Lesson 87 • Bright-side OS
What we need, instead, is permission to pause.
I am late, but I couldn’t write you about Stoicism — not this week. My tolerance for death-cult realism (“memento mori”) is a mite low. It’s been a long January, and I’ve benchmarked and kept my shit together like a champ - but today I need something different: I want to look on the bright side.
First, a peak behind the curtain: I don’t read Stoic newsletters, listen to Stoic podcasts, lurk on the subreddit, and I stopped buying the books. After awhile, you get the gist. People can be pretty religious about this shit. They’re adherents.
Stoic Designers? We aren’t. Not in the dogmatic way. No, this is a framework: a tapestry of mental models we employ to help us navigate modern life. It’s an operating system.
So, today I want to boot-up another: let’s be Epicureans for a minute.
Not what we have but what we enjoy constitutes our abundance. — Epicurus
Let’s call it Bright Side OS. It’s Epicurus’s gentle nudge to pause and notice the parts of life that sustain us—not as distractions, but as vital counterweights to life’s inevitable weight. And that there’s no shame finding respite in those small pleasures, in escapism, especially when the storm clouds linger longer than usual.
Steam curling from a mug in the morning light.
Crisp footfall on a frost-covered ground.
A half-smile exchanged with a stranger.
Quiet details that are easy to miss when your mind is fixed on obstacles or the inevitability of time passing. They don’t undo the struggles, but they soften the edges. Sometimes, that’s enough.
Epicureanism doesn’t ask us to abandon our principles or retreat from the challenges we face. It asks us to shift the frame, to let the spotlight linger on what is good, however small. This isn’t delusion or denial—it’s balance. Even Marcus Aurelius, the poster child for Stoic grit, wrote, “Dwell on the beauty of life. Watch the stars, and see yourself running with them.”
So, this is what I want to write you this week.
January has felt endless. Choosing to notice small joys didn’t mean the weight disappeared; it meant I found moments to set it down. A philosophy that demands perfection in the face of chaos is one destined to fail. What we need, instead, is permission to pause.
And so, I paused.
Furbelow
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