Summary
Charles Pepin: The Philosophy of Self-Reliance
In order to unravel the mystery of self-reliance, in this book we will turn to ancient wisdom and modern philosophers, including Ralph Waldo Emerson, Friedrich Nietzsche and Henri Bergson.
These thinkers often approach the subject indirectly – when they think about freedom, daring or individuality, they talk about self-reliance. Also, we will go a little further, to psychologists like Boris Sirilnik and psychoanalysts like Jacques Lacan.
At the same time, we will also study the experiences of athletes, fighter pilots and emergency doctors, then the words of poets and the visions of great mystics. All this will show us that there are no instructions for human life and that instructions for instant confidence are actually useless because they deny the complexity of the human spirit.
One of the reasons for the lack of self-confidence is the fact that life is difficult and full of uncertainty. We will not get rid of our fear of life by running away from it and chasing the fantasy of reprogramming our neurons or looking for a "personal instruction manual", but by finding a way to live with our fears.
Life is about staying on task even when it deviates from the expected path - whether in a good or bad direction. If life as a whole corresponded to our expectations, it would not be life, but a program that works in its predetermined course - and we would not trust it.
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