Optimisation, and the Graveyard of the Anxious

Ever since the advent of modernity, mankind’s search for meaning has accelerated. Today, this search occupies the forefront of many people’s minds, expressed through optimisation-minded movements such as Effective Altruism and 80,000 Hours, alongside the various YOLOs, FOMOs, and JOMOs of the day. In a world of historically unprecedented excess, we have become paradoxically obsessed with the anxious thought of spending our vast surplus of resources—our time, attention, and money—on the wrong things. Everywhere we turn, we encounter economic heuristics of best practice, opportunity costs, and endless alternative paths. In the process, many of us have forgotten something remarkably simple: how to slow down and be happy with our choices.

Perhaps this development is not so surprising. Those living today are among the first generations confronted with an explosion of opportunities—not merely in what to consume, but in what to experience, pursue, become; and ‘who to be’. Previous generations were constrained both technologically and culturally, leaving comparatively little room for choosing radically different ways of life. As a consequence, most people lived lives that broadly resembled those of their neighbours, sparing them, to some extent, from the thief of joy that is comparison. In this essay, I argue that this uniquely modern form of existential anxiety requires a philosophical response; this since neither the modern existentialism nor nihilism, I suggest, fully succeeds in quelling the restless search for a life well lived.

Given that meaning can be , and is, found, a multitude of positive effects might possibly follow. Such as better physical health, cognitive health, stronger relationships, greater resilience, and perhaps even more fulfillment and happiness. Happiness, which is to be understood as a sort of average life satisfaction across a long period of time – rather than as joy in the moment, which one can never seriously expect (or even want to expect) as a continuous state of emotion. This since we have our gallery of emotions for a good evolutionary reason, partly since those who were constantly happy probably did not live to spread their genes, and hence a good reason why we should want to exercise all those emotions given the appropriate situation. An incessant search for happiness will therefore paradoxically only lead to anxiety and sadness.

In the short-term, in the words of Anders Hansen, humans are built to survive – not to be happy – and all feelings (negative and positive) are designed to come and go, and their passing is only natural. The same goes for anxious bouts, strong negative memories, and minor depressive episodes. Unfortunately, these things are inseparable from the chaotic quality of life and may be impossible to opt-out from. What I am talking about when I talk about a ‘Good life’, is about the broader direction one has in life, rather than how life is on a month to month basis. If one has long-term struggles, such as deeper obstacles towards ones day-to-day activities, and or long-term stress – without sufficient interspersed periods of recovery – however, then one should speak to a professional in search of a remedy. A small consolation for those in need, is that happiness tends to increase with age on average, and that it is not completely hereditary.

This essay explores the possibility of a general Philosophy of Life by asking six fundamental questions.

In Part I, we ask what a life can look like and whether individual lives can meaningfully be compared. I argue that while individual lives resist objective comparison, aggregates of lives do not.

In Part II, we ask what value such comparisons possess. I argue that the shared patterns emerging from many lives function as navigational landmarks, helping us orient ourselves within our own individual and collective experience.

In Part III, we ask why these navigational aids matter. I argue that different ways of living produce different experiences and outcomes, and that their value ultimately depends upon the subjective preferences of the individual.

In Part IV, we ask what philosophy might guide someone whose preferences have yet to crystallise—a person who stands, as it were, before life’s possibilities with an open mind and a blank slate. I argue that the philosophy most suitable for such a person is Aristotle’s doctrine of the Golden Mean.

In Part V, we ask how much reflection a good life should contain. I argue that wisdom must itself be tempered by balance; that philosophy should enrich life rather than replace it.

Finally, in Part VI, the essay concludes by giving some general advice in what to do with the time one does not reflect and philosophise – where I recommend giving in to the experience of life. Lastly, I examine death—the inevitable end shared by every life—and go over which attitudes towards mortality best support life.

Part I

Question: What can a life look like, and can individual lives be compared?

Answer: Individual lives cannot meaningfully be compared, but aggregates of lives can.

Part I begins by illustrating the extraordinary diversity of human lives. This diversity establishes the breadth of experience that any credible Philosophy of Life must seek to address. I argue that such a philosophy should refrain from judging the overall quality of individual lives, since each life is irreducibly unique. Instead, it should concern itself with the imagined life of an “average person”—a statistical abstraction rather than an actual individual. From there, I examine both the limitations and the usefulness of such an approach. I then conclude that, while no philosophy can provide perfectly tailored advice to every unique individual – and hence never answer the more individually framed question as to ‘what is the meaning of my life?’ – a philosophy built upon common patterns of human experience should still be possible – focusing more on the question of how to live – and hence remain as valuable guidance. Such a philosophy will inevitably provide estimates rather than certainties, and orientation rather than prescription. As such, the responsibility of adapting such advice remains with the individual.

The world is populated by an extraordinarily colourful cast of lives. Some lives appear effortless in their lived out pleasures, like those of the celebrated actress Britt Ekland – who lived a fast paced life in luxury and fame, traveling all over the world, having many fascinating partners along the way. Others seem marked by hardship and struggle, as in the life of actress Lena Olin – who also lived as an actress, yet met with comparatively more obstacles and misfortunes along her journey. Between these extremes of fortune and misfortune, lie further extremes, in the lives of those who carved enduring places in history, such as: Ibn Battuta, Giacomo Casanova, Audrey Hepburn, Theodore Roosevelt, Gautama Buddha, and countless others. In order to convince the average person and the general public of the validity and merits of a particular philosophy of life, it’s claims must be built on a foundation that is believable and without bias. The issue with a Philosophy of Life specifically catered to a specific sub-group of lived lives – say the lives of artists – is that the life-style most artist (or any sub-group) advocate for, is that of their own. As such there is significant bias in the individual, and even sub-group, answering of the question regarding as to what makes a life good. A Philosophy of Life must be able to advice all people – regardless of ones circumstantial, non-controllable, lot in life. A good Philosophy of Life must fit the docile people pleasers, just as well as the Nietzschean supermen. Therefore, a good Philosophy of Life must be as inclusive as possible, capturing as many lived lives as possible, veering away from becoming to narrow in scope.

One further reason, for why a Philosophy of life that is too constrained, ought to become a flimsy base on which to build ideas upon, is that a narrow base risks leading to narrow ideals, ideals which inevitably will force people to give up their unique traits and eccentricities in order for them to fit the mould. Idiosyncrasies which are very useful in facilitating civilization, as they complement each other and balance out when pooled together, channeling the division of labour and specialisation; and hence not something we want to mistakenly file away. Taken together, the large diversity and amount of human lives reveal something paradoxical. Although life is significant in its plentifulness, life is not automatically common and ordinary, but rather it is the opposite; in that each individual life is unimaginably rare. As every person is the product of an almost inconceivable combination of random variables, such as: genetics, circumstance, culture, relationships, chance, and time – the number of factors shaping a human life compound into becoming effectively beyond calculation. In this sense, every life constitutes a miracle of improbability. As is, precisely because each life is so singular, each deserves special protection—not merely as a member of humanity, but as a unique expression of it. Therefore, every individual ought to be valued as an end in themselves, preserving their distinctive character rather than being reduced to a means for someone else’s ends; and thus a good Philosophy of Life must necessarily be built with that core core humanist assumption in mind.

