Project Eudemonia. Introduction

Project Eudemonia

Recently, I have been reading this blog

http://www.happiness-project.com/

There is some interesting reading, and its certainly interests me, I spend a good deal of my time addressing the immortal question of “what is good?” What is the good life? What does it consist off? Is there such a thing as wisdom that can turn mental suffering or dissatisfaction into joy and contentment? How do we discover such things?

Gretchen Rubin, has inspired me to start my own happiness project, only I have decided to rename mine, Project Eudemonia. The word eudemonia comes from Greek, generally meaning well living or flourishing, a term Socrates and Aristotle would have bandied about. The dictionary on this computer defines it as “morality evaluated according to happiness: an ethical doctrine that characterizes the value of life in terms of happiness”

I will have more to say about such terms in a later post. For now, however, I wish to set out what I aim to do. As often as I can, I will post on subjects, questions, research and philosophies related to the good life. I will be exploring the conceptions of wellbeing in both an eastern and western philosophical tradition. There are however, a number of key figures that I will explore in more detail, what they taught or wrote, analysing it, and judging it as useful or otherwise for a modern contemporary life.

These figures are somewhat eclectic, they are the Buddha, Marcus Aurelius and Bertrand Russell. In the future I hope to explore more authors, but for now I will focus on these three very contrasting men.


However, first, I will post on what I wrote to be my commandments, little lines or phrases from other authors or made up by me, that I use to try and ground myself with some values and foundations, that I live my life by.