The Consolations Of Mortality

Author : Andrew Stark
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300224702
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.02/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Consolations of Mortality written by Andrew Stark and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-08-23 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: For those who don’t believe in an afterlife, the wisdom of the ages offers four great consolations for mortality: that death is benign and good; that mortal life provides its own kind of immortality; that true immortality would be awful; and that we experience the kinds of losses in life that we will eventually face in death. Can any of these consolations honestly reconcile us to our inevitable demise? In this timely book, Andrew Stark tests the psychological truth of these consolations and searches our collective literary, philosophical, and cultural traditions for answers to the question of how we, in the twenty-first century, might accept our mortal condition. Ranging from Epicurus and Heidegger to bucket lists, the flaming out of rock stars, and the retiring of sports jerseys, Stark’s poignant and learned exploration shows how these consolations, taken together, reveal death as a blessing no matter how much we may love life.

Author : Andrew Stark
Publisher : Yale University Press
ISBN 13 : 0300219253
Total Pages : 288 pages
Book Rating : 4.58/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Consolations of Mortality written by Andrew Stark and published by Yale University Press. This book was released on 2016-01-01 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Interlude: Mortality versus Immortality: Why Not the Right to Choose? -- PART 4 LIFE INTIMATES DEATH -- thirteen: The Big Sleep -- fourteen: Stardust and Moonshine -- fifteen: Every Time I Say Goodbye, I Die a Little -- Conclusion: My Last Espresso -- Notes -- Index -- A -- B -- C -- D -- E -- G -- H -- I -- J -- K -- L -- M -- N -- O -- P -- Q -- R -- S -- T -- U -- V -- W -- Y -- Z

Author : D. T. Siebert
Publisher : Rowman & Littlefield
ISBN 13 : 1611494559
Total Pages : 155 pages
Book Rating : 4.56/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mortality's Muse written by D. T. Siebert and published by Rowman & Littlefield. This book was released on 2013-10-10 with total page 155 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The inevitability of death—that of others and our own—is surely among our greatest anxieties. Mortality’s Muse: The Fine Art of Dying explores how art, mainly literary art, addresses that troubling reality. While religion and philosophy offer important consolations for life’s end, art responds in ways that are perhaps more complete and certainly more deeply human. Among subjects treated: the ars moriendi or “art of dying” tradition; the contrast between past and more recent cultural values; the religious consolation’s value but shortcoming for some people; the role of art in offering a secular consolation; dying as a performing art; the philosophic ideal of good death; the lively appeal of carpe diem or living for the present moment; the elegiac sense of life; and the two opposite parts Mortality’s Muse has played in dealing with war, the most senseless and unnecessary cause of death. The idea of an aesthetic sense of life forms the basis of these discussions. Human beings are makers in the largest sense of the word, and art represents everything they make—civilization itself with all its greatness and failings. Our civilization may ultimately be nothing but an evanescent blip in the cosmos. Even so, the creation of beauty, meaning, and purpose from disorder and suffering defines us as human beings. In the words of Robinson Jeffers, even if monuments eventually crumble and all art perish, yet for thousands of years carved stones have stood and “pained thoughts found the honey of peace in old poems.”

Author : Sister Mary Evaristus Moran
Publisher :
ISBN 13 :
Total Pages : 92 pages
Book Rating : 4.68/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Consolations of Death in Ancient Greek Literature written by Sister Mary Evaristus Moran and published by . This book was released on 1917 with total page 92 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Author : Paul Kalanithi
Publisher : Random House
ISBN 13 : 0812988418
Total Pages : 258 pages
Book Rating : 4.13/5 ( download)

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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.

Author : Jonathan Sacks
Publisher : Maggid
ISBN 13 : 9781592640218
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Covenant and Conversation written by Jonathan Sacks and published by Maggid. This book was released on 2010 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In this second volume of his long-anticipated five-volume collection of parashat hashavua commentaries, Rabbi Sir Jonathan Sacks explores these intersections as they relate to universal concerns of freedom, love, responsibility, identity, and destiny. Chief Rabbi Sacks fuses Jewish tradition, Western philosophy, and literature to present a highly developed understanding of the human condition under Gods sovereignty. Erudite and eloquent, Covenant Conversation allows us to experience Chief Rabbi Sacks sophisticated approach to life lived in an ongoing dialogue with the Torah.

Author : Kieran Setiya
Publisher : Princeton University Press
ISBN 13 : 1400888476
Total Pages : 200 pages
Book Rating : 4.74/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Midlife written by Kieran Setiya and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2017-09-22 with total page 200 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Philosophical wisdom and practical advice for overcoming the problems of middle age How can you reconcile yourself with the lives you will never lead, with possibilities foreclosed, and with nostalgia for lost youth? How can you accept the failings of the past, the sense of futility in the tasks that consume the present, and the prospect of death that blights the future? In this self-help book with a difference, Kieran Setiya confronts the inevitable challenges of adulthood and middle age, showing how philosophy can help you thrive. You will learn why missing out might be a good thing, how options are overrated, and when you should be glad you made a mistake. You will be introduced to philosophical consolations for mortality. And you will learn what it would mean to live in the present, how it could solve your midlife crisis, and why meditation helps. Ranging from Aristotle, Schopenhauer, and John Stuart Mill to Virginia Woolf and Simone de Beauvoir, as well as drawing on Setiya’s own experience, Midlife combines imaginative ideas, surprising insights, and practical advice. Writing with wisdom and wit, Setiya makes a wry but passionate case for philosophy as a guide to life.

Author : Christopher Hitchens
Publisher : Signal
ISBN 13 : 0771039239
Total Pages : 71 pages
Book Rating : 4.32/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Mortality written by Christopher Hitchens and published by Signal. This book was released on 2012-09-04 with total page 71 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on his columns in Vanity Fair that chronicled his year-and-a-half battle with esophageal cancer, Mortality is Christopher Hitchens at his most honest and reflective . Thoughtfully meditating on the harrowing effects of illness and treatment on the body, and on the impermanence and acceptance of a life ending, Mortality is Hitchens' magnum opus, and in true Hitchens form, he has the last word.

Author : Rachel Clarke
Publisher : Little Brown GBR
ISBN 13 : 9781408712887
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.81/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Dear Life written by Rachel Clarke and published by Little Brown GBR. This book was released on 2020-01-23 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 'What a remarkable book this is; tender, funny, brave, heartfelt, radiant with love and life, and with the love of life. It brought me often to laughter and - several times - to tears' Robert Macfarlane From the Sunday Times bestselling author of Your Life in My Hands comes this vibrant, tender and deeply personal memoir that finds light and love in the darkest of places. As a specialist in palliative medicine, Dr Rachel Clarke chooses to inhabit a place many people would find too tragic to contemplate. Every day she tries to bring care and comfort to those reaching the end of their lives and to help make dying more bearable. Rachel's training was put to the test in 2017 when her beloved GP father was diagnosed with terminal cancer. She learned that nothing - even the best palliative care - can sugar-coat the pain of losing someone you love. And yet, she argues, in a hospice there is more of what matters in life - more love, more strength, more kindness, more joy, more tenderness, more grace, more compassion - than you could ever imagine. For if there is a difference between people who know they are dying and the rest of us, it is simply this: that the terminally ill know their time is running out, while we live as though we have all the time in the world. Dear Life is a book about the vital importance of human connection, by the doctor we would all want by our sides at a time of crisis. It is a love letter - to a father, to a profession, to life itself.

Author : Julian Barnes
Publisher : Vintage Canada
ISBN 13 : 0307366405
Total Pages : 218 pages
Book Rating : 4.05/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Lemon Table written by Julian Barnes and published by Vintage Canada. This book was released on 2010-11-05 with total page 218 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Master prose stylist Julian Barnes presents a collection of stories whose characters are growing old and facing the end of their lives—some with bitterness, some with resignation and others with raging defiance. “Life is just a premature reaction to death,” was what Viv’s husband used to say. Once her lover and friend, he is now Viv’s semi-helpless charge, who is daily sinking ever deeper into dementia. In “Appetite,” Viv has found a way to reach her husband: by reading aloud snippets of recipe books until he calls out indelible—and sometimes unfortunate—scenes locked away in his brain. In “The Things You Know,” two elderly friends enjoy their monthly breakfast meetings that neither would ever think of missing. Of course, all they really have in common is a fondness for flat suede shoes and a propensity for thinking spiteful, unspoken thoughts about one another’s dead husbands. “The Fruit Cage” is narrated by a middle-aged man whose seemingly orderly upbringing is harrowingly undone when he discovers that his parents’ old age is not necessarily a time of serenity but actually an age of aroused, perhaps violent, passions. In these stories, Julian Barnes displays the erudition, wit and uncanny insight into the human mind that mark him as one of today’s great writers, one whose intellect and humour never obscure a genuine affection for his characters.