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Persuasive Essay On The Good Life

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The Good Life “What is the good life?” my friend asked me in a feeble attempt to produce ideas for his Philosophy paper. Aside from the obvious answer of using material items to generate happiness, the question drove me consider what made someone’s life inherently “good.” A few days after our conversation, I read Open Door by Rebecca Solnit. This passage helped me to eventually answer his question. Throughout Open Door, Solnit defines, exemplifies and reasons, and explores the ideas of losing one’s self in order to achieve “the good life.” Understanding what it means to lose one’s self is imperative in order to comprehend the rest of this passage. The idea of losing yourself is, “a voluptuous surrender, lost in your arms, lost to the world, utterly immersed in what is present so that its surroundings fade away” (Solnit 16). Taking part in losing yourself will allow you to find answers to what is unknown to you. The journey to the unknown and the unknown itself are transformative; however, many individuals do not care for the unknown or are unaware of it. Those who do not care for the unknown typically fear for what it will bring. In today’s society, adults restrict their children to playing indoors rather than developing an adventurous and imaginative persona outside of the house, for they believe their children will hurt themselves. Solnit expresses her concern for this generation by wondering “what will come of placing this generation under house arrest” (Solnit 7). She

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