Facing Our Mortality Without Fear: Advice from the Great Philosophers

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Author :
Publisher : iUniverse
ISBN 13 : 1462034004
Total Pages : 148 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 (62 download)

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Book Synopsis Facing Our Mortality Without Fear: Advice from the Great Philosophers by : Robert Bonser

Download or read book Facing Our Mortality Without Fear: Advice from the Great Philosophers written by Robert Bonser and published by iUniverse. This book was released on 2011-08-01 with total page 148 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The fear of our mortality is a common and natural fear among humans. There is a proud tradition in philosophy of being able to offer consolation and comfort for the trials and tribulations of life, including the greatest and final trial - death. Socrates said that whether death is extinction or the persistence of the soul in an afterlife, it is nothng to fear. The first half of the book" Montaigne on the Fear of Death" shows how we can overcome our fear even if death is extinction, and the second half, "A Philosopher's View of Heaven" presents a positive portrayal of "heaven" based on reason rather than revelation, and one which helps to make sense of our earthly life.

A Philosophy of Fear

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Publisher : Reaktion Books
ISBN 13 : 1861897863
Total Pages : 158 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (618 download)

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Book Synopsis A Philosophy of Fear by : Lars Svendsen

Download or read book A Philosophy of Fear written by Lars Svendsen and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2008-11-01 with total page 158 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Surveillance cameras. Airport security lines. Barred store windows. We see manifestations of societal fears everyday, and daily news reports on the latest household danger or raised terror threat level continually stoke our sense of impending doom. In A Philosophy of Fear, Lars Svendsen now explores the underlying ideas and issues behind this powerful emotion, as he investigates how and why fear has insinuated itself into every aspect of modern life. Svendsen delves into science, politics, sociology, and literature to explore the nature of fear. He examines the biology behind the emotion, from the neuroscience underlying our “fight or flight” instinct to how fear induces us to take irrational actions in our attempts to minimize risk. The book then turns to the political and social realms, investigating the role of fear in the philosophies of Machiavelli and Hobbes, the rise of the modern “risk society,” and how fear has eroded social trust. Entertainment such as the television show “Fear Factor,” competition in extreme sports, and the political use of fear in the ongoing “War on Terror” all come under Svendsen’s probing gaze, as he investigates whether we can ever disentangle ourselves from the continual state of alarm that defines our age. Svendsen ultimately argues for the possibility of a brighter, less fearful future that is marked by a triumph of humanist optimism. An incisive and thought-provoking meditation, A Philosophy of Fear pulls back the curtain that shrouds dangers imagined and real, forcing us to confront our fears and why we hold to them.

Being and Time

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Publisher : Newcomb Livraria Press
ISBN 13 : 3989882902
Total Pages : 624 pages
Book Rating : 4.9/5 (898 download)

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Book Synopsis Being and Time by : Martin Heidegger

Download or read book Being and Time written by Martin Heidegger and published by Newcomb Livraria Press. This book was released on 1962 with total page 624 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A new 2024 translation of Martin Heidegger's major work "Being and Time" (Sein und Zeit), originally published in 1927 in multiple publications. This edition contains a new afterword by the Translator, a timeline of Heidegger's life and works, a philosophic index of core Heideggerian concepts and a guide for terminology across 19th and 20th century Existentialists. This translation is designed for readability and accessibility to Heidegger's enigmatic and dense philosophy. Complex and specific philosophic terms are translated as literally as possible and academic footnotes have been removed to ensure easy reading. Being and Time presents a complex philosophical discourse on the nature of being (Sein) and time (Zeit), focusing in particular on the temporal-existentialist concept of Dasein, a term that combines the German words for "to be" (sein) and "there" (da). This classic philosophic work examines the traditional metaphysical understanding of being, arguing that this understanding, typically based on the idea of a constant presence, fails to account for the temporal and existential dimensions of being. Heidegger proposes that an understanding of being requires an analysis of Dasein, which is characterized not only by its existence, but also by its being in the world and its temporal existence. The concept of Dasein is central to the his argument, emphasizing that Dasein is always already situated in a world, and its understanding of being is shaped by its temporal existence. This perspective challenges traditional metaphysical notions of being as static and unchanging, proposing instead that being is fundamentally temporal and connected to human existence and understanding. As the title suggests, Heidegger sees the question of Being as indistinguishable from Time, arguing that Newtonian conceptions of time as a series of now-points are inadequate for understanding the being of Dasein. His Ontochronology argues that the existential and ontological analysis of Dasein reveals a more fundamental concept of time, one that is integral to the structure of Being itself. The text further elaborates on the idea of "thrownness" and several other existentialist themes. Thrownness is one of the three conditions that signifies Dasein's immersion in the world, where it finds itself already entangled in a web of relations and meanings. This "thrownness", combined with Dasein's inherent being-toward-death, underscores the existential condition of human beings, framing their existence as a continual engagement with their own finitude and the possibilities of their being. Heidegger posits that understanding the nature of being requires a fundamental rethinking of both being and time, dogmatically stating that the true nature of being can only be grasped through an understanding of the temporality that characterizes the existence of being.

How To Remove Your Fear of Death Forever

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Author :
Publisher : Marc Stewart
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 36 pages
Book Rating : 4./5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis How To Remove Your Fear of Death Forever by : Marc Stewart

Download or read book How To Remove Your Fear of Death Forever written by Marc Stewart and published by Marc Stewart. This book was released on 2014-09-25 with total page 36 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This eBook could remove your fear of death forever It could teach you-for the first time in your existence-how to live outrageously alive. Now Not tomorrow. But now! It is a book about life and death. How to be alive-now. And how never to die. It is, however, a completely subversive and dangerous eBook. It is difficult to read-shattering in its impact-full of strange consequences for you, your family, your job, and your “responsibilities”. Its author grew up in and was inspired by for example was inspired by the “Hippie” movement. Had he written this book five hundred years ago, he would have been burned at the stake. If, therefore, you are satisfied with your life as it is now . . . If you feel that you are alive enough now, that you gain enough satisfaction and meaning out of each day now . . . If you do not want to discuss or confront the question of death-then turn away from this page now. The rest of this letter will simply be confusing and destructive for you. Now, for those of you who remain, let us look at the universe through different eyes: This book says that Western Society has tricked you-INTO BELIEVING THAT YOU ARE A PRISIONER IN A BAG OF SKIN! This book assumes that you are a normal American man or woman. In other words, that you are a member of our modern Western society. As such, it says, you have been condemned at birth to spend your entire life in the shadow of impossible-and essentially ridiculous-definitions of yourself that say this: That you are nothing more than a walking bag of skin-filled with a mind, personality, and perhaps (though no one can prove it) a soul. Therefore, that you are born-live-struggle-suffer-build-love-and all the rest, only to die. To vanish. To disappear into the same nothingness you came from. That-if you no longer accept the old Western idea of a heaven and a hell-once you die, you are simply gone. That death is like being buried alive forever-no more friends, no more sunlight, or birdsong, no more love or laughter. Only darkness without end. All that all humans live and die in this terrible loneliness. Each of us is irrevocably cut off from the other-separated and alone-with even love as only a flicker of light in aeons of darkness. Cast adrift in a hostile universe-which itself will probably end in eternal darkness. This, then, is the modern Western view. And, again, this eBook says it is ridiculous. Let us turn it upside down. Let us see how the universe looks through the other end of the telescope. This book gives you a new you. It takes away your bag of skin, and gives you both your conscious and unconscious in synchronistic equilibrium.

The Courage to Be

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Author :
Publisher : DigiCat
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 138 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (596 download)

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Book Synopsis The Courage to Be by : Paul Tillich

Download or read book The Courage to Be written by Paul Tillich and published by DigiCat. This book was released on 2023-11-26 with total page 138 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Courage to Be introduced issues of theology and culture to a general readership. The book examines ontic, moral, and spiritual anxieties across history and in modernity. The author defines courage as the self-affirmation of one's being in spite of a threat of nonbeing. He relates courage to anxiety, anxiety being the threat of non-being and the courage to be what we use to combat that threat. Tillich outlines three types of anxiety and thus three ways to display the courage to be. Tillich writes that the ultimate source of the courage to be is the "God above God," which transcends the theistic idea of God and is the content of absolute faith (defined as "the accepting of the acceptance without somebody or something that accepts").

A Year to Live

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Publisher : Harmony
ISBN 13 : 0307561321
Total Pages : 192 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (75 download)

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Book Synopsis A Year to Live by : Stephen Levine

Download or read book A Year to Live written by Stephen Levine and published by Harmony. This book was released on 2009-10-07 with total page 192 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In his new book, Stephen Levine, author of the perennial best-seller Who Dies?, teaches us how to live each moment, each hour, each day mindfully--as if it were all that was left. On his deathbed, Socrates exhorted his followers to practice dying as the highest form of wisdom. Levine decided to live this way himself for a whole year, and now he shares with us how such immediacy radically changes our view of the world and forces us to examine our priorities. Most of us go to extraordinary lengths to ignore, laugh off, or deny the fact that we are going to die, but preparing for death is one of the most rational and rewarding acts of a lifetime. It is an exercise that gives us the opportunity to deal with unfinished business and enter into a new and vibrant relationship with life. Levine provides us with a year-long program of intensely practical strategies and powerful guided meditations to help with this work, so that whenever the ultimate moment does arrive for each of us, we will not feel that it has come too soon.

The Daily Stoic

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0735211744
Total Pages : 418 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (352 download)

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Book Synopsis The Daily Stoic by : Ryan Holiday

Download or read book The Daily Stoic written by Ryan Holiday and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2016-10-18 with total page 418 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From the team that brought you The Obstacle Is the Way and Ego Is the Enemy, a daily devotional of Stoic meditations—an instant Wall Street Journal and USA Today Bestseller. Why have history's greatest minds—from George Washington to Frederick the Great to Ralph Waldo Emerson, along with today's top performers from Super Bowl-winning football coaches to CEOs and celebrities—embraced the wisdom of the ancient Stoics? Because they realize that the most valuable wisdom is timeless and that philosophy is for living a better life, not a classroom exercise. The Daily Stoic offers 366 days of Stoic insights and exercises, featuring all-new translations from the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, the playwright Seneca, or slave-turned-philosopher Epictetus, as well as lesser-known luminaries like Zeno, Cleanthes, and Musonius Rufus. Every day of the year you'll find one of their pithy, powerful quotations, as well as historical anecdotes, provocative commentary, and a helpful glossary of Greek terms. By following these teachings over the course of a year (and, indeed, for years to come) you'll find the serenity, self-knowledge, and resilience you need to live well.

On Death

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Publisher : Penguin
ISBN 13 : 0143135376
Total Pages : 130 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (431 download)

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Book Synopsis On Death by : Timothy Keller

Download or read book On Death written by Timothy Keller and published by Penguin. This book was released on 2020-03-03 with total page 130 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: From New York Times bestselling author and pastor Timothy Keller, a book about facing the death of loved ones, as well as our own inevitable death Significant events such as birth, marriage, and death are milestones in our lives in which we experience our greatest happiness and our deepest grief. And so it is profoundly important to understand how to approach and experience these occasions with grace, endurance, and joy. In a culture that does its best to deny death, Timothy Keller--theologian and bestselling author--teaches us about facing death with the resources of faith from the Bible. With wisdom and compassion, Keller finds in the Bible an alternative to both despair or denial. A short, powerful book, On Death gives us the tools to understand the meaning of death within God's vision of life.

Facing Death

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Publisher : Clarendon Press
ISBN 13 : 9780191531002
Total Pages : 260 pages
Book Rating : 4.5/5 (31 download)

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Book Synopsis Facing Death by : James Warren

Download or read book Facing Death written by James Warren and published by Clarendon Press. This book was released on 2004-06-17 with total page 260 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The ancient philosophical school of Epicureanism tried to argue that death is 'nothing to us'. Were they right? James Warren provides a comprehensive study and articulation of the interlocking arguments against the fear of death found not only in the writings of Epicurus himself, but also in Lucretius' poem De rerum natura and in Philodemus' work De morte. These arguments are central to the Epicurean project of providing ataraxia (freedom from anxiety) and therefore central to an understanding of Epicureanism as a whole. They also offer significant resources for modern discussions of the value of death - one which stands at the intersection of metaphysics and ethics. If death is the end of the subject, and the subject can not be benefited nor harmed after death, is it reasonable nevertheless to fear the ceasing-to-be? If the Epicureans are not right to claim that the dead can neither be benefited nor harmed, what alternative models might be offered for understanding the harm done by death and do these alternatives suffer from any further difficulties? The discussion involves consideration of both ethical and metaphysical topics since it requires analysis not only of the nature of a good life but also the nature of personal identity and time. A number of modern philosophers have offered criticisms or defences of the Epicureans' views. Warren explores and evaluates these in the light of a systematic and detailed study of the precise form and intention of the Epicureans' original arguments. Warren argues that the Epicureans also were interested in showing that mortality is not to be regretted and that premature death is not to be feared. Their arguments for these conclusions are to be found in their positive conception of the nature of a good and complete life, which divorce the completeness of a life as far as possible from considerations of its duration. Later chapters investigate the nature of a life lived without the fear of death and pose serious problems for the Epicureans being able to allow any concern for the post mortem future and being able to offer a positive reason for prolonging a life which is already complete in their terms.

Being with Dying

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Author :
Publisher : Shambhala Publications
ISBN 13 : 9780834821743
Total Pages : 224 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (217 download)

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Book Synopsis Being with Dying by : Joan Halifax

Download or read book Being with Dying written by Joan Halifax and published by Shambhala Publications. This book was released on 2009-11-17 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Buddhist approach to death can be of great benefit to people of all backgrounds—as has been demonstrated time and again in Joan Halifax’s decades of work with the dying and their caregivers. Inspired by traditional Buddhist teachings, her work is a source of wisdom for all those who are charged with a dying person’s care, facing their own death, or wishing to explore and contemplate the transformative power of the dying process. Her teachings affirm that we can open and contact our inner strength, and that we can help others who are suffering to do the same.

Feline Philosophy

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Publisher : Farrar, Straus and Giroux
ISBN 13 : 0374718792
Total Pages : 99 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (747 download)

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Book Synopsis Feline Philosophy by : John Gray

Download or read book Feline Philosophy written by John Gray and published by Farrar, Straus and Giroux. This book was released on 2020-11-24 with total page 99 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The author of Straw Dogs, famous for his provocative critiques of scientific hubris and the delusions of progress and humanism, turns his attention to cats—and what they reveal about humans' torturous relationship to the world and to themselves. The history of philosophy has been a predictably tragic or comical succession of palliatives for human disquiet. Thinkers from Spinoza to Berdyaev have pursued the perennial questions of how to be happy, how to be good, how to be loved, and how to live in a world of change and loss. But perhaps we can learn more from cats--the animal that has most captured our imagination--than from the great thinkers of the world. In Feline Philosophy, the philosopher John Gray discovers in cats a way of living that is unburdened by anxiety and self-consciousness, showing how they embody answers to the big questions of love and attachment, mortality, morality, and the Self: Montaigne's house cat, whose un-examined life may have been the one worth living; Meo, the Vietnam War survivor with an unshakable capacity for "fearless joy"; and Colette's Saha, the feline heroine of her subversive short story "The Cat", a parable about the pitfalls of human jealousy. Exploring the nature of cats, and what we can learn from it, Gray offers a profound, thought-provoking meditation on the follies of human exceptionalism and our fundamentally vulnerable and lonely condition. He charts a path toward a life without illusions and delusions, revealing how we can endure both crisis and transformation, and adapt to a changed scene, as cats have always done.

Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living

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Author :
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393531678
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.3/5 (935 download)

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Book Synopsis Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living by : David Fideler

Download or read book Breakfast with Seneca: A Stoic Guide to the Art of Living written by David Fideler and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-12-14 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first clear and faithful guide to the timeless, practical teachings of the Stoic philosopher Seneca. Stoicism, the most influential philosophy of the Roman Empire, offers refreshingly modern ways to strengthen our inner character in the face of an unpredictable world. Widely recognized as the most talented and humane writer of the Stoic tradition, Seneca teaches us to live with freedom and purpose. His most enduring work, over a hundred “Letters from a Stoic” written to a close friend, explains how to handle adversity; overcome grief, anxiety, and anger; transform setbacks into opportunities for growth; and recognize the true nature of friendship. In Breakfast with Seneca, philosopher David Fideler mines Seneca’s classic works in a series of focused chapters, clearly explaining Seneca’s ideas without oversimplifying them. Best enjoyed as a daily ritual, like an energizing cup of coffee, Seneca’s wisdom provides us with a steady stream of time-tested advice about the human condition—which, as it turns out, hasn’t changed much over the past two thousand years.

The Denial of Death

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Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 9781788164269
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.1/5 (642 download)

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Book Synopsis The Denial of Death by : ERNEST. BECKER

Download or read book The Denial of Death written by ERNEST. BECKER and published by . This book was released on 2020-03-05 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the Pulitzer prize in 1974 and the culmination of a life's work, The Denial of Death is Ernest Becker's brilliant and impassioned answer to the 'why' of human existence. In bold contrast to the predominant Freudian school of thought, Becker tackles the problem of the vital lie - man's refusal to acknowledge his own mortality. The book argues that human civilisation is a defence against the knowledge that we are mortal beings. Becker states that humans live in both the physical world and a symbolic world of meaning, which is where our 'immortality project' resides. We create in order to become immortal - to become part of something we believe will last forever. In this way we hope to give our lives meaning.In The Denial of Death, Becker sheds new light on the nature of humanity and issues a call to life and its living that still resonates decades after it was written.

Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger

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Author :
Publisher : Northwestern University Press
ISBN 13 : 0810132524
Total Pages : 216 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (11 download)

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Book Synopsis Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger by : Adam Buben

Download or read book Meaning and Mortality in Kierkegaard and Heidegger written by Adam Buben and published by Northwestern University Press. This book was released on 2016-04-30 with total page 216 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Death is one of those few topics that attract the attention of just about every significant thinker in the history of Western philosophy, and this attention has resulted in diverse and complex views on death and what comes after. In Meaning and Mortality, Adam Buben offers a remarkably useful new framework for understanding the ways in which philosophy has discussed death by focusing first on two traditional strains in the discussion, the Platonic and the Epicurean. After providing a thorough account of this ancient dichotomy, he describes the development of an alternative means of handling death in Søren Kierkegaard and Martin Heidegger, whose work on death tends to overshadow Kierkegaard's despite the undeniable influence exerted on him by the nineteenth-century Dane. Buben argues that Kierkegaard and Heidegger prescribe a peculiar way of living with death that offers a kind of compromise between the Platonic and the Epicurean strains.

The Worm at the Core

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Author :
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 1400067472
Total Pages : 290 pages
Book Rating : 4.4/5 ( download)

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Book Synopsis The Worm at the Core by : Sheldon Solomon

Download or read book The Worm at the Core written by Sheldon Solomon and published by . This book was released on 2015 with total page 290 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Demonstrates how an unconscious fear of death motivates nearly all human goals, behaviors, and cultures, examining the role of mortality awareness in prompting social unrest and war.

Immortal

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Publisher : Harvest House Publishers
ISBN 13 : 0736978275
Total Pages : 274 pages
Book Rating : 4.7/5 (369 download)

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Book Synopsis Immortal by : Clay Jones

Download or read book Immortal written by Clay Jones and published by Harvest House Publishers. This book was released on 2020-04-28 with total page 274 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Is There Life After Death? For many, death is terrifying. We try to live as long as possible while hoping that science will soon find a way to allow us to live, if not forever, then at least a very long time. Whether we deny our mortality though literal or symbolic immortality or try to turn death into something benign, our attempts fail us. But what if the real solution is not in denying death’s reality, but in acknowledging it while enjoying a hope for a wonderful forever? Clay Jones, a professor of Christian apologetics, explores the ways people face death and how these “immortality projects” are unsuccessful, even destructive. Along the way, he points to the hope of the only true immortality available to all—the truth that God already offers a path to our hearts’ deepest longing: glorious resurrection to eternal life.

When Breath Becomes Air

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Author :
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0812988418
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.8/5 (129 download)

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Book Synopsis When Breath Becomes Air by : Paul Kalanithi

Download or read book When Breath Becomes Air written by Paul Kalanithi and published by Random House. This book was released on 2016-01-12 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • This inspiring, exquisitely observed memoir finds hope and beauty in the face of insurmountable odds as an idealistic young neurosurgeon attempts to answer the question What makes a life worth living? NAMED ONE OF PASTE’S BEST MEMOIRS OF THE DECADE • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY The New York Times Book Review • People • NPR • The Washington Post • Slate • Harper’s Bazaar • Time Out New York • Publishers Weekly • BookPage Finalist for the PEN Center USA Literary Award in Creative Nonfiction and the Books for a Better Life Award in Inspirational Memoir At the age of thirty-six, on the verge of completing a decade’s worth of training as a neurosurgeon, Paul Kalanithi was diagnosed with stage IV lung cancer. One day he was a doctor treating the dying, and the next he was a patient struggling to live. And just like that, the future he and his wife had imagined evaporated. When Breath Becomes Air chronicles Kalanithi’s transformation from a naïve medical student “possessed,” as he wrote, “by the question of what, given that all organisms die, makes a virtuous and meaningful life” into a neurosurgeon at Stanford working in the brain, the most critical place for human identity, and finally into a patient and new father confronting his own mortality. What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future, no longer a ladder toward your goals in life, flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, to nurture a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi wrestles with in this profoundly moving, exquisitely observed memoir. Paul Kalanithi died in March 2015, while working on this book, yet his words live on as a guide and a gift to us all. “I began to realize that coming face to face with my own mortality, in a sense, had changed nothing and everything,” he wrote. “Seven words from Samuel Beckett began to repeat in my head: ‘I can’t go on. I’ll go on.’” When Breath Becomes Air is an unforgettable, life-affirming reflection on the challenge of facing death and on the relationship between doctor and patient, from a brilliant writer who became both.