The Story of Our Lives

Sweet Bites for January 31, 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 Resilience.

Hi all,

Welcome to another edition of Sweet Bites, Mind Candy’s bite-sized newsletter with thought-provoking finds to send you into the weekend with.

This email forwarded? Want full email? Update your subscription below.

Any of the below bites resonate? Hit the reply button and let me know.

---

📚 Wisdom

“What does not kill him makes him stronger. Instinctively, he collects from everything he sees, hears, lives through, his sum: he is a principle of selection, he discards much. He is always in his own company, whether he associates with books, human beings, or landscapes: he honors by choosing, by admitting, by trusting.”

Friedrich Nietzsche

Source: In Emergency, Break Glass

💭 Reflection

Just as lifting weights strengthens our muscles and bones, so too does adversity build our resilience. It is only through the weight of adversity that we learn what we are capable of, what we can handle, and how we will respond to events.

🧘🏻This Week’s Monday Meditation

🦉 This Week’s Wednesday Wisdom

🤔 Thought for the Weekend

Each of us has our own story. And it is this story that drives the narrative of our lives. It is from this story we come to know who we are and what we will do in a given situation.

If we see ourselves as the strong hero, never giving up and never backing down, then we are more inclined to act that way.

We ourselves are projects and as such our stories will evolve over time.

The key is understanding what story you’re telling yourself at any given time. When we know the story we’re telling, it’s easier to understand where we’re going and how we’ll get there.

📰 Article Worthy of a Read

In the below article, the historian

H. W. Brands

dives into the idea of whether or not human nature changes over the course of time and how we should consider this when studying history.

My favorite passage, and one that applies to our weekly theme, is:

“The idea of a shared human nature is what makes much storytelling possible. Novelists, playwrights and screenwriters make up characters, and aspects of those characters resonate with readers and audiences.”

BQ 2: Does human nature change over time?

📚 Wisdom

“Art's not a luxury, it's actually sustenance. Do you think human creativity matters?

Most people don't spend a lot of time thinking about poetry, they have a life to live and they're not really that concerned with Alan Ginsburg’s poems or anybody's poems until their father dies, they go to a funeral, you lose a child, somebody breaks your heart they don't love you anymore, and all of a sudden you're desperate for making sense out of this life, and has anybody ever felt this bad before? How did they come out of this cloud?

Or the inverse, something great you meet somebody and your heart explodes you love them so much you can't even see straight, you know, you're dizzy. Did anybody feel like this before? What is happening to me.

And that's when art's not a luxury, it's actually sustenance we need it.

Human creativity is nature manifest in us.”

Ethan Hawke

🎙 Clip to Listen To

In the below clip, actor Kevin Hart talks through resilience, the grind, and what it takes to find success.

“A lot of people can give up, it's easy to give up. It’s the easiest thing in the world to do “all right i'm done, i ain't going, oh yeah i ain't going to keep going, yeah i feel like going to work. It’s easy, it's very easy.

But what's hard is going “yo yesterday i got nothing from working as hard as i could. Nothing happened from that. I’m gonna do the same thing again today but i'm gonna try to go harder.” That's the hardest thing in the world. To get up every day and give a hundred percent and and be in the same position that you were each day but mentally know that you're trying and trying and trying that's that's a real that's a real grind.“

🎶 Song to Listen To

Think someone you know would enjoy these? Hit below to forward and spread the love.

Until next time,

D.A. DiGerolamo

We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for sites to earn advertising fees by advertising and linking to Amazon.com.