No sex please, we're British: Alain de Botton on sex. Stylist’s first sex survey revealed that 65% of you want more sex. Philosopher Alain de Botton explains what’s getting in the way… It’s rare to get through this life without feeling we are somehow a bit odd about sex – generally with a degree of secret agony, perhaps at the end of a relationship, or as we lie in bed frustrated next to our partner, unable to go to sleep. It’s an area in which most of us have a painful impression, in our heart of hearts, that we are quite unusual. Despite being one of the most private activities, sex is surrounded by ideas about how normal people are meant to feel and deal with the matter. In truth, however, few of us feel remotely ‘normal’ sexually.
We are almost all haunted by guilt and neuroses; by phobias and disruptive desires; by indifference and disgust. None of us approach sex as we think we are supposed to, with the cheerful, sporting, non-obsessive outlook that we torture ourselves into believing other people are endowed with. Work Life Tags: sex. Alain de Botton: Atheism 2.0. Alain de Botton: A kinder, gentler philosophy of success.
Has our relationship with nature changed? 21 January 2011Last updated at 17:48 Fear of ecological destruction causes us to pity and protect nature rather than oppose it, says Alain de Botton The environmental dangers that now face mankind put non-scientific philosophical types like me in an awkward situation. We have to acknowledge that we can have precisely nothing interesting to say on the two most important questions in the air right now, namely: "What is going to happen to the human race? " and "What should we do about it? " It is not from a philosopher that you stand to be enlightened.
Nevertheless, maybe there is still a point in trying to reflect on, rather than simply solve our ecological dilemmas. We can begin by observing that there is nothing new for mankind about confronting the possibility of its own destruction. Power However, we have grown used to conceiving of our present environmental situation as unparalleled. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote End Quote Mystery How mindsets have changed. Empathetic powers. Does more information mean we know less? 14 January 2011Last updated at 17:55 We pay a price for all the information we consume these days - and it's knowing less, says Alain de Botton. One of the more embarrassing difficulties of our age is that most of us have quite lost the ability to concentrate, to sit still and do nothing other than focus on certain basic truths of the human condition.
The fault lies in part with our new gadgets. Thanks to our machines, of which we are generally so proud, the past decade has seen an unparalleled assault on our capacity to fix our minds steadily on anything. But we can't just blame the machines. The obsession with current events is relentless. Novelty The news occupies in the secular sphere much the same position of authority that the liturgical calendar has in the religious one. Continue reading the main story “Start Quote Though technology has rendered it more or less absurd to feel gratitude over owning a book, there remain psychological advantages in rarity” End Quote Fasting Wisdom Elevate.
Alain de Botton, The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work, Alain de botton, the architecture of happiness, the consolations of philosophy, how proust can change your life, essays in love, philosophy a guide to happiness, The School of Life.