At first glance, this uniqueness appears to undermine the very possibility of a Philosophy of Life. If no two lives are sufficiently alike, how could meaningful comparisons ever reveal general principles of living well? Yet this obstacle is not insurmountable. Although every life is unique, patterns nevertheless emerge when viewed collectively, especially when examining those lives, already resolved. As Søren Kierkegaard observed, individual lives remain unpredictable while they unfold “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” yet aggregates and averages of concluded lives allow us to recognise recurring structures, recurring mistakes, and recurring sources of fulfilment – the become the abstraction that is the ‘human experience’. This observation points towards an important distinction. Whilst a Philosophy of Life tailored perfectly to every individual is impossible, a Philosophy of Life addressed to the average person, remains a possibility.

It is true that “The average person” is, in reality, nobody. The average person is a statistical fiction—a heuristic constructed from countless real lives. Yet, the fact that they are a fixation of the imagination, does not render them useless. In fact, it is precisely their abstract traits which render them with remarkable advantages. Firstly, statistical regularities make aspects of the average persons hypothetical life more predictable than any individual’s. Secondly, because the average person is assembled from experiences shared by many individuals, everyone can recognise something of themselves within that average person. For in abstract aspects, the human experience is universal; as we all are born and die in the end. Although it applies perfectly to no one, it applies imperfectly to almost everyone. Like all good stories, the average person does not exist, yet still manages to illuminate something true about those who do. General wisdom is therefore presumptive rather than authoritative: it supplies a default that individual knowledge may override. This however, is much more a feature than a bug, since it allows for the preservation of the eccentricities of individuals – as was our stated wish earlier in this essay.

Part II

Question: Given that aggregates of lives can be compared, what value do such comparisons possess?

Answer: As contrasts to our own individual and collective choices, averages function as navigational aids.

Part II asks why a Philosophy of Life, even if directed only towards an imagined average person, should matter to those individuals who exist for real – such as the reader for example. I argue that the widespread production and consumption of life advice, in itself, constitutes evidence that people perceive such reflection to be valuable.

If wisdom can be formulated for the average person, should we expect actual people to find it useful? As Immanuel Kant argued that the ubiquity of moral language testified to the reality of moral reasoning, so too the persistence of wisdom literature suggests that reflection upon the good life satisfies a genuine and recurring human need. The historical record suggests that we should. Humanity has produced an astonishing quantity of wisdom literature devoted to the question of how one ought to live. Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics is perhaps the most influential example, but it is far from unique. From the ancient Egyptian Sebayt, such as The Maxims of Ptahhotep (c. 2350 BCE), to the overflowing self-help shelves of modern bookshops—where works like 80,000 Hours and Think and Grow Rich sit side by side—people have consistently sought guidance for living well. This enduring demand deserves attention. Whether or not every piece of advice is sound, the universal desire to seek such advice indicates that the activity itself possesses considerable subjective value.

Why then, more exactly, are people drawn towards reflection? I argue that the mechanisms of the value of reflection emerges in two distinct forms: individual reflection and collective reflection. Both forms of reflection enriching human life, albeit in different ways. When paired together, they in turn, become the most valuable, and powerful.

Individual reflection creates meaning by allowing us to organise our experiences into coherent narratives. It allows us to create meaning from experience. We do not merely live our lives; we continually interpret them. We revisit memories, imagine futures, and weave isolated events into narratives that explain who we are and how we arrived where we stand today. These stories are never objective. They are coloured by selective memory, unresolved emotions, and the countless reinterpretations that accompany hindsight. Most of all, they are balled into reality through a process of afterthoughts and ex post facto constructions. Yet precisely because they are narratives, they provide something invaluable: continuity.

Frank Sinatra’s song My Way captures this process, of taking control over ones own life. Looking back upon their life, the narrator fashions a coherent story that grants purpose, even to regret:

“Regrets, I’ve had a few.
But then again, too few to mention.
I did what I had to do,
And saw it through without exemption.
I planned each charted course.
Each careful step along the byway.
And more, much more than this.
I did it my way”

Whether the account is perfectly accurate matters less than the role it plays. By narrating one’s own life, the individual transforms scattered experiences into a meaningful whole. Reflection becomes a way of integrating fortune and misfortune alike into a story that can be understood, accepted, and owned. Through narrative, the individual acquires a sense of continuity—not only between past and present, but between the many versions of themselves that have existed throughout life.

Collective reflection creates meaning by providing the shared experience, ideas, and traditions that bind individuals together into communities – giving us roots to gather around for meaning and support. One might believe that only individual effort matters, and that abstract ideas about society exert little influence over the course of a human life. Yet the opposite is closer to the truth. Every individual life unfolds within a social environment whose institutions, norms, and values shape both the opportunities available to us and the constraints placed upon us. Society is, in large measure, an architecture of ideas made tangible. These shared ideas govern behaviour long before they are consciously recognised. They determine which ambitions appear admirable, which sacrifices seem worthwhile, and which futures become imaginable. In doing so, they quietly guide the lives of entire populations.

The value of collective reflection therefore lies in making those macroscopic ideas visible. By examining and debating our shared assumptions, we participate in shaping the moral and cultural environment that future generations will inherit. Individual reflection, in this sense, is not merely a microscopic private activity. It is one of the means by which the domain of the microscopic extend into the macroscopic domain of democratic societies, enabling a continual revision of the course the collective chooses to follow. Lastly, a note on the treasures of experience which stems from the interplay between the curiosity induced demand for knowledge, that pertains to individual reflection, and the knowledge base of collective reflection, which acts as the supply of knowledge for the individual.

The great value that stems from the engagement between individual and collective reflection is perhaps best exemplified by its ability to expand our capacity to perceive the world; and further our ability to imagine things, and create them a new. Take the example of an individual who reads up on the collective reflections on architecture, storing it in their individual long term memory, just to one day, with nothing particular on their mind, see the greek columns of a concert building they’ve walked past many times before; suddenly lighting up in their ability to pick out that the columns have a name – and are called ‘corinthian order’-columns, and historically reserved for the most esteemed of buildings. Many similar examples can be made, of what expansions of vision the individual can gain through taking part of the knowledge of the collective.

