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What Does David Brooks Say Is Both an Art and a Fortunate Accident?

On TED Talks Daily, David Brooks quotes an old man in Louis de Bernières's novel Captain Corelli's Mandolin, speaking to his daughter about a late wife. Love itself, the line says, is whatever is left when being in love has burned away, and that remaining love is both an art and a fortunate accident. The couple's roots grew toward each other underground, and when the blossoms were gone they found they were one tree, not two. Brooks says that is what the heart yearns for. He sets the quote after Paul Tillich on suffering, which he says cuts through the floor of the soul and shows a depth that only spiritual and relational life can fill.

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The lies our culture tells us about what matters -- and a better way to live | David Brooks ·

TED Talks Daily

More from this episode

  1. What Is a Form of LonelinessFor David Brooks, loneliness unexpectedly came to him in the form of fear, of a burning in his stomach. It felt like drunkenness and a lack of solidity.
  2. What Is Are Some Lies That Our Culture Tells UsDavid Brooks admits that he has fallen for these cultural lies. The first lie is that career success is fulfilling.
  3. What Actually Makes People HappyThe deep relationships of life and the losing of self-sufficiency.
  4. How Do You Get Out of a ValleyYou can't climb out. Someone has to reach in and pull you out. From the dark period, David states you have to have a few realizations.
  5. What Are Weavers Doing in LifeThey reach down and grab people out of the valley. They live a relationalist life, not an individualistic life.
  6. What Is JoyJoy is a better thing to aim for than happiness. Joy is not the expansion of the self, it’s the dissolving of the self.
  7. Why Are We in a National ValleyWe need a lot of environmental and economic change. It’s because we don’t have the mindset to balance it.
  8. What Is the Theory of Social ChangeAccording to David, his theory of social change is that society changes when a small group of people find a better way to live and the rest of us copy them.

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