Tag Archives: meaning of life
The Meanings of Our Lives
The Meanings of Our Lives People commit suicide when their lives seem to them meaningless. At least, that’s been my experience, which I’ll share with you. I’ve talked two women friends out of killing themselves, which they seemed quite serious … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, afterlife, alienation, art of living, atheism, autonomy, bad faith, beauty, books, bureaucracy, cities, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, courtship, cults, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, eternity, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, female power, femininity, feminism, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, immortality, institutional power, law, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modern women, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, mysticism, nineteenth-century, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, romantic love, romanticism, scientism, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, slave, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged 12-step program, 13-step, a culture's sense of meaning, AA, absolutist solutions, abstract universal, accepting imperfections, Al-Anon, art of compromise, Bolshevik revolution, book contract, book proposals, Communist ideology, Communists and state power, concrete universal, courts and justice, democracy and patriotism, don't fake it, eternal feminine, facing life's challenges, faith and force, fall of Constantinople, Feminine pride, friend in crisis, future of Russia, Greek Orthodox Church, healing despair, human imperfections, ideal self-image, Igor Kliamkin's Demilitarization as a Historical and Cultural Issue, insulting a woman, just be there, learning to compromise, living through the Holocaust, looking for meaning, losing a book contract, meaning in culture, meaning of life, meaninglessness, Modern attitudes, Mother Russia, Nazi death camps, occult lore, pay attention, political compromises, publisher rejections, publisher's priorities, readership, reincarnation, reincarnation and suicide, representative government, respecting the law, Russia and the rule of law, Russian Philosophy in the Twenty-First Century: An Anthology eds. Mikhail Sergeev Alexander Chumakov Mary Theis, Russian politics, seducer's manipulation tactics, slave labor, suicide, suicide watch, suicide's contagion, talking it out, talking out of suicide, the human condition, the people's allegiance, the Russian people, tragedy of Russia, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning, wholesome American girl, will to live, women's malice
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The Meaning of My Life?
The Meaning of My Life? Viktor Frankl wrote a book reflecting on the meaning of his experiences when he was incarcerated in a Nazi death camp. He found that people needed their lives to be meaningful – more than they … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, alienation, art of living, atheism, autonomy, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, courage, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, health, hidden God, history of ideas, ideality, identity, idolatry, life and death struggle, literature, love, martyrdom, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, mortality, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, philosophy, poetry, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reductionism, relationships, religion, roles, scientism, self-deception, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, theism, theology, time, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged accidents are accidental, anxiety dream, catch 22, catch 22 situation, crisis of meaning, despairing life view, diminished sensory input, elephant in the room, emotional landscape, experimental neuropathy treatment, experimental treatment, false meanings, fate v chance, forcing meanings, Hardy-esque landscape, Jones fracture, life dilemma, logic v empathy, Loma Linda Neuropathic Therapy Center, losing the big picture, meaning of life, meaningful life, meaningless happening, neuro-vascular system, neuropathy, not God's plan, random incident, rush to judgment, searching for meaning in the wrong place, sensory input, Socratic dialectic, Socratic test for truth, sound argument, syllogism, the big picture, the sake of the argument, Thomas Hardy worldview, toe fracture, trivial incident, valid argument, Viktor Frankl's Man's Search for Meaning
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The Personal Meets the Political
The Personal Meets the Political I’m still reading A Dangerous Liaison, the book by Carole Seymour-Jones, about the great twentieth-century power couple, Simone de Beauvoir and Jean-Paul Sartre. In my previous blog on them, I focused on the inconsistency between … Continue reading
Posted in Absolute Freedom and Terror, absurdism, academe, action, alienation, art, art of living, atheism, autonomy, books, cities, class, conformism, contradictions, cool, courage, courtship, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, erotic life, ethics, evil, existentialism, exploitation, faith, fashion, femininity, feminism, films, freedom, friendship, gender balance, glitterati, Gnosticism, guilt and innocence, Hegel, hegemony, heroes, hidden God, hierarchy, history, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, institutional power, Jews, journalism, legal responsibility, life and death struggle, literature, love, male power, martyrdom, masculinity, master, master/slave relation, memoir, memory, mind control, modernism, moral action, moral evaluation, moral psychology, morality, mortality, nineteenth-century, novels, ontology, oppression, past and future, Phenomenology of the Mind, philosophy, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, race, radicalism, reading, reductionism, relationships, roles, secular, seduction, self-deception, sex appeal, sexuality, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, status, status of women, suffering, terror, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, time, twentieth century, twenty-first century, Utopia, victimhood, victims, violence, war, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged absolute certainty, absolute doubt, Albert Camus, Alfonse Dreyfus, anarchy and tyranny, Bianca Bienenfeld, bohemian freedom, Carole Seymour-Jones’ A Dangerous Liason, Claude Lanzmann’s The Patagonian Hare, communist party line, dazzling career, decadent Parisian intellectuals, defining the modern world, existentialist hero, existentialist morality, for-itself v in-itself, French intellectuals, French Resistance, Hegel’s phenomenology of spirit, Holocaust awareness, Holocaust survivors, intellectual careerism, intellectual power, intellectual PR, intellectual self-advertisement, Jean-Paul Sartre, Lanzmann’s Shoah, libertine Gnosticism, libertinism and despotism, living one’s philosophy, man/woman asymmetries, meaning of life, myths of French Resistance, Nazi genocide, occupied France, official story, opinion shaper, personal self-invention, philosophic inconsistency, philosophic life, post-modern skepticism, Power couple, private and public philosophy, rounding up Jews, seducing students, Simone de Beauvoir, Simone de Beauvoir's The Second Sex, the Dreyfus Case, the personal is the political, yellow star
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The Meaning of Meaninglessness
I’m reading a book by a philosopher named Susan Wolf about the meaning of life. Or rather, about the importance of meaning in a good life. What prompts such a book? you may ask. Susan Wolf explains that philosophers have … Continue reading
Posted in absurdism, academe, action, art of living, atheism, autonomy, books, class, conformism, contemplation, contradictions, cultural politics, culture, desire, dialectic, eternity, ethics, existentialism, faith, fashion, feminism, freedom, glitterati, guilt and innocence, health, hegemony, hierarchy, history of ideas, id, idealism, ideality, identity, ideology, idolatry, immorality, mind control, modernism, mortality, oppression, past and future, philosophy, poetry, political movements, politics of ideas, postmodernism, power, presence, promissory notes, propaganda, psychology, public facade, public intellectual, reading, reductionism, relationships, roles, scientism, secular, self-deception, social climbing, social construction, social conventions, social ranking, spiritual journey, spiritual not religious, spirituality, status, status of women, suffering, the examined life, the problematic of men, the problematic of woman, the profane, the sacred, time, twentieth century, work, writing, Zeitgeist
Tagged curing depression, cynicism, definitions of the good life, depression, despair, empirical evidence, facts and theories, fashionable theories, finding your path, having a passion, human purposes, identity theory, life after death, life’s purposes, little things, meaning of life, meaning of meaning, meaninglessness, mind and brain, opinion shapers, passion for philosophy, personal quandary, philosopher’s books, philosophers, philosophic authors, pointlesslessness, quality time, quantity and quality, skepticism, socially constructed beliefs, socially constructed values, Susan Wolf’s Meaning in Life and Why It Matters, the absurd, the search for meaning, too brief to matter, too small to matter, value judgments, what happens when we die, worldviews
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