Living Well?

In this recent Browser interview, Roman Krzaric, founding member of The School of Life, claims that there have been four main sources for wisdom on the art of living: religion, philosophy, psychology, and now, neuroscience. Krzaric thinks we'd be better off analyzing examples from history, and recommends reading Thoreau, Orwell, and Frankl, among others. Overall, I found the interview thought-provoking, inconsistent, and at times contradictory. Here are some quotes worth noting:

On what living well means:

It’s partly about confronting what people find difficult in their lives, and reducing human suffering on some level. To find ways to nurture our relationships, and give our lives deeper meaning. To try to deal with the practicalities of making a living, dealing with money and work and time. To think about what it means to be a creative person and to nurture the many sides of yourself.

On outrospection, as opposed to introspection:

In the 20th century we were obsessed with introspection – the idea that the way to find meaning in our lives is to look inside us, at our drives, motivations and priorities... In the 21st century we need to balance introspection with outrospection – the idea that the way to discover how to live is to discover how other people see the world, to put yourself in their shoes and see how they have pursued the art of living. When it comes to New Year, I think we need a healthy dose of outrospection to explore how others have gone about dealing with the dilemmas of everyday life, whether it’s how to find love or how to deal with family tensions or career change. 

On why defining what living well means is increasingly more important today:

I think we’re in a state of flux. Many of these areas of life are undergoing change, and often rapid change because of technology. For example, the way we fall in love and make friends has been transformed by online networks and internet dating. There are new questions about how we spend the extra years that have been granted us, through medical technologies and public health. And there are questions about the nature of materialism and consumption. 

On different types of love:

Today we have one word for love. We use that same word to sign an email – “lots of love” – yet we whisper “I love you” over a romantic meal. The Ancient Greeks were much more complex in the art of loving. They had one word, eros, for sexual love and sexual passion. They had another word, philia, for deep comradely friendship. Another word, pragma, was about the mature love between long-married couples – about giving love as well as receiving it, and compromise. There was agape, their concept of selfless love, which is where we got our word “charity”, from caritas which was the Latin translation of agape. And there was philautia, which is self-love – the idea that we need to nurture a healthy self-love. And the sixth kind is ludos, playful love. I think that nurturing these varieties of love is the way to lead a much more complex and deep emotional life. The idea of “all we need is love” – whether it’s Frankl or the Beatles or [psychiatrist] M Scott Peck – it’s not enough, it’s too simplistic an analysis. We need to be much more sophisticated in the art of loving, and that’s why we need to look to the past. I love this quote from Goethe: “He who cannot draw on 3,000 years is living from hand to mouth.” So we need to go right back to Ancient Greece to find the wisdom for how to live today.

This is where I think Krzaric gets into trouble:

But what really comes out of these books, I think, is to treat life as an experiment. To take chances. To say things you’ve never said before, and to do things you’ve never done before. On some level every culture has come up with the idea that we need to seize the day – carpe diem. As the idea in Judaic thought goes: If not now, when? We need to recognise that life is preciously short and now is the moment to make that change – whether it is talking to your sister whom you haven’t spoken to in a decade, or handing in your resignation letter, or starting a community puppet theatre whether it works or not. Ultimately, if we don’t take those chances, and if we don’t sometimes fall down as well as stand up and thrive, we’re never going to live a life which is both deep and adventurous. 

This advice is guilty of short.bursts.of.advice, the just-follow-your passion-fallacy, and a general lack of scientific theory (e.g regret aversion), which is unfortunate, because we've pushed the conversation way past what Krzaric proposes. I agree that history can provide valuable insights into living well -- I just hope we find something more substantial than Just do "it" already! 

***

David Brooks distinguishes between two views of living well:

“There’s a debate in our culture about what really makes us happy, which is summarized by, on the one hand, the book “On the Road” and, on the other, the movie “It’s a Wonderful Life.” The former celebrates the life of freedom and adventure. The latter celebrates roots and connections. Research over the past thirty years makes it clear that what the inner mind really wants is connection.”