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The historical significance of urban centers
The impact of cultural and technological advances
The role of urban centers in shaping society
Blaise Pascal
Pascal wants us to see that we are both greater and more miserable than what Montaigne observed. Pascal would agree with Socrates who believed that human beings are always wanting more and reaching beyond themselves and cannot constraint this desire. What we can do is direct it.
Pascal argued that we're always distracted because of our aimlessness. Our need to constantly amuse ourselves shows that even in our enjoyment we are not really content.
In contemporary life, this is why we always complain about distractions like our phones but are never able to put them down.
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Alexis de Tocqueville
Alexis de Tocqueville realizes that there are markers of immanent success and happiness in Western society and the pressure to seek it is all around us. There's a rat race for stuff and status. This makes us quite unhappy. Our desires for pleasure becomes like a command. And when our pursuits an...
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Accepting Unhappiness
Pascal thinks that human beings are naturally unhappy. He suggests that unhappiness is the norm. This aspect of pascal's thought could be liberating. A lot of young people are unhappy and they feel like unhappiness is a failure of normalcy. This is really constricting for their lives.
Mode...
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Restlessness
Restlessness seems like a contemporary phenomenon but it's been the object of philosophical speculation for centuries. Restlessness seems to affect students the most. Students are full of activity yet devoid of purpose.
The problem is that we don't know how to choose. We don't know how to...
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French Enlightenment
French philosophy on restlessness being with Michelle De Montaigne. He wrote 3 volumes of semi-autobiographical essays. He's an acute observer of the human soul. He writes about all the particular details of his life. This capacity for close psychological self-study formed a generation of French ...
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Michelle de Montaigne
Montaigne's idea is to enjoy all the good things of life without taking any of them seriously. He gardens but he doesn't care if it's imperfect. He has a family but doesn't expect too much from them. This allows us to be a little bit more sane and happier.
Montaigne argues that imagination ...
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Why notifications can change your mood (The spotlight effect)
According to the research, it's all about our perception of self. When we receive work messages or automated notifications, it reminds us that we're just another entry in a database, some random person in a maze. We all have a desire to be noticed and rec...
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