17 Dec 2025 · 0 min
Brian Johnson reads from A Philosopher's Notes on being a lighthouse. Joseph Campbell asked: are you the bulb carrying light, or the light itself? Johnson uses the metaphor to argue you should plug into the divine within and shine with creativity, love, and generosity.
You're listening to Optimize with Bryan Johnson More Wisdom in Less Time this is a mini chapter from Brian's book A Philosopher's Notes. You can find it on Amazon.
In Theos Lighthouses Joseph Campbell once asked, what am I? Am I the bulb that carries the light, or am I the light of which the bulb is a vehicle? I say both, and I think that question provides the perfect metaphor for us to understand our role in the process of connecting to and expressing the divine within us. From my perspective, it seems pretty obvious that our job and our highest goal is to see just how much God we can get flowing through us in this precious hero's journey of ours. Just how brightly and consistently can we shine our light of creativity and joy and love and kindness, generosity and appreciation and radiant enthusiasm out into the world? Now we can be a 20 watt bulb that flickers, sometimes plugged in, sometimes unplugged and bound to blow up if a huge amount of energy goes through us. Or we can be a 1000 watt lighthouse bulb that's unwaveringly plugged into the highest within us, that shines with a radiant enthusiasm that guides our community to their highest selves. It's up to us, and I say we plug in and shine.
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