twigberries

Where can you find joy? Gain strength? How should we face our fears? Deal with the death of a loved one? And what about those reoccurring depressing thoughts? While traditional schooling doesn’t address such questions, it’s exactly what ancient schools of philosophy were all about: They taught you how to live. Even though these schools don’t exist anymore, you and I and most people are in as much need of a philosophy that guides us through life as we ever were. This compelling, highly actionable guide shows you how to deal more effectively with whatever life throws at you.

We've come to misunderstand curiosity, mistaking diversive curiosity, our attraction to novel stimuli, as the real thing. This leaves us floundering in a world of Angry Birds, live tweeting, and fleeting, click-through distractions. Leslie shows how these distractions have led to a decline in deep, sustained quests for knowledge and understanding - what he calls epistemic curiosity - which relies on effort and persistence, and empathic curiosity, which leads us to wonder about the thoughts and feelings of others.