Co-author of "Agile Web Development with Rails" and "Getting Real." Co-writer of "Rework," "Remote," and "It Doesn't Have to Be Crazy at Work" with Jason Fried.
Dostoevsky knew this too. In Notes From Underground, which I’ve referenced before, he lays out perhaps the most succinct literary case against paradise. That man is less a problem-solving creature than he is a problem-creating one. That he needs the tension inherent in some degree of struggle.
Victor Frankl wrote Man’s Search for Meaning after surviving a concentration camp during World War II. He observed the outer extreme of what happens to people who no longer have a WHY to live for. They’d wither and die in the camp. Even the most dire rations and punishing labor could be survived by many, as long as they had a purpose still beckoning, but once that light went out, so did they.
Modern life is rarely that dramatic for most people likely to read this, but Frankl’s fundamental truth is still relevant. A truth he spent the rest of his life trying to teach in the form of logotherapy as a psychotherapist.
Eric Fromm followed the same path of wisdom to additional insights. In The Pathology of Normalcy, he spells out exactly what makes modern man condemned: Getting everything he wanted while having nobody asking him for anything. The satiation of every desire paired with a relief of every responsibility is a psychological death sentence to many.
But I promise you: There is room in this society for speaking the truth and living to tell about it.If you aren't familiar with McWorther's work, you can start with his short interview on Bill Maher, then proceed to his excellent biweekly appearances with Glenn Loury.His diagnosis of our time is at once piercing and fortifying.
But I promise you: There is room in this society for speaking the truth and living to tell about it.If you aren't familiar with McWorther's work, you can start with his short interview on Bill Maher, then proceed to his excellent biweekly appearances with Glenn Loury.His diagnosis of our time is at once piercing and fortifying.
