Kieran Setiya on Midlife

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4.7 • 4.3K Ratings

🗓️ 19 September 2022

⏱️ 100 minutes

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Summary

John Stuart Mill's midlife crisis came at 20 when he realized that if he got what he desired he still wouldn't be happy. Art and poetry (and maybe love) saved the day for him. In this week's episode, philosopher Kieran Setiya of MIT talks about his book Midlife with EconTalk host Russ Roberts. Setiya argues we can learn from Mill to help deal with the ennui to which so many midlifers succumb--along with regrets for roads not taken and wistfulness for what could have been. Setiya argues that a well-lived life needs fewer projects and more pursuits that don't have goals or endpoints. He explains why past mistakes can turn out to be good things and how lost chances can help us appreciate the richness of life.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Welcome to Econ Talk, Conversations for the Curious, part of the Library of Economics
0:07.0	and Liberty.
0:08.0	I'm your host, Russ Roberts of Shalem College in Jerusalem and Stanford University's Hoover
0:13.0	Institution.
0:14.0	Go to econtalk.org where you can subscribe, comment on this episode and find links down
0:18.6	the information related to today's conversation.
0:21.6	You'll also find our archives, but every episode we've done going back to 2006.
0:26.8	Our email address is mail at econtalk.org.
0:30.3	We'd love to hear from you.
0:37.7	Today is August 22, 2022, and my guest is philosopher, Karen Setia of MIT.
0:44.2	He hosts the podcast, Five Questions, where he asks philosophers, five questions.
0:48.7	His forthcoming book is called Life is Hard, his latest book in print, and the subject
0:53.8	of today's episode is Midlife, Karen Welcome to Econ Talk.
0:58.8	Thanks for having me.
1:00.3	This is a short, lovely book on Midlife Crisis, but it's really about the nature of life
1:07.9	and death, and what philosophy has to say about all those things, and it's fabulous.
1:12.8	So we're going to start with, but is the Midlife Crisis?
1:16.1	Is it a real thing?
1:17.1	Or is it just something made up?
1:19.9	Good question.
1:20.9	The jury is still out to some extent, so that this sort of, unlike a lot of cultural
1:25.1	tropes, it has a definite point of origin, which is this 1965 essay by a Canadian psychoanalyst
	...

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