Friedrich Nietzsche (1844 – 1900) ​claimed​ his doctrine of eternal return was his most important idea, the “greatest elevation of the consciousness of strength in a man.”

The trope of the “tortured poet” is intriguing—it conveys the idea that meaningful art requires or is enhanced by anguish, torment, or emotional turmoil; and these same characteristics that produce great art ultimately destroy the artist.

I read a poem by Mary Oliver that stuck with me. It’s called “​White Flowers​” and it’s about the boundaries between wakefulness and sleep and life and death. While it’s beautifully written, the poem portrays death in an overly romanticized way.

“Square in your ship’s path are Sirens, crying beauty to bewitch men coasting by; woe to the innocent who hears that sound!”

John Keats (1795 – 1821) was an English Romantic poet who’s best known for his odes, like “Ode to a Nightingale.” Despite a short life, dying at age 25 of tuberculosis, he contributed significantly to English literature.

“The individual feels the futility of human desires and aims and the sublimity and marvelous order which reveal themselves both in nature and in the world of thought. Individual existence impresses him as a sort of prison and he wants to experience the universe as a single significant whole.” - Albert Einstein

Friendship was an important topic to Greek philosophers. Aristotle devoted 1/5th of his main work on ethics, Nicomachean Ethics, to friendship…