Philosophy is a mode of life, an act of living, and a way of being. Modern philosophy has forgotten this tradition, and philosophical discourse has all but overtaken philosophy as a way of life. Philosophy is not just an intellectual discipline, which can get abstract and divorced from the real world, but is most importantly a way of life that teaches us how to best live our lives.
A carpenter does not come up to us and say, “Listen to me speak about the art of carpentry”, but makes a contract for a house and builds it. So must we, when confronted with life, put our knowledge into practice, and not be like those who devour books and can astonish others by their skill in argumentation, but who, when it comes to their own lives, contradict their own teachings.
Philosophy is a mode of existing in the world, which has to be practiced at each instant, and the goal of which is to transform the whole of the individual’s life. Real wisdom does not merely cause us to know: it makes us “be” in a different way.
The goodness of our lives depends on our soul, in which we can make good use of other valuable things such as health, pleasure, happiness, tranquillity, and so on, which can make a real contribution towards a good life. By contrast, a bad soul will create bad desires, bad choices, and the misuse of potential goods, thus we spiral down a bad life, characterised by vice.
The condition of the soul is entirely a matter of developing and understanding fundamental truths about human nature, and as a consequence of those, about the nature of what is valuable for a human being. If we fulfil our nature by pursuing a virtuous life, our soul remains in a healthy state, enabling us to live a good and happy life – even if we experience suffering, pain, loss of goods, or failure. What concerns external and bodily goods do not diminish the quality of our lives at all, for these are ever-changing. Bad things will always happen to us, as if they constantly move in the outer rim of the circle of life, however, virtue puts us back in the strong foundation of the centre of the circle, where the soul resides. But people will do anything, no matter how absurd, to avoid facing their own soul.
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