At the core of things, lie neither love for the particular subject of architecture, history, or even art in general – but rather the love for knowledge and learning; which in the broadest sense is encompassed by the love of philosophy, and it’s ability to reveal to us, forms which otherwise would have been invisible: to ourselves and others. An endeavour which is imaginative and creative at the core, since it supplies us with intellectual building blocks from which to synthesise and construct our own works, whom – one way or another – may be pooled together with the collective reflections which we found so much joy in borrowing from initially. Another even more treasured angle of the interplay between individual and collective reflection and memory, is that of shared experiences with other people. Sharing life with others is a great way of remembering and reflecting on things together. It makes everyone participating feel like they truly existed and made a mark on the world – and also distributes the burden of experience and recollection on more shoulders than ones own, enriching the experience all together.

The writer dubbed ‘The Marginalian’ expounds this notion of reality further in her essay on philosopher Bertrand Russels 1932 essay “In Praise of Useless Knowledge”. Here, Russels in effect explains how the long-term memory of the collective can be channelled into the short term memory of the individual; giving rise to positive effects in both. Bertrand used the enjoyment of a peach as a example. Before knowing its history, a peach is simply a delightful fruit. After learning about it, that the peach was first cultivated in China in order to then spread to India and Persia and only thereafter reached the Roman Empire, the very act of eating that peach becomes more sensory. According to Russell, learning pulls us out of our self-centered concerns and “the prison of our private history” where we often roam, allowing us to connect with the wider universe and more kinds of people. A pursuit of knowledge – which pairs with compassion – and builds what Russel called ‘The Value of Philosophy’. A state of mind that enriches our sense of wonder and makes us “citizens of the universe” – deepening our encounter with life itself; further immersing us into the lived experience.

What reflection and it’s ideas do – is that they give us spectacles to savour a wider array of things, as take the love of architecture for example give the individual a sixth sense for appreciating a sixth dimension of the world (beyond taste, touch, hearing, seeing, and smelling). If we wish to improve the lives of others, we should therefore share our ideas with the world – because I am sure that many of the things we believe to be certain, true and tested, good ideas, are things the people near to us have never even considered thinking about; simply because the number of possible ideas are so many that they make every idea so improbable that it might just be the case that the idea you are having right now is the only instance of that specific thought ever to occur in the history of the universe. Thinking, and the formulation of ideas, therefore – should belong to everyone. The intellectual life, should be open to everyone. In conclusion, I argue that it is true that comparisons between abstractions of reality – as is practiced through reflection – provides value for the individual and the collective.

Part III

Question: If aggregates of lives can serve as navigational aids, why should we follow one course rather than another?

Answer: Because different ways of living produce different experiences, different priorities, and different forms of fulfilment; depending on the subjective tastes of the individual.

Having argued that reflection upon life is worthwhile, we must now confront a more practical question: which wisdom ought we to follow? The history of philosophy offers no shortage of answers. Rather than surveying every tradition, I limit this discussion to two broad and contrasting ideals that have profoundly shaped the modern Western understanding of the good life. Although neither exists in a pure form, they represent two recurring ways of approaching human existence. The deepest difference between these traditions concerns neither nationality nor temperament alone, but the question of how human beings should act when knowledge is incomplete and outcomes remain uncertain; i.e that eternal state of the world which philosophy constantly battles with.

The first tradition and it’s ideal prizes contemplation before action, stability before ambition, and harmony before conquest – let us call it the Continental European ideal. The other tradition and it’s ideal prizes initiative before certainty, experimentation before perfection, and action before prolonged reflection – let us call that the American ideal. These are not merely philosophical positions, but give rise to different habits, institutions, ambitions, and ultimately different kinds of lives.

The first ideal—historically expressed most clearly in Continental Europe—places greater emphasis upon quality than productivity, upon careful judgement rather than rapid action. It assumes that the world imposes genuine limits upon human ambition, and that wisdom often consists in recognising and accepting those limits. Happiness arises less from conquering reality, than from learning to live well within it. This outlook finds echoes in traditions as diverse as Stoicism, (but also Buddhism, and Taoism), each encouraging the individual to cultivate inner balance rather than bulldozing away towards perpetual striving.

The sentiments of the Continentally European ideal can be exemplified in Evert Taube’s Så länge skutan kan gå, whose central message is one of gratitude, moderation, and acceptance of life’s inevitable mixture of fortune and hardship. Taube sings of this ‘destiny mindset’:

“Who has said that specifically you; came into the world,
to meet sunshine and fortune on your journey…
…to receive a kiss or two
…hold hearing and sight
…or select from the best of all menus?
…remember, that not all good things are yours,
and be grateful for that which you have,
enjoy the good with the bad
– because soon you’ll be dead and rest forever.”

Within this tradition, contemplation is generally regarded as a virtue. Intellectual authority commands respect, risk is approached cautiously, and perfection is often preferred over speed. The possibility of failure encourages careful preparation. The rewards one works towards in this traditions can be exemplified by the stereotypically protestant reward of the ascetic pleasure knowing that you are free from guilt since you’ve gone about things correctly – rather than focusing on the material fruits of your work. Fruits which, in a continentally European way, may be collected through taxes regardless; something which is mirrored in Hegel’s remark that “We owe everything to the state.” The idea is, that one should bend with reality to appease oneself, and be grateful still – since, in the words of Leibniz “We live in the best of all possible worlds.” In a likewise manner, Continental European tradition has a habit of viewing history as an unstoppable process, rather than as a random sample of individual lives.

The second ideal—most visibly expressed in modern American culture—reverses many of these priorities. Here, process often takes precedence over perfection, productivity over contemplation, and experimentation over certainty. Human beings are encouraged to act boldly despite incomplete knowledge, trusting that confidence, perseverance, and repeated attempts will ultimately succeed where hesitation cannot. This outlook is captured in the mythology of the American Dream and in popular culture more broadly. To a pragmatist, the very act of experience constitutes the only meaning of life, and – as is – the meaning in life (essence) arises only after ones experiences (existence). Viktor Frankl for example, argued for “Dereflection” and that one should engage in life, instead of endlessly reflecting on the self; and whenever one found oneself thinking of the question of life – one should paradoxically pre-medicate oneself out of contemplation by asking oneself “What delusions am I under?”, “What is blocking my ability to enjoy things?”, and “Why do I neglect my loved ones?”.

Eminem’s Lose Yourself embodies its central conviction: opportunities are fleeting, action matters more than hesitation, and success belongs to those willing to risk failure. Eminem sings:

“Look, if you had one shot or one opportunity.
To seize everything you ever wanted in one moment.
Would you capture it or just let it slip?
Snap back to reality, ope, there goes gravity.
But he won’t give up that easy, no, he won’t have it.
He knows when he goes back to this mobile home, that’s when it’s.
Back to the lab again, yo, this old rhapsody.
Better go capture this moment and hope it don’t pass him.
You better lose yourself in the music.
The moment, you own it, you better never let it go (Go).
You only get one shot, do not miss your chance to blow.
This opportunity comes once in a lifetime, yo.”

Within this tradition, excessive contemplation is viewed with suspicion. Risk is understood not merely as danger but as the necessary price of opportunity. Progress comes from challenging accepted wisdom rather than merely preserving it. Within this tradition, the reward one works for, is also different from the European mindset; for in America, one pays less taxes and therefore get to both “eat the cake and have it”. In America, there is likewise more focus on the material dividends, with conspicuous consumption and popular culture comprising a relatively larger share of the cultural focus relating to the reward of work. The American cultural paradigm leans relatively more towards the individual hedonistically bending reality to ones own will. It is for these reasons that pragmatically minded Americans stereotypically look on their contemplative European counter-parts as navel-gazing do-nothings. Another American archetype that contrasts with its Continental European counter part is the stereotypical American high-schooler, who is much less well-read than their European counterpart; yet with twice the confidence. Something which does not seem to be a hindrance to the Americans, since America is more influential culturally and economically, than Europe – owning a larger part of the global GDP. Yet, this pragmatic mindset does not exclude American culture from the inherently human tendency to compare themselves with others – as is visualised in the film American Psycho, or in the Tom Wolf book The Bonfire of the Vanitites, where never-ending comparison and competition drives the plot and inevitably becomes both protagonists demise.

Now that we have gone through the two traditions of life, the question remains; Which path to take? To conform to the norm and the wisdom of the crowd – as is the European way, or to uncompromisingly be yourself – as in the American tradition? Some questions you can ask yourself to better come up with your preference are: Do you see restrictions and rules as inherently bad, or as ideas that give more than they take? Neither outlook is wholly right, nor wrong.

The European Continental contemplative tradition reminds us that every individual exists within a wider social fabric. Our actions inevitably shape the opportunities available to others, and our pursuit of freedom cannot be separated from our responsibilities towards the communities that sustain us. It reminds us that, even in America, a land with people who believe everything is possible, most Americans end up living average lives; and as such should benefit from promoting the freedoms and resources pertaining to the experience of the average person. It reminds us that collective trust is useful, since it allows for the insurance that is ‘the distribution of resources for the purpose of maximizing positive freedoms’. None the least, it shines a light on how humans are social animals – that it is counter-productive to always see strangers as dangers – and the priority that our relationships should have above many other things in life. Its weakness lies in the possibility of excessive caution, where endless reflection becomes an obstacle to action. One further weakness being its dangerous tendency to strip away individuality as a means to a “greater cause”.

The American pragmatic tradition reminds us that courage, initiative, and confidence frequently accomplish what careful planning cannot. It encourages individuals to pursue ambitions that might appear impossible. The tradition also leverages the fact that individual freedom is correlated with happiness, something which is further supported by the fact that most everyone will argue for why their specific way of living is the best. A phenomenon possibly stemming from the relativity of the lived experience, as in – us having only our own experiences to purely compare with – meaning that what fortune and misfortune we encounter, is only relative to our past experience, rather than to the experiences of others. Yet its weaknesses are equally apparent. A culture that celebrates exceptional achievement risks undervaluing ordinary lives, while relentless ambition can become an end in itself. It also risks unfairly judging people’s every misfortune as a fault in the individual themselves, rather than as a thing beyond their control – possibly damaging the individuals sense of self-worth. Something which modern meritocracy risks justifying in a far to black-and-white way.

As you’ve probably discerned by now, both traditions come with its merits and dangers. Generally, I’d argue that the contemplative tradition fits best for making big decisions with particularly large consequences tied to them, and the pragmatic tradition best for one’s every day mentality in life. The contemplative tradition reminds us of what is important in life and when to sacrifice our own resources for the sake of others, whereas the pragmatic tradition reminds us that our actions mean more than our words, and to connect with reality as we focus on what needs getting done for the day. The contrast between these two traditions is not fundamentally geographical, but concerns two enduring human temperaments: one that seeks wisdom through careful understanding – through formal reasoning, and another that seeks it through courageous engagement with the world – through empirics. Both illuminate genuine aspects of human flourishing. Neither, on its own, captures the whole of the good life.

Part IV

Question: If different philosophies of life lead to different forms of flourishing, what guidance should be given to someone whose own disposition has yet to reveal itself?

Answer: The possible paths are virtually infinite, yet a philosophy capable of accommodating that diversity already exists. Rather than choosing one extreme over another, the individual should begin from a philosophy that remains open to both. Aristotle’s doctrine of the Golden Mean is, I argue, such a philosophy.

Having examined two contrasting approaches to the good life, noticing the good and the bad in both, we are now confronted with an obvious question: must we choose between them? I believe the answer is no. The contemplative and the pragmatic traditions should not be understood as mutually exclusive destinations, but as opposite poles upon a spectrum. Most lives naturally occupy positions somewhere in between, borrowing insights from both, according to circumstance, temperament, and experience. The problem, then, is no longer deciding which philosophy is correct, but determining whether there exists a higher-order philosophy capable of preserving a healthy balance of both, and it is my belief that such a philosophy already exists.

More than two thousand years ago, Aristotle proposed that virtue rarely resides at either extreme. Courage lies between cowardice and recklessness. Generosity lies between miserliness and extravagance. Confidence lies between timidity and arrogance. The good life, in other words, is seldom discovered by maximising a single principle – in being always contemplative, or always pragmatic. Rather, it consists in cultivating the practical wisdom required to judge which balance best suits a given situation; balancing out our eggs into multiple baskets. This is why I regard the Golden Mean as something more than another philosophy among many. The Golden Mean is a meta-framework for tensions in which two genuine goods become destructive when pursued without proportion. It serves as a meta-philosophy: a method for navigating between competing models of the good life rather than replacing them with a single dogma.

This does not imply that every position between two extremes is necessarily correct. The mean is not a mathematical midpoint but a practical judgement, sensitive to context, character, and circumstance. It asks not “What rule should always be followed?” but rather “What response is most fitting here? Given I am free to choose the tools stored in either tool-box.” Finding, that this philosophical framework is particularly well suited to the person who has yet to discover who they are – those who have yet to “Know thyself”. A child, for example, does not begin life knowing whether they are naturally cautious or adventurous, contemplative or impulsive, ambitious or content. Nor should they. A philosophy that immediately demands allegiance to one extreme therefore risks shaping a person before they have properly come to know themselves. A more neutral starting point seems more beneficial in the case of these individuals – as it pertains to their parent absent general education, for example. I believe that The Golden Mean offers this sort of neutral starting point.

