Genre: Philosophy/Self-Help
Pages: 245
Philosophy (or ‘Falsafah’ as we say in Urdu) has a very heavy and boring aura around it. Other-worldly, unimportant, and something-for-the-bigheads, the last thing someone would want to believe about philosophy is that it can help them live better. Even convinced, a normal person wouldn’t go to philosophy for the answers, knowing philosophical cure is also philosophy. ‘Avoid, no matter what!’ they might utter.
However, I’m a recent exception from this crowd. I’ve been following philosophy and the great thinkers for a couple of years now, thanks to this man’s (Alain de Botton) arguably perfect school and organization ‘The School of Life’. Their short, well-written and visualized, and perfectly asked and answered videos (on YouTube) about the struggles of daily life for the emotional beings that we are, are nothing short of therapy, or even revelations for understanding ourselves like never before. While my love for philosophy increased as I kept watching more videos from TSoL, my particular understanding of philosophy as a consolation or cure remained somewhat vague and untuned. That is until now!
This book beautifully and intelligently brings philosophy amidst the mess of our daily lives and helps tranquilize the troubled waters for the readers, and gives them the very earnest consolations for…: unpopularity, lack of money, inadequacy, frustration, a broken heart, and difficulties. Looking at these six worrisome topics, we can all agree how much we suffer from these in our modern, and rather crueler, world. Then what a welcome, consoling, and important surprise it was for me, and will for the readers, to know that philosophy is the one answer to all these major problems of modern-day life.
‘Learn to understand, for to understand is to be free’ had said Spinoza, and it comes alive across this book. Reading ‘The Consolations of Philosophy’ is understanding what our problems are, and what they’ve to say, and in turn it has a ridding effect on readers to unshackle themselves from unaware sufferings. De Botton has chosen six of the most influential, and also most appropriate, philosophers along with their philosophies as the consolations for each of these problems. The unpopular Socrates, the indigent Epicurus, the patient Seneca, the inadequate Montaigne, the lonely Schopenhauer, and the triumphant Nietzsche – de Botton picks this army of great men for the task of lifting the tragic suffering from the human beings by the help of philosophy.
It is one thing to read and know about the philosophers, which de Botton does so with such acute knowledge that it seems like he was their biographers, but to make such intelligent headways and interpretations from their philosophies is another. De Botton’s fluid intelligence (from Rumi’s ‘two kind of intelligences’) is a true representation of his alive knowledge and genius of making that knowledge relevant.
Both picturesque and usefully crafted, this book is filled with art works, photos, and visual cues that makes reading philosophy appealingly fun. Yet at the same time, the modern-day parables and the intelligent ways of applying each respective philosophy so beautifully and workably into each respective chapter made me not only love this book but also marvel at it.
Although all the chapters have their beautiful and entertaining elements, reading the funny, precise, and efficient biography of Arthur Schopenhauer had to be my favorite! Even the selected philosophers were either my favorites, and so were made more known and dearer, or were presented so beautifully that they became my favorites.
The book’s wisdom is ancient in its origins, modern in its applications; its content is alive with pictures, modern-day parables, and humor; and its kind and heartfelt consolations is of earnest importance. De Botton is a philosopher of every day with the job of making it better for all.
A new, most-favorite book!
Ratings: 5/5 ***** (October 6, 2020)