Life Is Short
An Appropriately Brief Guide to Making It More Meaningful
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- $18.99
Publisher Description
Why life’s shortness—more than anything else—is what makes it meaningful
Death might seem to render pointless all our attempts to create a meaningful life. Doesn’t meaning require transcending death through an afterlife or in some other way? On the contrary, Dean Rickles argues, life without death would be like playing tennis without a net. Only constraints—and death is the ultimate constraint—make our actions meaningful. In Life Is Short, Rickles explains why the finiteness and shortness of life is the essence of its meaning—and how this insight is the key to making the most of the time we do have.
Life Is Short explores how death limits our options and forces us to make choices that forge a life and give the world meaning. But people often live in a state of indecision, in a misguided attempt to keep their options open. This provisional way of living—always looking elsewhere, to the future, to other people, to other ways of being, and never committing to what one has or, alternatively, putting in the time and energy to achieve what one wants—is a big mistake, and Life Is Short tells readers how to avoid this trap.
By reminding us how extraordinary it is that we have any time to live at all, Life Is Short challenges us to rethink what gives life meaning and how to make the most of it.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Rickles (What Is Philosophy of Science?), a philosophy of modern physics professor at the University of Sydney, investigates how to live a meaningful life in this charming and profound outing. Drawing from ancient Stoics and 20th-century existentialists, he contends that to "have a meaningful life, death is necessary," and examines how freedom can arise from limitations and rules. Immortality would mean life without consequences, the author argues, because choices not taken could be explored at a later point. Rickles updates Roman philosopher Seneca's contention that humans should make the most of their short lives, noting that many people waste time on social media "concerned more with how they appear than how they are." To live a meaningful life, the author recommends "becoming psychologically whole" through "individuation," psychoanalyst Carl Jung's concept for understanding how conscious and unconscious factors influence one's actions. Rickles asserts that without this self-knowledge, one lives as an object steered by forces outside one's awareness, and to avoid this fate readers must resist "bulletproofing" themselves and closing off to vulnerability and self-reflection. The thoughtful treatment of big ideas is matched by a lucid presentation that achieves accessibility without sacrificing intellectual heft. This brief volume packs a punch.
