The self-actualiser vs the hedonist

Discipline or pleasure? Restriction or Excess? The pressure to live correctly.

I don’t know if this is a generational thing or simply a direction the winds of culture are blowing, but it feels as though contemporary life is organised around two competing fantasies. Let me set two scenes for you… You woke up this morning around 6:45 and went for a run because, god forbid, you check your phone before getting sunlight into your eyes. You got back, stretched, waited 90 minutes before having caffeine, added a scoop of protein to your porridge (like your Scottish ancestors intended I guess), went to work, took a nature walk, came home, cooked your low ingredient dinner,…

saved by

• Jackson Kozlowski
• Eric Wang

related reading

• Improving Ourselves to Death | The New Yorkernewyorker.com
• the life you were meant to livepersonalcanon.com
• the hunger to be everything.substack.com
• Tempering hardcorenessacotra.substack.com
• the hunger to be everything.odetoapoet.substack.com
• I Miss it All - Longreadslongreads.com
• The West is bored to death - New Statesmannewstatesman.com
• The Examined Life in the Age of Optimisationjournal.nyphilosophy.org
• Balancing Acts: Exploring Cultural Perspectives on Habits, Wellness, and Productivitythejennijohnson.substack.com
• #179: Beyond routinessubstack.com
• Four Thousand Weeks - by Oliver Burkeman | Derek Siverssive.rs
• The Self-Help Paradoxsubstack.com