"joys of the soul"

"When I think about what really makes me happy, what I really crave, I come up with a very different list: concentrated, purposeful work, especially creative work; being with people I love; feeling like I’m part of something larger. Meaning, connectedness, doing strenuously what you do well: not sights, not thrills, and not even pleasures, as welcome as they are. Not passivity, not letting the world come in and tickle you, but creativity, curiosity, altruism, engagement, craft. Raising children, or teaching students, or hanging out with friends. Playing music, not listening to it. Making things, or making them happen. Thinking hard and feeling deeply."  This by William Deresiewiez blogging in The American Scholar LINK

In three paragraphs (the second quoted above) Deresiewicz considers what makes life worth living.  His comments are prompted in part by reading another author (Steven Weinberg, in the New York Review of Books) reflecting upon "the consolations of life in the absence of belief in the hereafter."  Deresiewicz argues in favor of the "joys of the soul" rather than of the "pleasures of the body" as a richer set of consolations.  His rejection of a consumerist notion of the self would makes him a valuable contributor to conversation with our current reading about advertizing in the 1960s.

And the exchange of comments that follow his brief posting make lively reading that points us toward large issues such as the power of status, the value of social connections, and the difference religious belief makes.  I recommend those as well.