Episode Summary
Kieran Setiya reading from Aristotle’s Nicomachean Ethics and discussing how to cope with experiencing a midlife crisis.
Here’s a saying I heard once – it used to be hilarious, now I guess it’s just painfully true: “Inside every old person is a young person wondering ‘What the hell just happened here?!’” When you hit midlife, is it just a slower, creakier version of being a thirty-year-old, or do things actually shift? What is contentment or ambition? What actually matters?
Kieran Setiya is a professor of philosophy at MIT in Boston, and the author of Midlife: A Philosophical Guide. In this episode, he shares the fundamentals of navigating problems and finding existential value in the midst of a crisis.
Kieran reads two pages from ‘Nicomachean Ethics’ by Aristotle. [reading begins at 7:50]
Hear us discuss:
- Atelic activities and existential value. [13:37]
- When to settle and when to disrupt: “Looking for an algorithm to tell you how to solve your life is not the way to do it.” [18:59]
- Death’s role in shaping a meaningful life: “Thinking about the finitude of human life has changed my sense of what actually matters.” [24:41]
- Changes in ambition when navigating midlife. [31:18]
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Resources:
Kieran Setiya | Twitter
Kieran Setiya’s book | Midlife: A Philosophical Guide | Knowing Right From Wrong
Aristotle | Nicomachean Ethics
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