Sublime

To be human is to be animated and oriented by some vision of the good life, some picture of what we think counts as “flourishing.” And we want that. We crave it. We desire it. This is why our most fundamental mode of orientation to the world is love.

eudaimonia, the ancient Greek word for “human flourishing.”

the quality of our lives and the health of our society depends, to a large degree, on how well we treat each other in the minute interactions of daily life.

Existential ideas and attitudes have embedded themselves so deeply into modern culture that we hardly think of them as existentialist at all. People (at least in relatively prosperous countries where more urgent needs don’t intervene) talk about anxiety, dishonesty and the fear of commitment. They worry about being in bad faith, even if they don’t

“Deeper satisfaction comes not from feeling good, he taught, but from doing good: from cultivating and maintaining virtuous habits that balance one’s own life and create and deepen ties with others.”

What are the things you do that do something to you? What are the secular liturgies in your life? What vision of the good life is carried in those liturgies? What Story is embedded in those cultural practices? What kind of person do they want you to become? To what kingdom are these rituals aimed? What does this cultural institution want you to lov