The Book of Life
thebookoflife.org · Group blog · on HN since 2014
The School of Life's online library of essays on relationships, work, psychology and philosophy, associated with Alain de Botton.
What HN saysHN commenters link it for its essay on why people marry the wrong partners and for its pieces on philosophers like Marx.
53HN people shared it
10linked it in comments
43stories submitted
492story points
9 years agolast shared
2014people per year2026
Most-shared posts
- 1The Book of Life11 people · 104 points · first shared 2014 · 14 comments on HN
- 2On Marrying the Wrong Person4 people · 246 points · first shared 2016 · 120 comments on HN
- 3Why We Hate Cheap Things3 people · 23 points · first shared 2015 · 1 comments on HN
- 4How not to let work explode your life2 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 5On Becoming an Entrepreneur2 people · 2 points · first shared 2014 · discussion on HN
- 6The Secret Sorrows of Over-Achievers1 people · 47 points · first shared 2018 · 16 comments on HN
- 7Why truly sociable people hate parties1 people · 22 points · first shared 2017 · 8 comments on HN
- 8Why You Should Stop Taking Pictures on Your Phone and Learn to Draw1 people · 4 points · first shared 2015 · 1 comments on HN
- 9Why Socrates Hated Democracy1 people · 4 points · first shared 2018 · 2 comments on HN
- 10The Normality of Anxiety Attacks1 people · 3 points · first shared 2016 · discussion on HN
- 11Why Germans Can Say Things No One Else Can1 people · 3 points · first shared 2017 · discussion on HN
- 12How the Modern World Makes Us Mentally Ill1 people · 3 points · first shared 2018 · discussion on HN
- 13Authentic Work1 people · 3 points · first shared 2017 · 1 comments on HN
- 14How to make a country rich: “most people in Richland have by definition failed”1 people · 3 points · first shared 2015 · 1 comments on HN
- 15On Losers – And Tragic Heroes1 people · 2 points · first shared 2015 · discussion on HN
What HN people wrote when they linked it
Tenhundfeld · 2017-06-09
You are describing an aspect of Impostor Syndrome. It's super common among programmers – and IMO, all people who have a modicum of self-awareness.
Just search around, you'll see that feeling overwhelmed puts you in great company. :)
https://www.hanselman.com/blog/ImAPhonyAreYou.aspx (also talks about Dunning-Kruger effect, which is related)
https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/26/your-money/learning-to-deal-with-th…
http://www.thebookoflife.org/the-impostor-syndrome/
eevilspock · 2016-12-11
Great article. But it seems like it was cribbed from http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-we-end-up-marrying-the-wrong-people/, even though they come to different conclusions.
acegopher · 2016-05-31
Don't need the wayback machine, this is currently available here (and a great article):
http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-we-end-up-marrying-the-wrong-people/
TACIXAT · 2016-05-31
It looks like the author [1] is associated with The Book of Life [2] which is referenced on the site you linked [3]. Likely all owned by the same person.
[1] https://twitter.com/alaindebotton
[2] http://www.thebookoflife.org/
[3] https://web.archive.org/web/20160316112501/http://thephilosophersmail.…
cllns · 2015-02-08
"One of Marx’s greatest insights, delivered in an early book known as the 1844 Manuscripts, is that work can be one of the sources of our greatest joys."
[1]: http://www.thebookoflife.org/the-great-philosophers-karl-marx/
hsitz · 2017-08-03
"The key to passionate sex is actually caring about the person you're having sex with."
That sounds nice, but it's a load of baloney. I would wager that most people over the age of 20 (25?, 30?) have experienced a significant relationship(s) where the sex tends to be passionate (and frequent) at the very beginning, and tapers off and becomes less frequent, less passionate, more boring as time goes on (and years drag by). In fact, that is the typical progression of sex in a committed, caring relationship. So, no, I would not say that the key is "actually caring about the person".
I haven't read the linked article yet, but the subject reminds me of some work done by a psychologist named David Schnarch, who has built a career and written several books on the subject. These include a book called _Passionate Marriage_, intended as self-help for a lay audience, and _Constructing the Sexual Crucible_, which is more of a technical handbook for therapists and counselors.
See http://passionatemarriage.com/
http://passionatemarriage.com/catalog/15
Alain de Botton also examines the issue in a similar way on the impressive "Book of Life" website. E.g., he says:
"In a wiser world, we would collectively admit that the very rare cases where love and sex did run together were astonishing exceptions with no relevance whatsoever to most of our lives. We would instead learn to pay admiring attention to those who had accepted with a reasonable show of dignity and grace that the…
keithpeter · 2016-10-24
http://www.thebookoflife.org/
Quite nice now and again.
schoen · 2016-05-31
I think the current version of that is http://www.thebookoflife.org/how-we-end-up-marrying-the-wrong-people/ but I'm a little unsure about the authorship history now.
Edit: I agree with TACIXAT that both of these were written by Alain de Botton; the confusion came about because the older versions were unsigned, so it's easy to worry that the newer version could have been plagiarized. There's also a norm of revealing the publication history of your own stuff when you rework or republish it, so maybe the Times should have said "A version of this essay appeared in The Philosopher's Mail and appears in The Book of Life" to avoid any ambiguity.
anshukla · 2015-05-25
"No entity can be optimally efficient at more than one thing." - http://www.thebookoflife.org/why-work-life-balance-is-an-illusion/
mcormier · 2014-11-28
The chapters are longer than you think, they have sub sections:
Chapter 1 ...
http://www.thebookoflife.org/category/capitalism/
Chapter 2 ...
http://www.thebookoflife.org/category/work/
The design is nice and clean but the navigation is unclear between these sub-chapters.