Philosopher's Notes On the Meaning of Life
On the Meaning of Life
About the Book
116 pages
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Brian's take
Will Durant is one of the great philosopher-historians of the twentieth century, and in this short but powerful book he tackles the ultimate question: What gives life meaning? After being confronted by a man who said he would end his life unless Durant could give him a reason to keep living, Durant realized he wasn’t satisfied with his own answer. So he wrote to one hundred of the most respected thinkers of his era, asking them what gives their lives purpose, energy, and fulfillment. The result is a fascinating collection of reflections from figures like H.L. Mencken, Vilhjalmur Stefansson, and Mohandas Gandhi, followed by Durant’s own deeply personal response. The answers vary, but they converge around work, service, love, and the pursuit of something larger than ourselves as the foundations of a life worth living. Big Ideas we explore include The Letter, H.L. Mencken on laying eggs, Stefansson on carnivore, Gandhi on battling evil, and Durant answers his own questions.
“All thought that does not lead to action, said Goethe, is a disease.”
Will Durant
“More and more it stands out that a man must combine action with thought in order to lead a life that shall have unity and significance.”
Will Durant
“We gave them, through technology and engineering, unprecedented wealth—miraculous automobiles, luxurious travel, and spacious homes; only to find that peace departs as riches come.”
Will Durant
“I hope to Heaven this restlessness, this constant hope of arriving at some degree of perfection, is not a peculiar form of conceit.”
To me, it is Religion. It is a ‘motive force of toil.’
Will Durant
“The simplest meaning of life, then, is joy—the exhilaration of experience itself.”
Will Durant
Listen to the Note
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On the Meaning of Life
Introduction
From the book
“In The Fall of 1930 Will Durant Found Himself outside His home in Lake Hill, New York, Raking Leaves.
It was typical weather for the time of year and the cold refreshing air blowing in from upstate had infused him with a sense of invigoration as he went about the task.
As Durant continued his raking, he was approached by a well-dressed man who told him in a quiet tone that he was going to kill himself unless the philosopher could give him a valid reason not to. Not having the time to wax philosophic on the matter, Durant did his best to furnish the man with reasons to continue his existence. As Durant would later recall:
I bade him get a job—but he had one; to eat a good meal—but he was not hungry; he left visibly unmoved by my arguments. I do not know what happened to him. In that same year I received several letters announcing suicide;… I learned later that there had been 284,142 suicides in the United States between 1905 and 1930.
What a dilemma—and what a statistic! And more recent statistics are even more alarming: ==The World Health Organization estimated that in the year 2000 alone, one million people took their own lives; in the United States, an average of 84.4 people per day commit suicide, resulting in 30,903 self-inflicted deaths per year. Every 17.1 minutes, one person gives up hope and ends their life.==
Is it any wonder, then, — and can there be a more important question? — that ‘What is the meaning of life?’ is the perennial question of philosophy?”
Brian's Notes
That’s from the introduction to the book.
Just typing those statistics was heartbreaking. (Gah.)
Imagine having someone come up to YOU the next time you are raking the leaves and telling you that they will end their life unless you give them a reason to continue to live… What would you say?
Will Durant was a 45-year-old, renowned philosopher-historian when he was asked that question. He wasn’t satisfied with his answer. So, you know what he did?
He wrote a letter and sent it to ONE HUNDRED of the most respected men and women in the world—from H.L. Mencken and Mohandas K. Gandhi to Will Rogers and Mary Emma Woolley asking them the ultimate question: What is the meaning of life?
More specifically, he challenged “them to respond not only to the fundamental question of life’s meaning (in the abstract) but also to relate how they each (in the particular) found meaning, purpose and fulfillment in their own lives.”
This book is a collection of their responses to his letter and Durant’s commentary on those responses. (Get a copy here.)
As you’d expect, it’s packed with Big Ideas. As always, I’m excited to share some of my favorites and help you apply that wisdom to your life TODAY.
P.S. As per our last Note on Will Durant’s Heroes of History, for some strange reason, it took me decades to read one of his books. Once I did, I fell in love with him and his wisdom.
