The Happiness of Pursuit: What Neuroscience Can Teach Us About the Good Life (33 page)

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Authors: Shimon Edelman

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17
Concerning PRACTICAL WISDOM, Aristotle wrote in
Nicomachean Ethics
(350 B.C.E., 1142a): “Whereas young people become accomplished in geometry and mathematics, and wise within these limits, prudent young people do not seem to be found. The reason is that prudence is concerned with particulars as well as universals, and particulars become known from experience, but a young person lacks experience, since some length of time is needed to produce it.”
18
The concept of a NARRATIVE SELF, which I discussed in an earlier chapter, can be summarized by the following passage from the afterword to
The Maker
by Jorge Luis Borges (1964): “A man sets out to draw the world. As the years go by, he peoples a space with images of provinces, kingdoms, mountains, bays, ships, islands, fishes, rooms, instruments, stars, horses, and individuals. A short time before he dies, he discovers that the patient labyrinth of lines traces the lineaments of his own face.”
19
The tendency of phenomenal experience, via the memories it creates, to enrich the appreciation of further experience is the reason why, hedonically speaking, THE RICH GET RICHER. It is probably also why older folks report routine levels of well-being that surprise younger researchers (Stone et al. 2010). Interestingly, material riches don’t have quite the same effect: Daniel Kahneman and Angus Deaton (2010) report that high income improves evaluation of life but not emotional well-being.
20
What is UBIK?
I am Ubik. Before the universe was, I am. . . . I am the word and my name is never spoken, the name which no one knows. I am called Ubik, but that is not my name. I am. I shall always be.
—PHILIP K . DICK,
Ubik
(1969)
 
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