Man's Search For Happiness

Man's Search For Happiness PDF Author: Ashwin Sunder
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781710285291
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Man's desperate pursuit of happiness has been the single greatest source of evil throughout the ages. All men strive frantically to be eternally happy. And in this pursuit they fail continually. From the ensuing misery, arises the potential and the fact of great evil. A more natural and primeval mental state of being is possible, but our modern obsession with happiness obscures this possibility. If man is a beast, then in trying frantically to claim the happiness he believes he is entitled to, he becomes an even bigger beast. This is the book of the modern beast. "A bold exploration of the origins of misery, the modern happiness obsession, and paths to an escape..." -- SF Book Review

Man's Search For Happiness

Man's Search For Happiness PDF Author: Ashwin Sunder
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781710285291
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 256

Get Book

Book Description
Man's desperate pursuit of happiness has been the single greatest source of evil throughout the ages. All men strive frantically to be eternally happy. And in this pursuit they fail continually. From the ensuing misery, arises the potential and the fact of great evil. A more natural and primeval mental state of being is possible, but our modern obsession with happiness obscures this possibility. If man is a beast, then in trying frantically to claim the happiness he believes he is entitled to, he becomes an even bigger beast. This is the book of the modern beast. "A bold exploration of the origins of misery, the modern happiness obsession, and paths to an escape..." -- SF Book Review

Man's Search for Happiness: The Book of the Modern Beast

Man's Search for Happiness: The Book of the Modern Beast PDF Author: Ashwin Sunder
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781087853949
Category : Philosophy
Languages : en
Pages : 256

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Book Description
Man's selfish pursuit of happiness in the world today is doomed to failure. This is the book of the modern beast.

The Power of Meaning

The Power of Meaning PDF Author: Emily Esfahani Smith
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 055344655X
Category : Self-Help
Languages : en
Pages : 320

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Book Description
In a culture obsessed with happiness, this wise, stirring book points the way toward a richer, more satisfying life. Too many of us believe that the search for meaning is an esoteric pursuit—that you have to travel to a distant monastery or page through dusty volumes to discover life’s secrets. The truth is, there are untapped sources of meaning all around us—right here, right now. To explore how we can craft lives of meaning, Emily Esfahani Smith synthesizes a kaleidoscopic array of sources—from psychologists, sociologists, philosophers, and neuroscientists to figures in literature and history such as George Eliot, Viktor Frankl, Aristotle, and the Buddha. Drawing on this research, Smith shows us how cultivating connections to others, identifying and working toward a purpose, telling stories about our place in the world, and seeking out mystery can immeasurably deepen our lives. To bring what she calls the four pillars of meaning to life, Smith visits a tight-knit fishing village in the Chesapeake Bay, stargazes in West Texas, attends a dinner where young people gather to share their experiences of profound loss, and more. She also introduces us to compelling seekers of meaning—from the drug kingpin who finds his purpose in helping people get fit to the artist who draws on her Hindu upbringing to create arresting photographs. And she explores how we might begin to build a culture that leaves space for introspection and awe, cultivates a sense of community, and imbues our lives with meaning. Inspiring and story-driven, The Power of Meaning will strike a profound chord in anyone seeking a life that matters.

Man's Search For Meaning

Man's Search For Meaning PDF Author: Viktor E Frankl
Publisher: Random House
ISBN: 1448177685
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 240

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Book Description
Over 16 million copies sold worldwide 'Every human being should read this book' Simon Sinek One of the outstanding classics to emerge from the Holocaust, Man's Search for Meaning is Viktor Frankl's story of his struggle for survival in Auschwitz and other Nazi concentration camps. Today, this remarkable tribute to hope offers us an avenue to finding greater meaning and purpose in our own lives.

Beasts of the Modern Imagination

Beasts of the Modern Imagination PDF Author: Margot Norris
Publisher: JHU Press
ISBN: 1421431335
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 308

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Book Description
Originally published in 1985. Beasts of the Modern Imagination explores a specific tradition in modern thought and art: the critique of anthropocentrism at the hands of "beasts"—writers whose works constitute animal gestures or acts of fatality. It is not a study of animal imagery, although the works that Margot Norris explores present us with apes, horses, bulls, and mice who appear in the foreground of fiction, not as the tropes of allegory or fable, but as narrators and protagonists appropriating their animality amid an anthropocentric universe. These beasts are finally the masks of the human animals who create them, and the textual strategies that bring them into being constitute another version of their struggle. The focus of this study is a small group of thinkers, writers, and artists who create as the animal—not like the animal, in imitation of the animal—but with their animality speaking. The author treats Charles Darwin as the founder of this tradition, as the naturalist whose shattering conclusions inevitably turned back on him and subordinated him, the rational man, to the very Nature he studied. Friedrich Nietzsche heeded the advice implicit in his criticism of David Strauss and used Darwinian ideas as critical tools to interrogate the status of man as a natural being. He also responded to the implications of his own animality for his writing by transforming his work into bestial acts and gestures. The third, and last, generation of these creative animals includes Franz Kafka, the Surrealist artist Max Ernst, and D. H. Lawrence. In exploring these modern philosophers of the animal and its instinctual life, the author inevitably rebiologizes them even against efforts to debiologize thinkers whose works can be studied profitably for their models of signification.

Modern Nature

Modern Nature PDF Author: Derek Jarman
Publisher: U of Minnesota Press
ISBN: 1452915024
Category : Performing Arts
Languages : en
Pages : 322

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Book Description
Originally published: Woodstock, N.Y.: Overlook Press, 1994.