Following ’s wisdom to read everything an author “who grabs you!” has written, I read five of his books in a week. We’ll be featuring them in our next several Notes: The Lessons of History, The Greatest Minds and Ideas of All Time, and Fallen Leaves.
P.P.S. As a guy who contemplated taking my own life decades ago when I was in my early twenties (bless that version of me who had *none* of the wisdom I strive to share in these Notes!) I know what it feels like to feel the catastrophic despair of living a life without a sense of purpose and hope that I could ever create a life of meaning.
I also know what it feels like to have a sustainable level of joy and meaning AND I have a pretty good sense of what I did to go from *there* to *here.*
Sharing that wisdom with you and any loved ones you have who may be experiencing despair is a (very!) big reason I work as hard as I do. Check out my Conquering Depression 101 class AND my collection of Notes in that Quest to help you conquer depression.
I would like to ESPECIALLY encourage you to check out my Notes on Georgia Ede’s Change Your Brain, Change Your Life. Dr. Ede is one of the world’s leading nutritional psychiatrists. If I had a loved one suffering with depression, I would START with their nutrition—remembering that our PHYSIOLOGY drives a lot more of our *psychology* than modern therapeutic approaches currently recognize.
Of course, I’d also focus on movement and sleep while helping them see a Future Self that inspires them. (I’d also encourage them read my Notes on Ben Hardy’s Be Your Future Self Now. and Marsha Linehan’s Building a Life Worth Living.)
With that… Sending tons of love to you and your loved ones. Let’s get to work.
BIG IDEA
The Letter
From the book
“On July 15, 1932 I Sent the following Letter, with Variations, from My home in New York to Certain Famous Contemporaries here and abroad for whose Intelligence I Had a High Regard:
Dear ___________,
Will you interrupt your work for a moment and play the game of philosophy with me? I am attempting to face a question which our generation, perhaps more than any, seems always ready to ask and never able to answer—What is the meaning of the human life?…
==I, who have loved philosophy for many years, now turn back to life itself, and ask you, as one who has lived life as well as thought, to help me understand. Perhaps the verdict of those who have lived is different from those who have merely thought. Spare me a moment to tell me what meaning life has for you, what keeps you going, what help—if any—religion gives you, what are the sources of your inspiration and your energy, what is the goal or motive-force of your toil, where you find your consolations and your happiness, where, in the last resort, your treasure lies.==
Write briefly if you must; write at length and at leisure if you possibly can; for every word from you will be precious to me.
Sincerely yours,
Will Durant”
Brian's Notes
That’s an abridged version of the letter.
I’ll reframe the question I posed in the introduction to this Note: If you received this letter, how would you respond? Seriously. If you received this letter, how would YOU respond?
Spare me a moment to tell me what meaning life has for you, what keeps you going, what help—if any—religion gives you, what are the sources of your inspiration and your energy, what is the goal or motive-force of your toil, where you find your consolations and your happiness, where, in the last resort, your treasure lies. Write briefly if you must, write at length if you can. Every word will be precious to both of us.
My answer: The motive-force of my toil is to do the best I possibly can to be the best version of myself I possibly can—while serving YOU to do the same. I want to practice my philosophy and make my kids, my wife, and myself proud while joyfully supporting them in becoming their best selves. I want to flourish by putting my virtues in action and help create a world in which 51% of humanity is flourishing by 2051.
Of course, the primary sources of energy beyond the Mission to which I have dedicated my life is my focus on DOMINATING my fundamentals—eating, moving, sleeping, breathing, and focusing my mind to activate my potential all day, every day especially TODAY.
Yours?
P.S. As I read that letter, I was reminded of another one of my intellectual and philosophical heroes, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. Csikszentmihalyi is the guy who literally wrote the book on Flow. As good as that book is (and it’s GREAT), his book on Creativity is even better.
He tells us: “Creative persons differ from one another in a variety of ways, but in one respect they are unanimous: They all love what they do. It is not the hope of achieving fame or making money that drives them; rather, it is the opportunity to do the work that they enjoy doing.”
He *also* tells us that he sent out over 100 letters inviting the greatest creators of his generation he hoped to interview. Many declined for various reasons. The great management thinker Peter Drucker was one of those who declined.
