Presence and condolence

Number of pages: 288 pages The role of the philosopher is to help you rephrase your idea in a way that serves your ability to live life; because the most important thing about the meaning of life is the ability to live life. Here precisely lies the role of the philosophers of living, those who have given us lessons about a good life. A good life is a life in which one is able to live life. Life is not slogans and illusions of ideas and salvific doctrines. The more we free ourselves from the magical view of the world, the more we realize that in every great love there is hatred that erupts from time to time, and that in every great power there is fragility that can be revealed suddenly, just as history teaches us that all revolutions are betrayed in the final reckoning. The COVID-19 pandemic made us pay attention to the value of the simple, ordinary life we had; it imposed quarantine on us, causing us to lose the most important conditions of happiness which are within our reach without us noticing, and that is the life we call the ordinary life with all its monotony and triviality as well—going to work, walking in the street or in the neighborhood, chatting in the café, going to the market, traveling, etc. This, I swear, is a poignant lesson from the lessons of the philosophy of living, teaching us that our fate is to face disappointment and turn it into an opportunity to practice living life.