Philosophy as a way of life | Academy of Ideas

"There are more things ... likely to frighten us than are to crush us; we suffer more often in imagination than in reality."

– attributed to Seneca in Academy of Ideas: Fear and Social Control

"The mass of men live lives of quiet desperation."

– attributed to Henry David Thoreau in Academy of Ideas: Philosophy as a Way of Life

"We should project our thoughts ahead of us at every turn and have in mind every possible entuality instead of only the usual course of events."

– attributed to Seneca in Academy of Ideas: Philosophy as a Way of Life

(Regarding having a perspective of wonder towards life despite the world's atrocities) "The wonder that a world is worlding around us at all, that there are beings rather than nothing, that things re and we ourselves are in their midst, that we are ourselves are and yet barely know who we are, and barely know that we do not know all this.

– attributed to Martin Heidegger in Academy of Ideas: Philosophy as a Way of Life

"Every human being has a natural need to form a life-view, a conception of the meaning of life and its purpose."

– attributed to Kierkegaard in Academy of Ideas: Kierkegaard: The Religious Solution

Not everyone consciously formulates [a life view] for themselves. ... Passively adapting themselves too socially-accepted values, expectations and modes of behavior familiar to their culture, instead of turning inward and thinking through the meaning and purpose of existence.

The bonds which tie him to society are in fact chains, highly repressive and limiting.

Immersion in the ethical sphere [entails recognizing] "the inmost and holiest thing of all in a man, the unifying power of personality."

The ethicist regards as his task the realization of a coherent and continuous identity. He realizes this by making definite choices by which he abides over time.

The choice itself is crucial for the content of the personality; through the choice the personality submerges itself in that which is being chosen, and when it does not choose, it withers away in atrophy.

– attributed to Kierkegaard in Academy of Ideas: Kierkegaard: The Religious Solution

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Academy of Ideas

http://www.youtube.come/user/academyofideas

Episodes:

Fear and Social Control

Philosophy as a Way of Life

Kierkegaard: The Religious Solution

Academy of Ideas is the catalyst of all discipline, productivity, and structure that I currently have in my life. Inspired by a quote from one of their videos I decided to take the plunge into a self-disciplined lifestyle – without even knowing or deciding what direction I would like my life to take next. (That had always been what stopped me from dedicating to a new hobby or discipline before.)

Now I listen to one Academy of Ideas video per day, extracting key points from them, which then become these posts. I do not agree with all they say, but they serve as a great testing grounds for my worldview.