Most Replayed Moment: Alain de Botton - Individualism Is Making Us Miserable!

Uh got me thinking about this concept of happiness as you're speaking and whether it's a natural thing for our species to be aiming at, or whether it's a new more modern thing that we've decided to focus upon? And are we causing ourselves immense distress in this pursuit of this thing that maybe our ancestors didn't didn't ever think about this whole you know, we think about self actualization and they were probably thinking about survival and reproduction more.

Look, these all belong to the sort of paradoxes of modern times. Modern times have obviously brought us enormous advantages, but they've also brought us particular complexities that I think we'd be wise to to realise. And one of them is the disappearance of religion. I mean, we are Still among the first generations in many parts of the world. To be um trying to live good lives without the support of religion. Think of our religion's structure as

time and human experience in time. As a religious person. You immediately feel the present moment is not as important as a hundred, two hundred, two thousand million year history that has come before and that will continue after. The present moment is a spec in time. And and there's a whole narrative of which you're part of that immediately

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