Feeling Before Thinking: What Susan Sontag Taught Us About Experience as the True Language of Understanding
Why Direct Experience Transcends Academic Knowledge
Amanda Stern
January 01, 2025
Hello, friend. You’re reading The How to Live Newsletter—a weekly exploration of psychology and philosophy, offering thought-provoking insights to deepen your understanding of life’s complexities and help make the hard parts of living feel a little easier.
Feeling Before Thinking: What Susan Sontag Taught Us About Experience as the True Language of Understanding.
Interpretation, based on the highly dubious theory that a work of art is composed of items of content, violates art. It makes art into an article for use, for arrangement into a mental scheme of categories.
The project of my life has been overcoming all that holds me back, and all that holds me back is my mind.
So, the project of my life is overcoming my mind.
Why is the mind so often the place where we get trapped? Why are we consumed by thoughts concerned with who we are or aren't instead of simply living the who-ness of ourselves?
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