The Golden Mean encourages exploration, without abandoning restraint, and likewise encourages reflection, without paralysing action; inviting the individual to discover their own character, while remaining open to correction through experience. The Golden Mean can therefore be labeled as a philosophy akin to the uniform / non-informative prior used in Bayesian statistics when judging a situation without prior knowledge, or as something of a ‘principle of least action’ in physics – where the path of least resistance distinguishes itself from out of all the noise of nature; both metaphors functioning as guard-rails enabling the explorer to focus on their journey, rather than on their survival. John Rawls’ famous thought experiment, the Veil of Ignorance, provides a basis for appreciating how a neutral philosophy can be of use to society. Imagine designing a society without knowing who within that society you will become. You may be rich or poor, healthy or ill, gifted or ordinary. Such uncertainty naturally encourages moderation. It forces us to consider not only the lives we hope to live, but also the lives we might unexpectedly inherit. If you did not yet know your own temperament, which philosophy would you live by before finding out? One that demanded perpetual ambition, or one that prescribed continual restraint? Perhaps, one that allowed you to discover where your own character flourishes, in a gradual manner would be the best. A society mirroring The Golden Mean could offer that flexibility.

One must not forget to exclude the fact that there also exists some evidence for evaluations of life as universal to multiple traditions of thought. Some generally agreed upon ‘Good’ things in life, that are practically universal, are for example ‘to not seek to know and understand the meaning of life – possibly since life lacks meaning’, and to instead focus on ‘loving, feeling, and enjoy the act of living’, and ‘doing good, and doing the right thing’, to ‘seek wisdom and knowledge’, and lastly to ‘realise one’s own potential and ideals’. Some qualities of the above, follow below. Read them, whilst keeping in mind that life’s meaning can not be proven, and possibly only exists in a synthetic way so as to justify our existence. Something which, on the one hand gives you absolute freedom in defining life’s meaning, but which also risks placing you in a position where your search for answers makes you blind for the very thing you are looking for. Know that these factors encompass – not what should be done in a day, a week, or even a month – but what is advisable to accomplish during a life span; which is to say – you have time.

1. Self-Knowledge and Authenticity

A meaningful life begins with understanding one’s character, values, desires, limitations, and fears, and then shaping one’s life accordingly rather than living mainly through convention, comparison, or the expectations of others.

2. Wisdom and Understanding

Meaning is strengthened by lifelong learning, intellectual honesty, curiosity, and the pursuit of wisdom: not merely knowing more, but learning which beliefs, desires, and judgments are true, worthwhile, and capable of reducing confusion and unnecessary suffering.

3. Mastery, Purpose, and Growth

A person finds meaning through developing their abilities, becoming absorbed in challenging activities, and committing themselves to worthwhile work, creation, service, or long-term goals, while valuing the quality of effort as much as the final result.

4. Virtue and Character

The good life involves becoming a person of wisdom, courage, compassion, justice, integrity, patience, humility, and self-restraint, placing higher values above immediate impulses and judging oneself chiefly by choices and character rather than fortune.

5. Love, Friendship, and Belonging

Meaning arises through loving relationships with family, friends, partners, and communities, especially when these relationships are based on attentiveness, loyalty, mutual respect, shared growth, and a willingness to treat others as persons rather than instruments.

6. Compassion, Ethics, and Service

A meaningful life seeks to reduce suffering and improve the lives of others through kindness, generosity, useful work, service, volunteering, fairness, and respect for human freedom, leaving some part of the world better than one found it.

7. Presence, Gratitude, and Enjoyment

Meaning also lies in attending to the present, appreciating beauty and excellence, feeling gratitude for what is good, and enjoying affection, food, humour, play, rest, and celebration without becoming dependent upon pleasure or demanding that it last forever.

8. Health, Balance, and Peace

A flourishing life requires care for body and mind, including exercise, rest, moderation, and a reasonable balance between work, relationships, reflection, leisure, and growth, with peace understood not as constant pleasure but as stability amid changing circumstances.

9. Resilience and Suffering

Meaning can be preserved even in hardship by facing fear, regulating resentment and envy, reducing avoidable suffering, and responding to unavoidable pain with courage, patience, learning, sacrifice, or service to something considered worthwhile.

10. Freedom, Commitment, and Transcendence

Freedom becomes meaningful when it is used not merely to preserve endless options but to commit oneself to people, principles, vocations, and causes, especially those connected to something larger and more enduring than the individual self.

A meaningful life is one in which a person understands themselves and the world, develops their abilities through worthwhile effort, loves and serves others, acts with courage and restraint, cares for body and mind, appreciates beauty and ordinary pleasure, faces suffering without being defeated by it, and commits their freedom to something larger than the isolated self. Its central goods may be summarised as: Truth, goodness, beauty, love, mastery, health, freedom, belonging, service, growth, peace, and transcendence. A good poem that catches this message is Rudyard Kiplings famous poem If from 1910.

Part V

Question: If the Golden Mean offers the most suitable philosophy of life, for the average person, how much of one’s life should be devoted to following it, and what should one do with the time one is not philosophising?

Answer: Reflection exists to enrich life —life does not exist to enrich reflection. The Golden Mean should not be followed like a prison of principles, but rather returned to as a safe harbour in-between our explorations, of the personal fit all complementary Philosophies of Life greet us with in the present moment. Tangentially, we ought to prioritise experience first, reflection second, and action last.

This essay began by observing that modern life confronts us with an unprecedented abundance of choice. Surrounded by countless possibilities, many of us respond by attempting to optimise every decision we make. We search for the perfect career, the perfect relationship, and the perfect allocation of time; believing that sufficient reflection will eliminate uncertainty itself. Yet, eliminating uncertainty is impossible, because the world is an imperfect place; and so, a person with such goals will invariably become unhappy when faced with reality. Despite this, modern society often encourages us to attempt the impossible, continually inviting us to run faster: to optimise our careers, maximise our productivity, expand our ambitions, and transform ourselves into increasingly efficient super-men versions of ourselves. Yet the pursuit of optimisation easily becomes an end in itself. F. Scott Fitzgerald captured this tragedy in The Great Gatsby. Gatsby believes that one final success, one greater achievement, one more extravagant party – will finally allow him to grasp the green light shining across the bay. Yet the object of desire, which is symbolised by the green light, continually recedes before him; bruising Gatsby’s soul intensely. Like Zeno’s paradox, the finish line approaches without ever being reached, and modern lives risk becoming similar pursuits.

In this same vain, self-improvement, and over-achievement, through philosophy also, risks becoming an anxious burden rather than a tool for making life easier and more enjoyable; and many fall into the trap mistaking philosophy for life itself. In reality, any mental frame-work, or plan, which we use to guide our lives has to be able to flex enough to accommodate the unpredictable rhythm within which life unfolds; and no philosophy can anticipate every circumstance. Principles should therefore function as heuristics – mental shortcuts – rather than rigid algorithms, making space for experience to continually refine our judgement instead. Experience being integral in the making of our character and not something we want to crowd out with ready-meal reasoning; a scenario which can be exemplified by the significant share of practical advice that comes with an expiration date, such as the medieval advice to invest in guild membership having little worth to us in the modern present. For reasons as these, reflection needs to give leeway to experience, so that we do not become obsession with perfection. Something which is made possible by practicing doing the right thing, eventually earning oneself with a good gut-feeling and moral compass for what to do – out-sourcing the manual calculations one might not always have the resources and time to perform.

This obsession over perfection, as it relates to knowledge, is known under it’s own special name, more specifically ‘The Faustian Bargain’. A Faustian bargain is a metaphorical or literal deal in which an ambitious person sacrifices their moral integrity, values, or even their soul in order to achieve immediate power, wealth, or knowledge, ultimately resulting in their own ruin. The idea (in its modern form) comes from Goethe’s plays Faust I (1808) and Faust II (1832). Academic achievement is often presented as a Faustian bargain, where exceptional discoveries are purchased at the expense of health, family, and happiness. The idea of ‘The Faustian Bargain’ is a useful heuristic of life to remember, whenever one feels one is pushing oneself intensely without reflecting on why one is doing that. History offers examples in both directions. Nikola Tesla devoted himself almost entirely to invention, remaining unmarried, working obsessively, and ending his life isolated and impoverished despite his scientific brilliance. Isaac Newton likewise achieved extraordinary breakthroughs, but his career was punctuated by prolonged isolation and episodes of severe psychological distress. In contrast, Charles Darwin deliberately structured his life around regular walks, time with his family, and periods of rest to manage his chronic illness, while still producing On the Origin of Species. These lives suggest that intense dedication is essential for great scholarship, but that sacrificing every other aspect of life is neither a necessary nor a reliable path to lasting achievement. Or as David Lynch says;

“The artist doesn’t have to suffer to show suffering. Have it on the screen but have the people come out of the theater into a world of peace, of a beautiful world. They don’t have to suffer in their lives.”

– David Lynch

Wisdom, like every other virtue, must itself be practised in moderation, and one must learn to be happy with imperfection if one is to live a happy life; for the constant chase of marginal improvement is often times a fixation over diminishing returns rather than vast compounding treasures. If we are not careful, that fixation risks clouding our minds from being present to experience what is really important. Slavoj Žižek says, you must learn that love, for a person or for the greater world, means embracing “perfection in imperfection itself”. Žižek asserts that when you can list exact, rational reasons for why you love someone (e.g., they are attractive, successful, or kind), you are essentially loving a checklist of traits rather than the whole person. True lovers do not idealize each other. Instead of seeing a flawless partner, authentic love focuses on a tiny, sometimes “disturbing element”, and decides that despite these flaws, the person is absolute and essential for making life worth living. The Golden Mean applies a similar view of accepting imperfection to philosophy, when it points out how fortune and misfortune lie beyond calibration through reflection – yet remain as significant parts forming a life; informing us that reflection, even when taken to it’s limit, won’t be enough to transport us into a perfect paradise. As such, we reach the conclusion that we must be happy with imperfection, and not judge the world, ourselves, or others, for not being perfect.

Every philosophy, no matter how insightful, occupies a portion of our limited attention and bandwidth. Taking things apart in order to better understand them, ultimately disconnects one from the very reality one wishes to experience after all. As such, even wisdom can become a distraction from the very life it seeks to improve. For, although Socrates famously declared that “the unexamined life is not worth living.” an endlessly examined life is not desirable either. An example of such a reflective paralysis of life can be found in Léon Bloy’s Histories désobligantes where a man obsessed with travel, owning all aids, tools, and guides related to it; simultaneously fails in leaving their home town – showcasing how an emphasis on preparing to go to the beach, can stop one from going. A paralysis often dubbed the ‘Burdian’s ass’, and realted to the intellectual paralysis of decision anxiety.

Rather than treating life as a means towards some future state of fulfilment, we should therefore strive to recover the ability to experience life as an end in itself. Because ultimately, philosophy is not the destination. Life is. The idea of the Golden Mean protects us from this danger, by releasing us from our own minds after we have finished reflecting, so that we may return to living afterwards. The story Eleven days in Berlin by Håkan Nesser, seconds this more relaxed approach to planning. In the story, a slightly mentally disabled man travels to Berlin without ever having travelled before nor speaking German – yet, despite this, ends up having a very good time and growing as a person. In essence, a point made about the merits in believing that everything will work itself out; and a reminder that humans tend to be more risk-averse than what is reasonable in our relatively safe modern world.

What of life then? Would life be better if people pivoted towards encouraging calm and play, over contemplation and responsibility? Given that there is merit to this pivot towards facilitating the experience of the present moment, how does one manage this task? It certainly is not by overtly pushing oneself to enjoy the moment, that much is sure – for enjoying something always has a subtle quality to it. Albert Camus expressed this beautifully when he urged us to “imagine Sisyphus happy.” implying that meaning is not discovered at the end point of reflection, as in meaning not being found in the goal – such as heaving a boulder over the last meters of a mountain. Rather, meaning is found in the process of pushing it, constructed and created in the very process of reflection, rather than at the end point of it. What often happens when we live our lives on high-speed auto-pilot is that we neglect what is really important in life, the process and the experience, focusing only on the more arbitrary results. An insidious miscalculation of focus which can put one on a path of isolation and heartbreak, something the cautionary tales of the films Tokyo Story and Ikuru warns us of. That our blind devotion to the stress of modernity’s un-winnable competition may make us blind to what we want for ourselves unknowingly – such as time spent with our loved ones – possibly costing us a happy life. To truly experience life, one has to slow down and implore ones attention, and senses. A good book illustrating how to do this is Antoine Laurain’s Le chapeau de Mitterrand about the lost hat of the former French president, and how everyone who wears it gains the power to enjoy the moment to the fullest degree – whilst simultaneously gaining the confidence to do what they personally really want to, leaving worries and anxiety aside. What would you do if you had the presidents hat? A quote from the book, just after the protagonist has obtained the President’s hat, reads like this;

“As he crossed the boulevard, he decided to banish all worry. ‘From the moment I push open the heavy door to the brasserie,’ he thought, ‘there will be no Jean Maltard, no Sogetec assignment, and no VAT and expense lists. There will be nothing but a seafood platter and me.”

– Le chapeau de Mitterrand, Antoine Laurain

Does this mean that we should de-stress our lives completely, only focusing on those things intrinsically valuable to us, neglecting everything of instrumental value (such as a career, status, and fashion); living and dying for the experience itself, rather than the results? Not necessarily. For one, there would be no restaurants and sea-food platters without working kitchen personnel. On a societal level, the great comforts brought by the industrial revolution would never have happened if people did not reflect about how things could be done differently in the future – and about the lack of results that their present regime produced. On a individual level, Borges gives us an example of why remembering every little thing we come across – as lovers of the past do – can be damaging in it’s extreme form. In Borges tale Funes the Memorious – the superhuman memory of the story’s main character – fails bring about the closure to the protagonists understanding of themselves and the world.

