From Open Socrates: The Case for a Philosophical Life by Agnes Callard
At around age fifty, the great Russian novelist Leo Tolstoy (1828 - 1910) experienced his life unraveling. He reports:
My life came to a halt. I could breathe, eat, drink, sleep and I couldn't not breathe, eat, drink, sleep; but I had no life because I had no desires in the fulfillment of which I might find any meaning.
The author notes and Tolstoy himself recognized that at the time Tolstoy had achieved everything that we would typically expect someone would require to thrive, flourish, and be happy (he had written two of world history's greatest novels, was in perfect health, wealthy, and had a family; yet Tolstoy still could not find meaning it it (to the point he considered suicide.)
In one sense it's alarming that if Tolstoy couldn't find happiness, what hope do the rest of us have with our everyday lives, but in another sense it's reassuring: the search for meaning is a human universal, a struggle we all face.
I've only read a little of this book as I had downloaded a sample, but the example of Tolstoy is given to set the stage for Socrates: someone who found meaning in the search for meaning. I'll definitely be reading the rest of this.
No comments:
Post a Comment