Field Guide to a Happy Life: 53 Brief Lessons for Living

"As the Modern Stoicism movement has blossomed over the past decade, its practitioners and enthusiasts have struggled with some of the movement's stranger claims. Should we really be indifferent to death of a loved one, or to our own demise? Is it truly unacceptable to care about one's work? Should we really look to nature for moral guidance? And what role does Providence have in ordering human affairs? In A Field Guide to a Happy Life, philosopher and Stoic Massimo Pigliucci has embarked on an ambitioustask: offering his own view how the teachings of the Stoics can be adapted to modern mores and knowledge, taking as his inspiration the classic epitome of ancient Stoicism, Epictetus' Handbook. This is not another translation of Epictetus' teachings. Epictetus's ancient Stoicism, with its emphasis on indifference, can seem to call for us to be soulless automatons. For him, all aspiration was vanity and all grieving wrong-headed. Pigliucci is a modern master of the school, and is offering a major revisionof the philosophy. This is not hubris: The ancient Stoics believed that their ideas were meant to be updated by future generations. And so Pigliucci revises or discards the teachings of ancient Stoicism that have come to seem inhumane-arguing that it's fine to want to do well at work or to mourn the loss of a loved-one-or unscientific, while retaining the doctrine's core emphasis on resilience and equanimity. In his hands, Stoicism isn't about cultivating indifference to our social and emotional lives. It's about learning to endure life's hardships without being overwhelmed, while enjoying life's pleasures without losing our heads. The Stoic philosopher Seneca once wrote that "those who advanced these doctrines before us are not our masters but our guides." Each Stoic must be their own master. In A Field Guide to a Happy Life, Pigliucci will help them find their way"--
A renowned philosopher offers a renewed Stoicism that reflects modern science and sensibilities that embraces the joyful bonds of affection, the satisfaction of a job well done and the grief that attends loss. 25,000 first printing.
A brilliant philosopher reimagines Stoicism for our modern age in this thought-provoking guide to a better life.For more than two thousand years, Stoicism has offered a message of resilience in the face of hardship. Little wonder, then, that it is having such a revival in our own troubled times. But there is no denying how weird it can be: Is it really the case that we shouldn't care about our work, our loved ones, or our own lives? According to the old Stoics, yes.In A Field Guide to a Happy Life, philosopher Massimo Pigliucci offers a renewed Stoicism that reflects modern science and sensibilities. Pigliucci embraces the joyful bonds of affection, the satisfactions of a job well done, and the grief that attends loss. In his hands, Stoicism isn't about feats of indifference, but about enduring pain without being overwhelmed, while enjoying pleasures without losing our heads. In short, he makes Stoicism into a philosophy all of us -- whether committed Stoics or simply seekers -- can use to live better.