Happier?

Happier? PDF Author: Daniel Horowitz
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0190655658
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
When a cultural movement that began to take shape in the mid-twentieth century erupted into mainstream American culture in the late 1990s, it brought to the fore the idea that it is as important to improve one's own sense of pleasure as it is to manage depression and anxiety. Cultural historian Daniel Horowitz's research reveals that this change happened in the context of key events. World War II, the Holocaust, post-war prosperity, the rise of counter-culture, the crises of the 1970s, the presidency of Ronald Reagan, and the prime ministerships of Margaret Thatcher and David Cameron provided the important context for the development of the field today known as positive psychology. Happier? provides the first history of the origins, development, and impact of the way Americans -- and now many around the world -- shifted from mental illness to well-being as they pondered the human condition. This change, which came about from the fusing of knowledge drawn from Eastern spiritual traditions, behavioral economics, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and cognitive psychology, has been led by scholars and academic entrepreneurs, as they wrestled with the implications of political events and forces such as neoliberalism and cultural conservatism, and a public eager for self-improvement. Linking the development of happiness studies and positive psychology with a broad series of social changes, including the emergence of new media and technologies like TED talks, blogs, web sites, and neuroscience, as well as the role of evangelical ministers, Oprah Winfrey's enterprises, and funding from government agencies and private foundations, Horowitz highlights the transfer of specialized knowledge into popular arenas. Along the way he shows how marketing triumphed, transforming academic disciplines and spirituality into saleable products. Ultimately, Happier? illuminates how positive psychology, one of the most influential academic fields of the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, infused American culture with captivating promises for a happier society.

Ending the Pursuit of Happiness

Ending the Pursuit of Happiness PDF Author: Barry Magid
Publisher: ReadHowYouWant.com
ISBN: 1458783618
Category : Religion
Languages : en
Pages : 242

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Book Description
Inspires us - in wryly gentle prose - to outgrow the impossible pursuit of happiness, and instead make peace with the perfection of the way things are. Including ourselves! Magid invites readers to consider the notion that our certainty that we are broken may be turning our (3z(Bpursuit of happiness(S3(B into a source of yet more suffering. He takes an unusual look at our (S2(Bsecret practices(S3(B (what we?re REALLY doing, when we say (S2(Bpracticing(S3(B) and (S2(Bcurative fantasies,(S3(B wherein we have ideals of what spiritual practices will "do" for us, "cure" us. In doing so, he helps us look squarely at such pitfalls of spiritual practice so that we can avoid them. Along the way, Magid lays out a rich roadmap of a new "psychological-minded Zen," which may be among the most important spiritual developments of the present day.

What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us

What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us PDF Author: Danielle Crittenden
Publisher: Simon and Schuster
ISBN: 1439127743
Category : Social Science
Languages : en
Pages : 208

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Book Description
Talk to women under forty today, and you will hear that in spite of the fact that they have achieved goals previous generations of women could only dream of, they nonetheless feel more confused and insecure than ever. What has gone wrong? What can be done to set it right? These are the questions Danielle Crittenden answers in What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us. She examines the foremost issues in women's lives -- sex, marriage, motherhood, work, aging, and politics -- and argues that a generation of women has been misled: taught to blame men and pursue independence at all costs. Happiness is obtainable, Crittenden says, but only if women will free their minds from outdated feminist attitudes. By drawing on her own experience and a decade of research and analysis of modern female life, Crittenden passionately and engagingly tackles the myths that keep women from realizing the happiness they deserve. And she introduces a new way of thinking about society's problems that may, at long last, help women achieve the lives they desire.

Always Looking Up

Always Looking Up PDF Author: Michael J. Fox
Publisher: Hachette Books
ISBN: 1401395252
Category : Biography & Autobiography
Languages : en
Pages : 306

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Book Description
At the turn from our bedroom into the hallway, there is an old, full-length mirror in a wooden frame. I can't help but catch a glimpse of myself as I pass. Turning fully toward the glass, I consider what I see. This reflected version of myself, wet, shaking, rumpled, pinched, and slightly stooped, would be alarming were it not for the self-satisfied expression pasted across my face. I would ask the obvious question, "What are you smiling about?" but I already know the answer: "It just gets better from here." There are many words to describe Michael J. Fox: Actor. Husband. Father. Activist. But readers of Always Looking Up will soon add another to the list: Optimist. Michael writes about the hard-won perspective that helped him see challenges as opportunities. Instead of building walls around himself, he developed a personal policy of engagement and discovery: an emotional, psychological, intellectual, and spiritual outlook that has served him throughout his struggle with Parkinson's disease. Michael's exit from a very demanding, very public arena offered him the time--and the inspiration--to open up new doors leading to unexpected places. One door even led him to the center of his own family, the greatest destination of all. The last ten years, which is really the stuff of this book, began with such a loss: my retirement from Spin City. I found myself struggling with a strange new dynamic: the shifting of public and private personas. I had been Mike the actor, then Mike the actor with PD. Now was I just Mike with PD Parkinson's had consumed my career and, in a sense, had become my career. But where did all of this leave Me? I had to build a new life when I was already pretty happy with the old one. Always Looking Up shares the critical themes of Michael's life: work, politics, faith, and family. The book is a journey of self-discovery and reinvention, and a testament to the consolations that protect him from the ravages of Parkinson's. With humor and wit Michael describes how he became a happier, more satisfied person by recognizing the gifts of everyday life.