Giving self-belief the benefit of some doubt
I share the stereotypically British dislike of bragging and affection for self-deprecation. I also think the self-critical impulse is essential[…]
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Tag: Self & identity
Why fifty is the new fifty
There is much to celebrate in our changing attitudes to ageing. I certainly don’t want us to go back to the attitudes of my British grandmother’s generation, for whom getting old seemed to involve mainly sitting at home, watching the television and waiting for visitors. However, I also worry that our positivity has a flip-side – Denial Of Getting Old. Our reluctance to get old before our time leads us to pretend we’re still young beyond our time.
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Do you think what you think you think?
We should stop treating instantaneity as the mark of authenticity. What we find at the tips of our tongues or our fingers does not necessarily most deeply reflect who we are.
ReadHume the humane
Hume believed we were nothing more or less than human: that’s why he’s the amiable, modest, generous philosopher we need now.
ReadMemo to those seeking to live for ever
It is one thing to accept our mortality as a necessary part of being embodied beings who live in time. But it is quite another to romanticise death or consider it to be no bad thing at all. Immortality might be a foolish goal but a longer mortality certainly isn’t.
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