What makes for a good life, or a beautiful one, or, perhaps most
important, a meaningful one? Throughout history most of us have
looked to our faith, our relationships, or our deeds for the
answer. But in A Significant Life, philosopher Todd May offers an
exhilarating new way of thinking about these questions, one deeply
attuned to life as it actually is: a work in progress, a journey
and often a narrative. Offering moving accounts of his own life and
memories alongside rich engagements with philosophers from
Aristotle to Heidegger, he shows us where to find the significance
of our lives: in the way we live them. May starts by looking at the
fundamental fact that life unfolds over time, and as it does so, it
begins to develop certain qualities, certain themes. Our lives can
be marked by intensity, curiosity, perseverance, or many other
qualities that become guiding narrative values. These values lend
meanings to our lives that are distinct from but also interact with
the universal values we are taught to cultivate, such as goodness
or happiness. Offering a fascinating examination of a broad range
of figures from music icon Jimi Hendrix to civil rights leader
Fannie Lou Hamer, from cyclist Lance Armstrong to The Portrait of a
Lady's Ralph Touchett to Claus von Stauffenberg, a German officer
who tried to assassinate Hitler May shows that narrative values
offer a rich variety of criteria by which to assess a life,
specific to each of us and yet widely available. They offer us a
way of reading ourselves, who we are, and who we might like to be.
Clearly and eloquently written, A Significant Life is a recognition
and a comfort, a celebration of the deeply human narrative impulse
by which we make even if we don't realize it meaning for ourselves.
It offers a refreshing way to think of an age-old question, of
quite simply, what makes a life worth living.
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