Fragile Life
Accepting Our Vulnerability
It is perhaps our noblest cause, and certainly one of our oldest: to end suffering. Think of the Buddha, Chuang Tzu, or Marcus Aurelius: stoically composed figures impervious to the torments of the wider world, living their lives in complete serenity – and teaching us how to do the same. After all, isn't a life free from suffering the ideal? Isn't it what so many of us seek? Absolutely not, argues Todd May in this provocative but compassionate book. In a moving examination of life and the trials that beset it, he shows that our fragility, our ability to suffer, is actually one of the most important aspects of our humanity. May starts with a simple but hard truth: suffering is inevitable. At the most basic level, we suffer physically – a sprained ankle or a bad back. But we also suffer insults and indifference. We suffer from overburdened schedules and unforeseen circumstances, from moral dilemmas and emotional heartaches. Even just thinking about our own mortality – the fact that we only live one life – can lead us to tremendous suffering. No wonder philosophies such as Buddhism, Taosim, Stoicism, and even Epicureanism – all of which counsel us to rise above these plights – have had appeal over the centuries. May highlights the tremendous value of these philosophies and the ways they can guide us toward better lives, but he also exposes a major drawback to their tenets: such invulnerability is too emotionally disengaged from the world, leading us to place too great a distance between ourselves and our experience. Rather than seeking absolute immunity, he argues most of us just want to hurt less and learn how to embrace and accept what suffering we do endure in a meaningful way. Offering a guide on how to positively engage suffering, May ultimately lays out a new way of thinking about how we exist in the world, one that reassures us that our suffering, rather than a failure of physical or psychological resilience, is a powerful and essential part of life itself.
About the Author
Todd May is Class of 1941 Memorial Professor of the Humanities at Clemson University. He is the author of many books, including "Friendship in an Age of Economics", "Contemporary Movements and the Thought of Jacques Ranciere", and "Death".
Reviews
"Would that all academics wrote as clearly as Todd May! He's a real teacher, who proves that much, if not all, of what's expressed in abstruse prose can be said in a manner that any attentive mind can readily understand. 'A Fragile Life' is a clear and honest exploration, illustrated by helpful stories, of how we should think about our vulnerability to suffering. It will appeal to anyone who's interested in how philosophy can illuminate and guide our lives" – Scott Samuelson, author of "The Deepest Human Life"
"With an astonishing capacity to travel across philosophical traditions and with his usual grace in rendering deep philosophical issues through an accessible language, May tackles here one of the most pressing existential questions of our time: are we vulnerable, and, if so, why? This is a must read for anybody who has ever asked herself 'What am I doing here?'" – Chiara Bottici, author of "Imaginal Politics: Images Beyond Imagination and the Imaginary"
