Life Is Short - by Dean Rickles

About the Book

"This brief book attempts to provide a 21st-century version of Seneca's classic essay, On the Shortness of Life. Like Seneca, Rickles seeks to motivate readers to meditate on how they use their time and offer some reasons why they mismanage this precious resource. Drawing on new developments in the understanding of time, the self, and human agency, in philosophy, psychology, neuroscience, and physics, Rickles's basic aim is to highlight the essential nature of the limit provided by death and the ways in which this fact gives life its meaning. The book will also point to a number of solutions (and potential pitfalls in these) aimed at using time more wisely. Throughout the book the focus is on a pair of competing personality styles that are found to be at the root of many of the problems Seneca unearthed, and can be associated with philosophical stances on personal identity and theories of time. These styles, commonly referred to in psychology as "Puer" and "Senex" are, respectively, the childish, present-focused type and the rational, future-focused, type. These styles relate in a fundamental way to how an individual reacts to being limited, whether by death or decision. The book will also deal with themes such as the concept of immortality; "diseases of time," such as the hyperbolic discounting leading us to devalue our futures; and strategies for using the short life well. The book concludes by showing that it is not life that has ultimate meaning but death, and this ultimate limit is where life derives whatever meaning it will have"--

Book Synopsis

Why life's shortness--more than anything else--is what makes it meaningful

Death might seem to render pointless all our attempts to create a meaningful life. Doesn't meaning require transcending death through an afterlife or in some other way? On the contrary, Dean Rickles argues, life without death would be like playing tennis without a net. Only constraints--and death is the ultimate constraint--make our actions meaningful. In Life Is Short, Rickles explains why the finiteness and shortness of life is the essence of its meaning--and how this insight is the key to making the most of the time we do have.

Life Is Short explores how death limits our options and forces us to make choices that forge a life and give the world meaning. But people often live in a state of indecision, in a misguided attempt to keep their options open. This provisional way of living--always looking elsewhere, to the future, to other people, to other ways of being, and never committing to what one has or, alternatively, putting in the time and energy to achieve what one wants--is a big mistake, and Life Is Short tells readers how to avoid this trap.

By reminding us how extraordinary it is that we have any time to live at all, Life Is Short challenges us to rethink what gives life meaning and how to make the most of it.

Review Quotes

"A Choice Outstanding Academic Title of the Year"

"A sophisticated yet accessible reflection on how the reality of death makes human choices meaningful."-- "Choice Reviews"

"Engaging."---David Lorimer, Paradigm Explorer

"Illuminating. . . . Rickles aims to provide a panacea for those facing death anxiety. . . . Bound to be ameliorative for any member of the human species."---Skye C. Cleary, Times Literary Supplement

"A meditative gem that is as intellectually astute as it is accessible. Readers will find much to help them in their efforts to live more mindfully--and with significantly greater appreciation."-- "Shelf Awareness starred review"

"Rickles, a philosophy of modern physics professor at the University of Sydney, investigates how to live a meaningful life in this charming and profound outing. . . . This brief volume packs a punch."-- "Publishers Weekly"

About the Author

Dean Rickles is professor of history and philosophy of modern physics at the University of Sydney, Australia, where he is also a director of the Sydney Centre for Time. His many books include Covered with Deep Mist: The Development of Quantum Gravity and A Brief History of String Theory.