🔥 🪵 Montaigne's beams, 💭 Marcus on thoughts (plus a side note), 😫 Happiness as a goal, 💁🏻♂️ Reminder on those who have it all figured out
#73: a weekly 4-item newsletter created to inspire dads to use the challenges of fatherhood as fuel for building an incredible life & an antifragile mind.
Welcome to the 73rd edition of the antifragile 4 🔥.
This week we’re talkin’ Montaigne’s home office decor, a little rant about Stoicism after a Marcus quote, thinking about happiness as a goal, plus a saucy reminder about anyone who says they have it figured out.
Thank you again for reading. I hope you enjoy.
With love,
Chris
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Here’s this week’s antifragile 4 🔥:
Montaigne’s beams
🪵Marcus Aurelius on thoughts (and a side note on Stoicism)
💭Happiness as a goal… 😫
a friendly reminder on those who have it all figured out 💁🏻♂️
1.) Montaigne’s beams 🪵
When Michel de Montaigne retired from civic life in 1571 to devote himself to writing and contemplation, he decided his tower library needed to become something more than a room—it needed to shape how he thought.
In addition to commissioning a plaque to mark the moment (something I’d recommend to anyone quitting a job), he had the wooden beams of his ceiling inscribed with philosophical maxims—mostly in Latin and Greek—so that wherever his gaze wandered distractedly upwards, his thoughts would return to humility, restraint, and clarity.
Here are some of my favorites:
What do I know?
Nothing in excess.
I suspend judgment.
A strong imagination creates the event.
It is not because things are difficult that we do not dare; it is because we do not dare that things are difficult.
Fear is a bad interpreter of things.
Here’s what some of mine would say:
Perfect is the enemy of done.
Be the change you want to see in the world.
There is nothing new under the sun.
How can I see love? How can I see peace?
Brown Rice, Both Beans, Mild & Guacamole 🌯
What would your beams say?
2.) Marcus Aurelius on thoughts (and a side note on Stoicism) 💭
The soul becomes dyed with the color of its thoughts.
Marcus Aurelius
Be mindful of your thoughts. They create your life.
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Side note: I love Marcus Aurelius, Seneca, Epictetus—and most of the Stoic gang. Truly. There’s life-changing wisdom there, and I’ve taken a lot from it.
That said, I do think popular figures like Ryan Holiday and Tim Ferriss are doing their audiences a disservice by focusing almost exclusively on Stoicism.
Not because Stoicism is wrong—but because, taken alone, it can be overly pessimistic. Over-applied, it can drain some of the color from life in the name of equanimity.
It also crowds out the incredible insights of Stoicism’s contemporaries in ancient Greece and Rome (namely cynicism and skepticism, two fascinating schools of thought)—and, more obviously, the many other schools of philosophy that are exceptionally well-suited for stocking one’s toolkit for modern life.
Ryan Holiday, in particular, has built a small cottage industry around Stoicism. And good for him. I own most of his books. I just can’t help but think that with his storytelling ability, there’s enormous potential to widen his lens and bring more philosophical voices into the conversation.
(Steps off soapbox)
3.) Happiness as a goal… 😫
Happiness as a byproduct of living your life is a great thing…but happiness as a goal is a recipe for disaster.
Barry Schwartz, Interview with The Atlantic
As someone who, for years, would have gone on record saying that my goal in life was to be happy, this quote found me at exactly the right time.
My more recent exposure to thinkers like Nietzsche, Kierkegaard, Simone de Beauvoir, and Byung-Chul Han—all of whom argue, in their own way, that the juice of life is squeezed out of struggle and difficulty—has fundamentally changed how I think about what I’m actually pursuing.
I no longer think of happiness as the goal.
Not because I don’t value it. I genuinely love being happy, and most days, I am. But I’ve come to see happiness less as something to chase and more as something that arrives—unannounced—when I’m living in alignment with something deeper.
If I had to name the new heading, it might be fulfillment.
Or maybe peace.
I’m not entirely sure yet.
What I am sure of is this: whatever it is, it’s pulling me toward challenge and the unknown—toward the frustrating, the uncomfortable, and the intimidating. Not because those things feel good in the moment, but because they feel alive.
And increasingly, that feels like the point.
4.) a friendly reminder on those who have it all figured out 💁🏻♂️
A friendly reminder: no one has it figured out. And anyone who says otherwise is selling something.
That doesn’t mean there’s nothing to learn. It’s just a reminder to stay curious without turning teachers into idols.
Stay curious. Stay skeptical.
Two last things for you this week:
Think about what your beams would say. How can you have them in your face each day?
Be fire and wish for the wind 🔥
With love,
Chris
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