Midlife: A Philosophical Guide

by Kieran Setiya

The best way to kill a joke is to explain it,

In a 2001 survey of consumers deciding which car to buy, with different pros and cons, “researchers concluded that being forced to confront trade-offs in making decisions makes people unhappy and indecisive.”22 This finding is robust: it shows up in study after study.23 Choosing between incommensurable values elicits, conditionally and prospectively, the perception of unsatisfied desire. No wonder it is aversive. And no wonder we are reluctant to make decisions, anticipating discontent no matter how we choose.

A great threat to robust business cases

Vladimir Nabokov depicts human life as “a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness”