A Brief Eternity : The Philosophy of Longevity (Hardcover)

Introduction: The Unfrocked Priests of the Cult of Youth

Notes

Part I The Indian Summer of Life

1 Giving Up on Giving Up

The swinging door

Cold shower

Wisdom or resignation?

Notes

2 Staying in the Dynamics of Desire

Retreat or disaster?

The philosophical age

What shall we do with our twenty years (of additional life)?

Notes

Part II Life Always Begun Again

3 The Saving Routine

“It is enough to be” (Madame de Lafayette)

The splendor of the trivial

Here begins the new life

The two natures of repetition

The eternal rebirth

Swan song or dawn?

Notes

4 The Interweaving of Time

Live as if you were to die at any moment?

The old boudoir of the past

It’s always the first time

Become like children again?

Our phantom selves

Notes

Part III Late Love Affairs

5 Desire Late in Life

Asymmetries and expiry dates

The yoke of concupiscence

Indecent requests

Notes

6 Eros and Agape in the Shadow of Thanatos

Devotees of the twilight

The tragedy of the last love

The chaste, the tender and the voluptuous

Notes

Part IV Fulfill Oneself or Forget Oneself?

7 No More, Too Late, Still!

Lost opportunities

The round of regrets

Kairos, the god of timeliness

On the blank page of your future lives

Notes

8 Make a Success of One’s Life, and Then What?

I am I, alas

The three faces of freedom

A door opening on the unknown

Succeed, but not entirely

Not everything is possible

Notes

Part V What Does Not Die in Us

9 Death, Where is Thy Victory?

Monsieur Seguin’s Goat

Eternity in love with time

The luck to die someday?

“Love what will never be seen twice”?

The martyrs of endurance

The zombie in us

Notes

10 The Immortality of Mortals

What do bodily ills teach us?

The hierarchy of pains

Poor consolations

Just a moment, Mr Executioner

Eternity is here and now

Notes

Conclusion: Love, Celebrate, Serve