How to Inhabit Time: Understanding the Past, Facing the Future, Living Faithfully Now

Don’t worry if philosophy doesn’t come easily to you. The difficulty is the point (“a feature, not a bug,” as they say). Sometimes we need the difficulty to get us to slow down and look at ourselves.

“All houses have memory,” writes David Farrier. “Every house is a clock.”

The poet encounters the truncated beauty of an ancient statue that, even without the glare of eyes, makes him feel seen. Standing mesmerized before the stone that seems alive, the narrator beholds himself anew. The encounter is a recognition that yields the stark conclusion of the poem: “You must change your life.”

You can feel this connection between contemplation and action, reflection and transformation, in Rainer Maria Rilke’s poem “Archaic Torso of Apollo.”

philosophy is a perennial invitation to reflect on how we live—to cultivate an “examined life,” as Socrates put it. I hope this book revives the ancient art of philosophy as spiritual counsel. Philosophy matters only if it teaches us how to live, how to be human.