Small Pleasures edition by The School of Life Politics Social Sciences eBooks
Download As PDF : Small Pleasures edition by The School of Life Politics Social Sciences eBooks 
So often, we exhaust ourselves and the planet in a search for very large pleasures – while all around us lies a wealth of small pleasures, which – if only we paid more attention – could daily bring us solace and joy at little cost and effort. But we need some encouragement to focus our gaze. This is a book to guide us to the best of life’s small pleasures everything from the distinctive delight of holding a child’s hand to the enjoyment of disagreeing with someone to the joy of the evening sky; an intriguing, evocative mix of small pleasures that will heighten our senses and return us to the world with new-found excitement and enthusiasm.
Small Pleasures edition by The School of Life Politics Social Sciences eBooks
This book offers a deeper look at fifty-two plausible small pleasures that one can avail oneself to in life. As stated in the preface “Every chapter puts one such moment of enjoyment under a kind of magnifying glass to find out what’s really going on…” The final sentence of the preface is: “This book is a step in a wider cultural project – to move these small pleasures from the margins closer to the centre [SP] of our collective consciousness and our lives.” Missing is the fifty-third small pleasure, which is reading this book. The book about small pleasures is itself a small pleasure.Indeed though, what is really going on here? Why is there this need to seek out the small pleasures and make them part of a wider consciousness rising cultural enterprise? Why is this the case? The School of Life is presenting a solution without offering a deeper explanation of the problem. Why are the small pleasures needed in the first place? The solution turns out to be no such thing, the small pleasures are just mere distractions from, or consolations for, coping with some sort of vaguely identified and obliquely pointed to problem. What is missing is the explanation as to why these small pleasures and their related consolations and distractions are so important and why the wider cultural project of the School of Life is worth pursuing. Such an explanation would make the book more powerful. Instead, the small pleasures are merely claimed to be necessary. Why? Again, what is going on?
We must not mistake small pleasures for enlightenment. In taking notice of the small pleasures, is the School of Life is telling us that we must lower our expectations in life, of life, of ourselves from others? That we must lower our conceit of attainable felicity as Herman Melville put it in Moby Dick? Small pleasures then are just the small consultations we get for a life of little fulfillment. Small pleasures can be an intellectual retreat from a life unfilled, a life of little merit or satisfaction. Why are we like this, unfilled? It is reality itself of course that refutes all of our consolations, both the small and hard won. Small consolations are the easy consolations and herein is a trap. We are actually in need of less consolation and small pleasure and more awareness and thinking. What is needed is less self-absorption and more self-reflection. Consolations in the face of anxiety should not be a substitute for thinking. It is only with thinking that we gain insight into our way of being in the world, into our experience of existence. To the extent these consolations encourage such thinking and philosophical reflection they are beneficial, to the extent they only offer distraction, they offer only banality. Philosophical refection, thinking, does not offer consolidation, it offers understanding but understanding is the greatest consolation even though we may not like what we find.
The problem not discussed is that we are temporally dynamic beings thrown into a world created in the past, not at all of our own making or choosing; we are then projected into a future whose only certainty is death on a personal level. We are simply fallen into history and then projected beyond ourselves always doing something to accomplish something. We are never free from the tyranny of goals and treachery of plans. We are always doing and pursuing, chasing and achieving, it is in the thought and reflection that goes into the contemplation of philosophy that helps us get back to square so to speak; that helps us get back to ourselves for ourselves. We are on the verge of the oblivion of our being and our identity as such - we are becoming subsumed into the bigness of the global order and here the School of Life tries to offer us a lifeline but without identifying the problem. The problem is that we do not blend well into the big world, hence the need for consolations and small pleasures, perhaps, but not self-absorption. There is a utilitarian technological calculus which is now the march of God through time and the world. Technology is the rendering material the power of God, hence technology is God.
I have found that there is no escape from the tight grip of the practical, utilitarian technological calculus and the insolence of a work-a-day world that frowns upon contemplation as a pernicious and needless eccentricity of the wandering mind or as an appendage of the absent mind, not realizing that a wandering mind is a wondering mind and a wondering mind is the mind ready to embrace philosophical thought. Unfortunately, these small pleasures and consolations offered are still the product of the world and embedded in this world, but I guess it cannot be any other way. I just wonder how good a job they can do in helping us in getting us back to ourselves; to rediscovering ourselves. Is this not what The School of Life is asking us to do? The small pleasures seem to be only mere distractions from the big problems at hand. We cannot hope to understand ourselves solely in terms of small pleasures and in the related consolation and distraction they offer. This would be an oversimplification of our existence of our experience and trivializing the great issues and existential threats facing our civilization.
These small pleasures, as presented in this book, seem to be intended to evoke a mood of good feeling, but this is not enough and by itself is really a false consolation. The small pleasures cannot help us get a past our purely utilitarian bigness of existence. The problem with the small pleasures is that they are small, they offer only consolation and distraction and with them, the risk of self-absorption in the face of the great existential threats. The danger is that they become a personal and private retreat; I fear that this is just how The School of Life offers them, as a personal sanctuary, as an escape from our complex, mechanized, over materialized, modernized, psychologized, homogenized lives. More is needed beyond consolation and distraction to help us equipoise the modern oppression we are under and the threats to which we are subject, but this discussion is beyond the scope of this review.