Rather, the revelling of nostalgic experience begets mostly sensory overload and torment. For, with infinite memory and experience, comes infinite investigation and analysis – burying ones insights beneath a blanket of insights. Paradoxically, having infinite memory also means being incapable of true thought, because to think, one has to generalize, and to generalize, one must possess a mind capable of compressing information into categories of things; something which requires that one is capable of forgetting slight differences. Because Funes can never forget, every single second of his life remains a distinct, unrepeatable entity, trapping him in a sensory overload that stumps his ability to reach any closure in life. In the story, Funes gains this ability after being paralysed in a physical accident – yet one wonders if the metaphor here might be that it really is Funes thinking which keeps him paralysed, rather than any physical means stemming from an accident.

A third reason why one should not devote oneself solely to the savouring of life’s experiences, has to do with the trap that is duty without reflection; for just as spending all ones time reflecting kills life, the same goes for being so focused on ones local environment one becomes effectively a drone. Say that you spent all your life devoted to nurturing the ones closest to you. What would likely happen in this non-flexible extreme of a case? Kazuo Ishiguro’s book The Remains of the Day illustrates some possible consequences of such a fixed and noble mindset (as does the German concept of die Pflicht), as it takes shape in the never ceasing service of a butler at a esteemed manor in England – and ultimately concludes that consequences of such a way of live is the erasure of oneself, a life all too self-sacrificing and extreme to be deemed venerable. In essence, a good book about a man who missed the point of life, because he was so focused on the process of living it, he could not imagine what other roads in life to take.

Part VI

Question: Given our conclusion that moderation in most things is desirable, such as in the balance between contemplation and pragmatism, as well as optimisation and experience; and that moderation therefore comprises a useful mental short cut to live life by; what practical advice ties into moderation?

Answer: Practice building up a sense for when you are on- vs off- course from the Golden Mean in your Life. Practice becoming more aware of your clarity of mind, so that you stay as clear headed as possible; and hence are able to make those good decisions which provides yourself and others with good care. See to death as an inspiration for what to prioritise in life, whenever you are overwhelmed with options.

Every human life is extraordinarily improbable. Each is an unrepeatable combination of genetics, circumstance, history, relationships, and chance. Like a rare work of art, its value derives in part from the impossibility of reproducing it exactly. No Philosophy of Life can therefore claim to judge individual lives in their entirety. At best, it offers guidance addressed to the imagined average person, leaving every actual individual free to discover how that guidance ought to be lived. As is, wisdom consists not in discovering a perfect rule, but in learning how to navigate wisely between enduring human tensions and building a good character along the way.

In ones reflective journey in life, one must not forget what reflection is for; that it exists for enriching life, rather than life existing to sustain reflection. One may become aware of whenever one is ruminating more than experiencing, when ever the following comedic stories begin to sound like serious affairs within the mental cacophony of ones mind, rather than as the silly situations they really are. The first comedic lesson, stemming from Monty Python’s famous Philosophers’ Football Match, where the philosophers spend so much time contemplating the nature of the game that they forget to play it – finding themselves stuck on questions such as “What is a ball?”. The second comedic lesson, stemming from Douglas Adams repeated mockery of humanity’s tendency to mistake intellectual complexity for practical wisdom. As in Adams opinion that he would “far rather be happy than right”, alongside his idea that humankind – even when supplied with a super-computer capable of answering “The Ultimate Question of Life, the Universe, and Everything” – would be to dumb do understand the answer (which in the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy is “42” for those curious to know).

One should learn to savour the ordinary moments of the everyday, and take inspiration from Marcel Proust, and his capturing of the beauty of a season by the ways of the scent of a summer flower, or the taste of a madeleine cookie and the happy memories associated with it. This, so that one may savour summer on a cold winter day, and be able to say with confidence that one really permitted life to make an impression on oneself whilst one was living. At the same time, one must continue to move forward whilst one can move ones body – not allowing oneself to be paralyzed by nostalgia like Borges Funes de Memorius, perhaps, as many do, obsessing over the counter-factual chains of events that ‘could have been, but were not’; wallowing in jealousy of the lived paths of others, mistakenly bogging oneself down in comparisons which are floating outside reality, in disregards to the fact that you can only live your own life, and never someone else’s. One can become aware of obsessive day-dreaming and nostalgia – whenever one notices their kitchen aflame (a little too late) whens in the process of turning pages in a foto-album.

When one notices one is dabbing with overt nostalgia, or an intense wish to become some famous deceased super-man, who for ever will remain as the sole example of that specific person – as will you be the sole example of you – one should slightly calibrate ones course of life, leaning out of nostalgia and re-arrangements of the past, and into the ‘will to power’ and self-mastery of Nietzsche’s Philosophy of Life. The key to finding this balance in life, between contemplative reflection, and pragmatic action, is to keep a calm and clean mind – so that one is receptive to whenever ones craft begins to lean in to either of the two directions; like a sailboat attempting to maximise the force of the wind by the perfect curve of its sails. When one begins to feel a little insane from all thinking, one ought to maintain the balance of The Golden Mean, by veering in the direction of a culturally American pragmatism, and when one begins to feel a little to much on auto-pilot, one better steer a little towards the culturally Continentally European tradition of systematising the world through contemplation and reasoning. A general rule of thumb is that a fast life often strips life of the experience which makes it enjoyable and meaningful to live. One should therefore be vigilant of ones levels of stress, and the speed of which ones days come to pass, and make sure to stop oneself now and then, rest assured that life is no competition; and that if it really was, it would be a marathon (a moving average), rather than a sprint.

How does one maintain a clear head so that one is best prepared to handle the balancing act that is life? I believe that a clear mind ‘leads the best’, and that the clearest of minds is that which is orderly both in the short-term memory, as well as in the long-term memory; wherein the clearing of the short-term experience takes precedence over the long-term experience. Some general advice can be inferred from the list below:

Short-Term Mind Clearing:

1. Sleep properly.
2. Picture the following text-snippets:
   • Slow down – go easy child. Vienna waits for you.
   • Tomorrow, tomorrow! You’re always a day away.
   • Here and now. I would be, I should be. But how? I could have been. One of these things first.
   • Know you are no machine, but a phenomenologically constrained ape; and that you can’t set machine-like expectations of yourself.
   • Know that it is OK not catching up with everything, and everyone. For one, your brain limits your ability to make sense of the past/present/and future; so don’t dwell on things obsessively.
3. Keep an eye on your information consumption:
   • Remember that you are what you eat, and that you should think before you consume. Remember that your short-term memory (i.e. ‘focus’) is limited to 8-bits of memory; and that it might be prioritised else-where than where you are currently employing it. So take short breaks now and then, and be sparing with your focus, for it is limited.

