Justin Whitaker, Patheos Press: One conception was common to all the philosophical schools: people are unhappy because they are the slave of their passions. In other words, they are unhappy because they desire things they may not be able to obtain, since they are exterior, alien, and superfluous to them. It follows that happiness consists in independence, freedom, and autonomy. In other words, happiness is the return to the essential: that which is truly “ourselves,” and which depends on us.
– Pierre Hadot, Philosophy as a Way of Life, p.102, writing about ancient Western schools, emphasis added.
It has been a running theme of this blog…