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Small Pleasures edition by The School of Life Politics Social Sciences eBooks Reviews
A book written by a person trying to get out of depression.
This book finds a way to speak to me each chapter. A gem.
Enjoying this book. It's inspirational and gets you to stop and take notice of the moment. A greater appreciation of my surroundings and how I interact with things around me.
A nice read. Enjoyable. Insightful. It presents pleasure in a varied and interesting form. Describing pleasure in things I would never dream to be pleasurable.
This book offers a deeper look at fifty-two plausible small pleasures that one can avail oneself to in life. As stated in the preface “Every chapter puts one such moment of enjoyment under a kind of magnifying glass to find out what’s really going on…” The final sentence of the preface is “This book is a step in a wider cultural project – to move these small pleasures from the margins closer to the centre [SP] of our collective consciousness and our lives.” Missing is the fifty-third small pleasure, which is reading this book. The book about small pleasures is itself a small pleasure.
Indeed though, what is really going on here? Why is there this need to seek out the small pleasures and make them part of a wider consciousness rising cultural enterprise? Why is this the case? The School of Life is presenting a solution without offering a deeper explanation of the problem. Why are the small pleasures needed in the first place? The solution turns out to be no such thing, the small pleasures are just mere distractions from, or consolations for, coping with some sort of vaguely identified and obliquely pointed to problem. What is missing is the explanation as to why these small pleasures and their related consolations and distractions are so important and why the wider cultural project of the School of Life is worth pursuing. Such an explanation would make the book more powerful. Instead, the small pleasures are merely claimed to be necessary. Why? Again, what is going on?
We must not mistake small pleasures for enlightenment. In taking notice of the small pleasures, is the School of Life is telling us that we must lower our expectations in life, of life, of ourselves from others? That we must lower our conceit of attainable felicity as Herman Melville put it in Moby Dick? Small pleasures then are just the small consultations we get for a life of little fulfillment. Small pleasures can be an intellectual retreat from a life unfilled, a life of little merit or satisfaction. Why are we like this, unfilled? It is reality itself of course that refutes all of our consolations, both the small and hard won. Small consolations are the easy consolations and herein is a trap. We are actually in need of less consolation and small pleasure and more awareness and thinking. What is needed is less self-absorption and more self-reflection. Consolations in the face of anxiety should not be a substitute for thinking. It is only with thinking that we gain insight into our way of being in the world, into our experience of existence. To the extent these consolations encourage such thinking and philosophical reflection they are beneficial, to the extent they only offer distraction, they offer only banality. Philosophical refection, thinking, does not offer consolidation, it offers understanding but understanding is the greatest consolation even though we may not like what we find.
The problem not discussed is that we are temporally dynamic beings thrown into a world created in the past, not at all of our own making or choosing; we are then projected into a future whose only certainty is death on a personal level. We are simply fallen into history and then projected beyond ourselves always doing something to accomplish something. We are never free from the tyranny of goals and treachery of plans. We are always doing and pursuing, chasing and achieving, it is in the thought and reflection that goes into the contemplation of philosophy that helps us get back to square so to speak; that helps us get back to ourselves for ourselves. We are on the verge of the oblivion of our being and our identity as such - we are becoming subsumed into the bigness of the global order and here the School of Life tries to offer us a lifeline but without identifying the problem. The problem is that we do not blend well into the big world, hence the need for consolations and small pleasures, perhaps, but not self-absorption. There is a utilitarian technological calculus which is now the march of God through time and the world. Technology is the rendering material the power of God, hence technology is God.
I have found that there is no escape from the tight grip of the practical, utilitarian technological calculus and the insolence of a work-a-day world that frowns upon contemplation as a pernicious and needless eccentricity of the wandering mind or as an appendage of the absent mind, not realizing that a wandering mind is a wondering mind and a wondering mind is the mind ready to embrace philosophical thought. Unfortunately, these small pleasures and consolations offered are still the product of the world and embedded in this world, but I guess it cannot be any other way. I just wonder how good a job they can do in helping us in getting us back to ourselves; to rediscovering ourselves. Is this not what The School of Life is asking us to do? The small pleasures seem to be only mere distractions from the big problems at hand. We cannot hope to understand ourselves solely in terms of small pleasures and in the related consolation and distraction they offer. This would be an oversimplification of our existence of our experience and trivializing the great issues and existential threats facing our civilization.
These small pleasures, as presented in this book, seem to be intended to evoke a mood of good feeling, but this is not enough and by itself is really a false consolation. The small pleasures cannot help us get a past our purely utilitarian bigness of existence. The problem with the small pleasures is that they are small, they offer only consolation and distraction and with them, the risk of self-absorption in the face of the great existential threats. The danger is that they become a personal and private retreat; I fear that this is just how The School of Life offers them, as a personal sanctuary, as an escape from our complex, mechanized, over materialized, modernized, psychologized, homogenized lives. More is needed beyond consolation and distraction to help us equipoise the modern oppression we are under and the threats to which we are subject, but this discussion is beyond the scope of this review.
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