Long-Term Mind Clearing:

4. Passively Reflect:
   • Take walks during the day when the sun is out, preferably in and around nature, and in the mornings and evenings – for added calm. Practice thinking without a goal to clear the mind. Go for a swim in a cold lake, for a full-on mind re-set.
5. Play:
   • Use your brain for fun, but otherwise useless tasks. Anything that comes with zero pressure. Like playing a song on a guitar you like and know rather well.
6. Actively Reflect:
   • Actively reflect on the past/present/future. Preferably through the ordered medium of reading and writing.

Here are some heuristic tools which emerge naturally from the arguments of this essay which may be much easier to remember than the essay at large :

1. First, remember that while individual lives resist objective comparison, aggregates of lives do not.
2. Second, remember that the shared patterns emerging from many lives function as navigational landmarks, helping us orient ourselves within our own individual and collective experience.
3. Third, remember that different ways of living produce different experiences and outcomes, and that their value ultimately depends upon the subjective preferences of the individual. Generally speaking, these paths can be categorised as either belonging to the contemplative tradition, or to the pragmatic tradition.
4. Fourth, remember that the possible paths in life are virtually infinite, yet a philosophy capable of accommodating that diversity already exists. Rather than choosing one extreme over another, the individual should begin from a philosophy that remains open to both. Aristotle’s doctrine of the Golden Mean is, I argue, such a philosophy.
5. Fifth, remember that wisdom must itself be tempered by balance; that philosophy should enrich life rather than replace it. Thus, The Golden Mean should not be followed like a prison of principles, but rather returned to as a safe harbour in-between our explorations, of the personal fit all complementary Philosophies of Life greet us with in the present moment. Tangentially, we ought to prioritise experience first, reflection second, and action last.
6. Sixth, remember to practice building up a sense for when you are on- vs off- course from the Golden Mean in your Life. Practice becoming more aware of your clarity of mind, so that you stay as clear headed as possible; and hence are able to make those good decisions which provides yourself and others with good care. See to death as an inspiration for what to prioritise in life, whenever you are overwhelmed with options.

Lastly a note on death. Death provides us with a mirror, reflecting the answers, to what is really important in life. It is a base requirement of every Philosophy of Life to confront the one certainty from which no life escapes: death. The very engine fuelling the whole affair that is life, and the lived experience. A phenomenon which can be divided into the culturally Continentally European collective death, where transfer of ideals and good conduct is premiered, and the culturally American individual death, where the uniqueness of the individual is mourned relatively more.

The culturally Continentally European death may be signified by Jorge Luis Borges reflections on death – through a collective dimension. Borges imagined immortals, who, given infinite time, eventually become every possible person and perform every possible action. In such an imagined universe, every virtue and every vice lose their distinctiveness. Infinity dissolves ethical and moral consequence and meaning, and mortality restores it. Borges writes:

“They (the immortal) knew that in an infinite period of time, all things happen to all men. Because of his past or future virtues, every man is worthy of all goodness, but also of all perversity, because of his infamy in the past or future.”

– Borges

Homer expressed a similar collective insight to death when comparing generations of humanity to leaves upon a tree in the Iliad. In it, individuals perish, while humanity itself endures. Each generation receives the inheritance of those before it and, in turn, passes it onwards. To the Greeks, the privilege of caring for, and relaying, the fire of humanity through their generation to the next, was enough to embellish meaning onto life. Homer writes:

“As is the generation of leaves, so is that of humanity. The wind scatters the leaves on the ground, but the live timber burgeons with leaves again in the season of spring returning. So one generation of men will grow while another dies.”

– Iliad, Homer

The culturally American death may be signified by a focus on the uniqueness of the deceased individual, that is lost to time. Here, death is perhaps more often treated as the great enemy of meaning. Yet it is also sometimes interpreted to be meanings indispensable condition. In the American Hollywood film Troy, Achilles remarks that the Gods envy mortals precisely because our lives are finite and unique; and as is, everything becomes more beautiful because it will not last forever. As the line in Troy goes:

“I’ll tell you a secret. Something they don’t teach you in your temple. The gods envy us. They envy us because we’re mortal, because any moment might be our last. Everything is more beautiful because we’re doomed. You will never be lovelier than you are now. We will never be here again.”

– Troy (2004)

Lastly, it could be argued that there also exists a Aristotelean Golden Mean -sort of death – compromising the synthesis of the two, with a leaning towards the mourning of the loss of the collective, and the loss of the individual. Although one should mention that Aristoteles saw death as something wholly negative, and the worst that could happen to a person. Whether expressed by Homer, Borges, or Achilles, each perspective points towards the same truth. A finite life possesses urgency precisely because it is finite. Death therefore does not merely conclude life, but it gives shape to it. That said, the mourning is felt intensely every time. In this moment of grief, a mirror towards what is important in life, is revealed to us still living – and we gain a glimpse on what we really ought to prioritise. When faced with death, or the nearing of it, people come to raise the same ideas on what is intrinsically valuable in life; again, and again. When we imagine ourselves enjoying something for the last time in our lives, the importance of the last hug seems much more important than the last pay-check. In the reverse, the last excel-workbook, sounds much more like a relief, than the last time one has to walk ones dog. Close relationships are valued more than most things, more than money, social class, IQ, or ones genetic predisposition. It is therefore paramount that one works to stay in touch with their friends and loved ones. A sort of maintenance of staying true to ones person, having the courage to live ones own life – rather than the life of another – is also often times mentioned. A regret on a life spent on working, on lacking the courage to express ones feelings, and on not allowing oneself to be happier in the everyday of life – also carry a significant note.

Generally speaking, the following order of daily priorities seems like a good starting template :

1. Personal Wellbeing
   • Physical Wellbeing
     • Sleep
     • Nutrition
     • Exercise
   • Mental Wellbeing
     • Keeping healthy levels of stress
     • Keeping healthy levels of consumption
     • Maintaining general control and order over ones own environment
     • Maintaining some time of ones own
2. Social Wellbeing
   • Family
   • Friends
   • Friend-groups
   • Relatives
   • Acquaintances and colleagues
3. Activity-based Wellbeing
   • Keeping oneself mentally stimulated
   • Fun activities, preferably including moving your body
   • Setting aside time for reflection
   • Hobbies and interests
4. Personal Growth
   • Long-term improvement tasks
   • Study

So we have reached the end! Remember that you are unique – that the human experience you share with others is an abstraction, yet simultaneously real – and that the average person does not exist; and that we can never reduce a human life to a single explanation – and that this entails that we should treat every person as an end in itself rather than as a means to an end.

P.S – If you found this essay on the Philosophy of Life interesting, I recommend you to read Nicomachean Ethics by Aristotle. It is surprisingly relevant and readable given that it was written as far back as (335–322 BCE).