What some smart people are optimistic about
January 15th, 2007 | by Brian |This morning I read the beginning of Arnold Kling’s column on TCSDaily, and where he had a link to Edge.org. the website of the Edge Foundation:The mandate of Edge Foundation is to promote inquiry into and discussion of intellectual, philosophical, artistic, and literary issues, as well as to work for the intellectual and social achievement of society.” Every year they ask a question to their members. Last year it was “What is your dangerous idea?,” and in 2005 it was “What do you believe is true though you cannot prove it?” (which I apparently noted at the time) & has since been become a book with an Introduction by Ian McEwan. This year’s question is “What are you optimistic about and why?” A fine question, and again some great reads. While browsing (John Gottman, Steven Pinker, Richard Dawkins…) I came across a nice quote by Martin Seligman, a major figure in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy and now Positive Psychology:
The third form of happiness, which is meaning, is again knowing what your highest strengths are and deploying those in the service of something you believe is larger than you are. There’s no shortcut to that. That’s what life is about.
Just something to keep in mind.
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