I just finished reading a biography of Giordano Bruno, who was burned at the stake in Rome in 1600 for heresy. Again it has me thinking about the meaning and purpose of my life. I don’t want to live a meaningless and mediocre life. I want my life to serve some purpose. It doesn’t need to be a grand purpose, just some purpose.

Life is really a play set on the stage of our particular, unique moment in history. Bruno engaged fully with the set he found himself on, with all of its absurdities. He may have been before his time, but he engaged in his world on its own terms, fully accepting the consequences of that, allowing his life to play out in the only way that it could in that moment in history.

The author of the book included a quote by Bruno that talks about living full--not living in mediocre life:

Oh difficulties to be endured, cries the coward, the feather-head, the shuttlecock, the faint-heart. The task is not impossible, though hard. The craven must stand aside. Ordinary, easy tasks are for the commonplace and the herd. Rare, heroic, and divine men overcome the difficulties of the way and force an immortal palm from necessity. You may fail to reach your goals, but run the race nevertheless. Put forth your strength in so high a business. Stride on with your last breath.

 

Giordano Bruno