June 6Do You
Those love [truth] best who to themselves are true, / And what they dare to dream of, dare to do; / They followed her and found her / Where all may hope to find, / Not in the ashes of the burnt-out mind, / But beautiful, with danger's sweetness round her.
James Russell Lowell—The Vision of Sir Launfal (1848)
Truth in the abstract sense has little power to usher us forward. Everyone loves truth, right? What's not to like?
But truth as a way of life, brimming with passion, embodied, lived out in action, is something only you can do for yourself. So many of the readings in this book could be taken as advice for living, but they are not. That would be the height of irony. A book preaching self-reliance suggesting you simply need to rely on what you're reading is an absurd thought.
While that's a recipe for every self-help book ever written, it's the opposite of truth.
The only advice that matters is—do you. Be true.
Today, seek and find danger's sweetness in your own truth.
Challenge Question
- What activity makes you feel as though you are most living your truth?
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