His note is one of my all-time favorite pieces of practical wisdom:
“I am greatly honored and flattered by your kind letter of February 14th—for I have admired you and your work for many years, and I have learned much from it. But, my dear Professor Csikszentmihalyi, I am afraid I have to disappoint you. I could not possibly answer your questions. I am told I am creative—I don’t know what that means…. I just keep on plodding….
… I hope you will not think me presumptuous or rude if I say that one of the secrets of productivity (in which I believe whereas I do not believe in creativity) is to have a VERY BIG waste paper basket to take care of ALL invitations such as yours—productivity in my experience consists of NOT doing anything that helps the work of other people but to spend all one’s time on the work the Good Lord has fitted one to do, and to do well.”
I smile every time I read that—appreciating Drucker’s extraordinary clarity and the iconoclastic audacity of his response. He practiced his philosophy. Check out my Notes on The Effective Executive for more.
He also embodied this key quality Csikszentmihalyi observed in his creative exemplars: “Yet, it is practically impossible to learn a domain deeply enough to make a change in it without dedicating all of one’s attention to it and thereby appearing to be arrogant, selfish, and ruthless to those who believe they have a right to the creative person’s attention.”
Here’s to YOUR clarity as YOU create the conditions you need to flourish.
BIG IDEA
H.L. Mencken on Laying Eggs
From the book
“From Our Leading Critic, H.L.
Mencken, the man who above all others has influenced contemporary American literature and thought, came this reply:
You ask me, in brief, what satisfaction I get out of life, and why I go on working. I go on working for the same reason that a hen goes on laying eggs. ==There is in every living creature an obscure but powerful impulse to active functioning. Life demands to be lived. Inaction, save as a measure of recuperation between bursts of activity, is painful and dangerous to the healthy organism—in fact, it is almost impossible. Only the dying can really be idle.==
The precise form of an individual’s activity is determined, of course, by the equipment with which he came into the world. In other words, it is determined by his heredity. I do not lay eggs, as a hen does, because I was born without any equipment for it. For the same reason I do not get myself elected to Congress, or play the violoncello, or teach metaphysics in college, or work in a steel mill. What I do is simply what lies easiest to my hand. It happens that I was born with an intense and insatiable interest in ideas, and I like to play with them. It happens also that I was born with rather more than the average facility for putting them into words. In consequence, I am a writer and editor; which is to say, a dealer in them and concoctor of them.”
Brian's Notes
That’s from the very first response Will Durant shares.
I read it wishing I could write as well as H.L. Mencken (lol) and celebrating his hen-like ability to lay good idea-eggs.
I also read it thinking of some more wisdom from Csikszentmihalyi. In Flow, he tells us that people are happiest when they’re actively engaged in work. BUT… You know what they *wish* they could be doing instead? Relaxing. BUT… You know how they feel when they’re doing nothing and watching TV? “Mildly depressed.” Exactly what Mencken is saying.
Marcus Aurelius and the Stoics came to mind as well. In Meditations, Aurelius tells us: “Everything - a horse, a vine - is created for some duty… For what task, then, were you yourself created? ==A man’s true delight is to do the things he was made for.==”
In Letters from a Stoic, Seneca echoes this wisdom: “Man’s ideal state is realized when he has fulfilled the purpose for which he is born. And what is it that reason demands of him? Something very easy—that he live in accordance with his own nature.”
Mencken’s letter is quite long.
It continues: “I am far luckier than most men, for I have been able since boyhood to make a good living doing precisely what I have wanted to do—what I would have done for nothing, and very gladly, if there had been no reward for it. Not many men, I believe are so fortunate.”
As I read that I thought of Stephen King—who says almost EXACTLY the same thing in his memoir On Writing. (Check out those Notes. Seriously. Check them out for another genius reflecting on his craft!)
I also thought of the 26-year-old version of me who, after reading How to Think Like Leonardo da Vinci and doing a powerful exercise I share in those Notes, KNEW that I wanted to spend my life studying and integrating ancient wisdom, modern science, and practical tools to optimize my own life and help others do the same.
I’ve expressed that in many ways but I seem to be pretty good at (and I DEFINITELY enjoy!) laying Philosopher’s Notes eggs. This is my 740th one.
