Spiritual Exercises of the Stoics and Neo-Confucians
A plethora of spiritual practices are suitable for the naturalist.
A plethora of spiritual practices are suitable for the naturalist.
Losing oneself in the beauty of nature or great art is only one specific form of un-selfing, but there are others.
By contrasting the richly meaningful world of our hunter-gatherer ancestors with the structured realities of civilization, this article challenges the common idea that modern life is disenchanted simply because of secularization. Instead, it argues that the roots of alienation run much deeper—emerging with agriculture, hierarchy, and the long transformation of how humans relate to nature, meaning, and each other.
This article explores the philosophy of naturalism through the stark idea that death is absolute, dissolving not only the body but the self, meaning, and all existence over time. Confronting this unsettling truth, it examines how different traditions—from religion to Buddhism and existentialism—either resist, despair over, or ultimately find freedom and value within life’s fleeting nature.