much about killers an...
Tags: Google, South Korea, College, Life, China, United States, Stephen Fry, Philosophy, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Albert Camus, Kuwait, Alain De Botton, Facebook Twitter, Josh Jones, de Botton, Schopenhauer

A “view” from the courtroom: Justice Kennedy’s Master-pièce de résistance

It’s the first opinion day of June in this very busy term. The court has 29 argued cases to finish, many of which are in the blockbuster category. Both the bar section and the public gallery are full. As it turns out, some general-public seats are being taken up by part of a large cohort of Harvard Law School alumni who will be sworn into the Supreme Court Bar at the end of this morning’s session. Other groups being sworn in today are from the Illinois State Bar Association and the Phi Alpha Del...
Tags: Featured, Supreme Court, Law, Colorado, France, United States, Albert Camus, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, Kennedy, Thomas, Harvard Law School, Sonia Sotomayor, John Roberts, Phillips, Roberts, Freeman

The Morning Watch: ‘Star Wars’ Spin-Offs Honest Trailer, Inappropriate Movie Musicals & More

The Morning Watch is a recurring feature that highlights a handful of noteworthy videos from around the web. They could be video essays, fanmade productions, featurettes, short films, hilarious sketches, or just anything that has to do with our favorite movies and TV shows. In this edition, Honest Trailers throws some jabs at the worst Star Wars spin-offs, such as the Star Wars Holiday Special. Plus, James Corden turns a few movies into inappropriate musical (yes, that’s Dan Stevens as Travis B...
Tags: New York, Movies, Broadway, Albert Camus, The Late Late Show, James Corden, Lol, Honest Trailers, Dan Stevens, Charlie-Kaufman, John Krasinski, Martin Scorsese, Star Wars Holiday Special, Audra McDonald, Travis Bickle, Star-Wars

Philip Roth (RIP) Creates a List of the 15 Books That Influenced Him Most

Image by Thierry Ehrmann, via Flickr Commons We stand at a pivotal time in history, and not only when it comes to presidential politics and other tragedies. The boomer artists and writers who loomed over the last several decades—whose influence, teaching, or patronage determined the careers of hundreds of successors—are passing away. It seems that not a week goes by that we don’t mourn the loss of one or another towering figure in the arts and letters. And along with the eulogies and tributes c...
Tags: Google, Books, College, Wikipedia, New York Times, Literature, Philip Roth, Gustave Flaubert, Paul Auster, Albert Camus, Leo Tolstoy, Colette, Trump, Ernest Hemingway, Facebook Twitter, Roth

Dress Like an Intellectual Icon with Japanese Coats Inspired by the Wardrobes of Camus, Sartre, Duchamp, Le Corbusier & Others

If you follow men's style in the 21st century, you know that the same names tend to come up as references again and again, from actors like Cary Grant and Steve McQueen to businessmen like Gianni Agnelli and royalty like Prince Charles. But what if we looked to other, less conventional realms of culture for inspiration on what to wear and, more importantly, how to wear it? Over the past few years, Japanese label Cohérence has done just that, designing coats modeled after those worn by the likes...
Tags: Google, Europe, Japan, Design, College, France, Cary Grant, Los Angeles, West, Glenn Greenwald, Prince Charles, Steve McQueen, Albert Camus, Seoul, Antoine, Jean Cocteau

Podcast #397: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed With Happiness

In recent years, there’s been a lot of books and blogs put out on how to become happier. But what if searching for happiness actually results in unhappiness, and to get happiness we need to be looking for something else?    That’s what my guest argues in her book. Her name is Emily Esfahani Smith and she’s the author of The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness.    We begin our discussion talking about the difference between happiness and meaning an...
Tags: Podcast, Life, Harry, Albert Camus, Emily, Erik Erikson, Roy Baumeister, Emily Esfahani Smith, Emily Emily, Facebook Listen, Jordan Peterson, Twitter Emily

Podcast #397: The 3 Pillars of a Meaningful Life

In recent years, there’s been a lot of books and blogs put out on how to become happier. But what if searching for happiness actually results in unhappiness, and to get happiness we need to be looking for something else?    That’s what my guest argues in her book. Her name is Emily Esfahani Smith and she’s the author of The Power of Meaning: Finding Fulfillment in a World Obsessed with Happiness.    We begin our discussion talking about the difference between happiness and meaning an...
Tags: Podcast, Life, Harry, Albert Camus, Emily, Erik Erikson, Roy Baumeister, Emily Esfahani Smith, Emily Emily, Facebook Listen, Jordan Peterson, Twitter Emily

20 Awesome Quotes on Beginning

1."Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 2. "There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth -- not going all the way, and not starting." - Buddha 3. "Be willing to be a beginner every single morning." - Meister Eckhart 4. "All great ideas and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning." - Albert Camus 5. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Lao Tzu 6. "Beginnings a...
Tags: Quotes, Innovation, Albert Camus, Buddha, John Galsworthy, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Patti Smith’s 40 Favorite Books

Image of Patti Smith performing in Rio de Janeiro by Daigo Oliva As a little girl, Patti Smith found liberation in words -- first through the bedtime prayers she made up herself, and later in books. "I was completely smitten by the book," she writes in her memoir, Just Kids.  "I longed to read them all, and the things I read of produced new yearnings." Smith found a role model in Jo, the tomboy writer in Louisa May Alcott's Little Women. "She gave me the courage of a new goal," writes Smith, "...
Tags: Google, Books, Music, New York, College, David Bowie, Rio De Janeiro, William Shakespeare, Melbourne, Federico García Lorca, Charlotte Brontë, Patti Smith, William Blake, Jack Kerouac, Albert Camus, Smith

20 Awesome Quotes on Beginning

1."Whatever you do, or dream you can, begin it. Boldness has genius and power and magic in it." - Johann Wolfgang von Goethe 2. "There are two mistakes one can make along the road to truth -- not going all the way, and not starting." - Buddha 3. "Be willing to be a beginner every single morning." - Meister Eckhart 4. "All great ideas and all great thoughts have a ridiculous beginning." - Albert Camus 5. "A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step." - Lao Tzu 6. "Beginnings ...
Tags: Quotes, Innovation, Albert Camus, Buddha, John Galsworthy, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe