Through passionate attachments to people, goals, and pleasures, life must be lived to the fullest. I once heard a talk by the philosopher Robert Solomon, who directly challenged the philosophy of nonattachment as an affront to human nature.69 The life of cerebral reflection and emotional indifference (apatheia) advocated by many Greek and Roman philosophers and that of calm nonstriving advocated by Buddha are lives designed to avoid passion, and a life without passion is not a human life. Yes, attachments bring pain, but they also bring our greatest joys, and there is value in the very
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