Devotion, Experience, & Destiny
Wednesday Wisdoms for May 7, 2025
Mind Candy is a newsletter on practical philosophy and human flourishment—aka how to live “the good life.” Each month we tackle a new theme.
This month we’re exploring the theme of Potential.
Welcome to Wednesday Wisdom, our 3x3 Newsletter where I distill worldly advice for better living with 3 quotes, 3 observations, and 3 questions.
Devotion
🤨 Quote
“You must understand the following: In order to master a field, you must love the subject and feel a profound connection to it. Your interest must transcend the field itself and border on the religious.”
Robert Greene
Source: Mastery
Observation 🧐
Potential is not some far off mystical thing, it is engrained within each and every one of us.
Aristotle believed potential, purpose, and happiness were all intimately linked.
We find what we enjoy. We become the best we can at that subject. We work to fulfill our abilities within it for the world.
But potential isn’t achieved naturally, we don’t just sit back and let it come to us. People have talent, yes, but without dedication and devotion to continuously fostering it, talent is wasted.
The best path to uncovering potential is continuous devotion to the work.
🤔 Question
What are you attempting to achieve and what are the steps you’re taking to do it?
Experience
🤨 Quote
“A man does not show his greatness by being at one extremity, but rather by touching both at once.”
Blaise Pascal
Source: Resistance, Rebellion, and Death (Essays)
Observation 🧐
The path to our greatness, to achieving our potential, is not paved in gold, but in glass.
Whether we’re starting at a point of having some innate talent or none at all, the work needs to be put in to uncover what we’re made of.
This means becoming comfortable with failure, with the suffering of setbacks, with the time devoted to something.
Greatness is achieved not from one single moment of victory but from millions of tiny decisions made on the path to that victory.
The waking up early.
The endless repetition.
The tireless study of a subject.
Potential becomes uncovered during these times, and before you know it, it becomes a flywheel.
The more time and work we put in, the more first hand knowledge we have of our subject. As we gain this knowledge, we entrench ourselves in deeper knowledge that only we can know from our perspective and experience. This then propels us further into the labyrinth of our pursuits.
We blossom not from having the information of what to do, but from the experience of knowing how to apply it.
🤔 Question
What is one lesson you’ve learned in your pursuit of a subject that even if someone had told you, needed to be experienced and learned first hand?
Beneath the paywall this week we explore the wisdom of Oprah Winfrey. Click below to support and get access.