## Metadata - Author: [[Kieran Setiya]] - Full Title: Midlife - Category: #books ## Highlights - what matters to Aristotle is not that contemplation serves no purpose but that its value is wholly positive. It does not respond to trouble or imperfection, to suffering and strife, but is gloriously redundant. It is not something we need to do in order to prevent injustice or harm, but something we would want to do even in an ideal world. ([Location 551](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06ZZRFZ43&location=551)) - As so often, the first contribution of philosophy is to make a distinction and give it a name. ([Location 697](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06ZZRFZ43&location=697)) - There is empirical evidence that we struggle with choices that involve uncompensated loss. 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. ([Location 868](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06ZZRFZ43&location=868)) - I submit that nostalgia for lost alternatives is distorted by hindsight. Looking back from a place of relative stability, I project into my youth a degree of assurance that comes from having a more or less secure identity. At the same time, I assume an open future, an ignorance of what is to come that shields me from unsatisfied desire. But the prospect is an illusion. You can’t have it both ways, knowing who you are but not who you are not. ([Location 895](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06ZZRFZ43&location=895)) - If, like me and Wordsworth, you are nostalgic for the indeterminacy of childhood, when almost anything was possible, tell yourself that what you long for is akin to retrograde amnesia. It would require a similar dissolution of the structure that gives meaning to your life. Its appeal is delusory. Beside this we can put two prior maxims: that you cannot be saved from missing out except by an appalling diminution of the world or your response to it; and that the value of having options is too limited to justify throwing your life away. ([Location 898](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06ZZRFZ43&location=898)) - Do not weigh alternatives theoretically, but zoom in: let the specifics count against the grand cartoon of lives unlived. In doing so, you may find you cannot regret what you should have resisted at the time. ([Location 1200](https://readwise.io/to_kindle?action=open&asin=B06ZZRFZ43&location=1200))