Mencken continues by saying: “==Next to agreeable work as a means of attaining happiness, I put what Huxley called the ‘domestic affections’—the day-to-day intercourse with family and friends.==’”
Work and Love. The foundations of a life well lived.
BIG IDEA
Stefansson on Carnivore
From the book
“A Different Sort of Honesty — Bluff and Rough like an Arctic Wind — is the Reply of Vilhjalmur Stefansson, Who Knows Life from Pole to Pole:
Dear Durant:
You ask the expression of a series of personal opinions:… ‘What keeps me going?’ — I suppose it is food, or perhaps rather fuel. For we are essentially heat engines that run according to the quantity and quality of the fuel till some part of the machine gives way.
‘What are the sources of my inspiration?’ — Again, food, and the way the body handles it. For instance, two years ago I lived a year in and around New York on exclusively meat and water. During that time I was noticeably more optimistic, looked forward to the next day, and the next year with more relish than when on the ordinary mixed diet. Other sources of inspiration are weather, sound sleep. But perhaps, being a philosopher, you want to insist on spiritual inspirations. There are such. ==My chief one is the feeling that if anything is worthwhile it may be the increase and diffusion of knowledge. So I keep working away at that when convenient.== It is not clear that absorbing knowledge from universities and Sunday supplements has taken away from me any more than it has given in return. If no one has found a meaning for life, neither has anyone demonstrated that life has no meaning. What probably is meaningless is the question as to whether life has a meaning.
Vilhjalmur Stefansson”
Brian's Notes
Vilhjalmur Stefansson was an Arctic explorer.
His (letter) and life story is fascinating. I want to highlight this sentence: “two years ago I lived a year in and around New York on exclusively meat and water. During that time I was noticeably more optimistic, looked forward to the next day, and the next year with more relish than when on the ordinary mixed diet.”
Stefansson’s nutritional approach is often cited in books on the carnivore diet.
I asked Google AI to tell me about his diet. Here’s what I got: “Vilhjalmur Stefansson (1879–1962) was an Arctic explorer who famously championed an all-meat, high-fat, zero-carb diet, modeled after his time living with the Inuit. In 1928, he and a colleague, Karsten Andersen, completed a year-long, heavily monitored, all-meat, and fat experiment at Bellevue Hospital, proving that a diet of solely animal products (including fat, marrow, and organ meats) could sustain human health without causing deficiencies.”
Then I asked whether Georgia Ede references him: “Yes, Dr. Georgia Ede, a psychiatrist specializing in nutritional medicine and a prominent proponent of low-carbohydrate/carnivore diets for mental health, has referenced Vilhjalmur Stefansson and his all-meat diet.
Reference in Context*: Ede utilizes the history of all-meat diets, including the well-documented, long-term experience of Arctic explorer Vilhjalmur Stefansson, to challenge conventional nutritional science that deems all-meat diets unhealthy or dangerous.*
Viewpoint*: Ede often points to such historical examples and studies (including the 1928-1929 Bellevue Hospital study on Stefansson) to argue that animal-based diets are not only safe but can be therapeutic.”*
All of which brings us back to the point I made in the intro: If I ever chat with someone contemplating ending their own life, my tip would be to try going carnivore. Period. If you haven’t read my Notes on Ede’s book yet, I’ll encourage you to do so again.
P.S. Fun fact: It’s hard to put into words the remarkable level of mental clarity and physical energy I have when eating only meat and salt. That’s what I’m doing as I strive to hit my impossible target of creating the 1,000 Notes by the end of this year.
BIG IDEA
Gandhi on Battling Evil
From the book
“And Now I come to the Man Who Perhaps More than Any other on Earth Personified the Power of Religion, both to Mold the Individual and to Move the Mass.
Shortly before leaving for the Round Table Conference in London, Mohandas Gandhi sent the following reply to my query. The omission of personal passages mangles the letter:
Dear friend:
Your letter of 5th June… Now for your questions.
1. Life for me is real as I believe it to be a spark of the Divine.
2. Religion not in the conventional but in the broadest sense helps me to have a glimpse of the Divine essence. This glimpse is impossible without full development of the moral sense. Hence religion and morality are, for me, synonymous.
3. Striving for full realization keeps me going.
4. This strife is the source of whatever inspiration and energy I possess.
5. The goal is already stated.
6. My consolation and my happiness are to be found in service of all that lives, because the Divine essence is the sum total of all life.
7. My treasure lies in battling against darkness and all forces of evil.
You have asked me to write at leisure and at length if I can. Unfortunately, I have no leisure and therefore writing at length is an impossibility.
Yours sincerely,
M.K. Gandhi
This is not quite satisfactory, though we should be grateful to get so much of an answer to our question from a man with a sub-continent on his head, and laboring for the liberation of 320,000,000 men.”
Brian's Notes
As I finished typing out Gandhi’s final words, I literally said, “Wow” out loud.
What a wonderful real-time look at Gandhi the man hard at work changing the world—more precisely: “battling against darkness and all forces of evil.” The man had NO leisure time.
I’m reminded of a few things here. First, in his great book Beyond Religion, the Dalai Lama echoes Gandhi’s sentiments that, for him, religion and morality are synonyms.
The prior letter Durant shares was from Jawaharl Nehur who took the lead in the Indian liberation movement after Gandhi was killed. His letter was, essentially, all about the power he feels committing his life to something bigger than himself.
It was a case study on Stephen Cope’s The Great Work of Your Life. As Cope says: “At the end of life, most of us will find that we have felt most filled up by the challenges and successful struggles for mastery, creativity, and full expression of our dharma in the world. Fulfillment happens not in retreat from the world, but in advance —and profound engagement.”
Finally, I think of Eknath Easwaran and wisdom from his wonderful book, Gandhi the Man.
He tells us: “Once, while Gandhi’s train was pulling slowly out of the station, a reporter ran up to him and asked him breathlessly for a message to take back to his people. Gandhi’s reply was a hurried line scrawled on a scrap of paper: ‘My life is my message.’ It is a message which does not require the vast stage of world politics, but can be put into practice here and now, in the midst of daily life.”
Note: Easwaran wrote another book called Your Life Is Your Message.
Here’s to making OUR lives the ultimate message.
BIG IDEA
Durant Answers His Own Questions
From the book
“This Then, I Should Say, is the Road to Significance and Content: Join a Whole, and Work for it with All Your Body and Mind.
The meaning of life lies in the chance it gives us to produce, or to contribute to, something greater than ourselves…. in every case it must, if it will give a life meaning, lift the individual out of himself and make him a cooperating part of a vaster scheme. The secret of significance and content is to have a task which consumes all one’s energies, and makes human life a little richer than before.
As for myself—for I wish to answer directly the questions which I have asked of so many others—the meaning of life lies perhaps too narrowly in my family and my work; I wish I could boast of consecration to a larger cause. The sources of my energy are egotism and a selfish altruism—the greed for applause, and a mad devotion to those dependent on me.
The goal and motive force of my work? — to see happiness around me, and to win, at last, the approval of my betters. The haunts of happiness? — my home and my books, my ink and my pen. I would not call myself happy — no man can be quite happy in the midst of the poverty and suffering that still survive about him today; but I am content, and inexpressibly grateful. Where, in the last resort, does my treasure lie? — in everything. A man should have many irons in the fire; he should not let his happiness be bound up entirely with his children or his fame, or his prosperity, or even his health; but he should be able to find nourishment for his content in any one of these, even if all the rest are taken away.”
Brian's Notes
That’s from the final chapter in which Durant shares HIS answers to his own questions.
As I typed that, I felt a deep love for the man, his humility, his wisdom, and his grace.
I also thought of ’s wisdom on the power of enthusiasm: “==Enthusiasm is one of the most powerful engines of success. When you do a thing, do it with all your might. Put your whole soul into it. Stamp it with your own personality. Be active, be energetic, be enthusiastic and faithful, and you will accomplish your objective. Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.==”
Finally, I thought of : “==My formula for success was very simple—do whatever is put in front of you with all your heart and soul without regard for personal results. Do the work as though it was given to you by the universe itself, because it was.==”
Here’s to living with a fierce integrity to however YOU define the meaning of life.
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