The New Edition of Hunting Magic Eels: Part 3, Live Your Beautiful Life

The second new chapter in the paperback edition of Hunting Magic Eels is entitled "Live Your Beautiful Life." 

One of the most discussed chapters in Hunting Magic Eels comes from Part 1 and is entitled "Welcome to the Ache." In that chapter, I make a connection between our mental health crisis and our loss of transcendence. In Part 2 of the book, in the chapter "The Good Catastrophe," I discuss the mental health benefits of transcendence, describing our need to adopt an "eccentric" posture toward life. For example, as I describe in the book, our mattering and existential significance have this eccentric shape. Self-transcendent emotions such as gratitude also display this eccentricity.

In the new chapter "Live Your Beautiful Life" I deepen these points, bringing teleology into the discussion about our mental health problems. I open the chapter with a story:

“Do you want to live a beautiful life?”

Many years ago, a student of mine, I’ll call him William, came to me in the midst of some faith struggles. The “New Atheists” were all the rage back then. You might remember them. Richard Dawkins, Christopher Hitchens, Sam Harris. Their book titles were dropping from the sky like metaphysical bombs: The God Delusion, The End of Faith, and God is Not Great. William had read these books and found their arguments persuasive and unsettling. So we met for coffee and talked about all the issues he had questions about: Evolution, the violence in the Old Testament, the problem of evil. It was a lovely conversation, and I tried to share the best of the Christian theological tradition in thinking about these questions.

Having tried my best to answer the many questions William had posed, toward the end of the conversation I asked William if I could ask him a question. “Of course,” William agreed. So, I asked, “William, do you want to live a beautiful life?”

From there, I go on to introduce a new ailment afflicting the modern world: Hope sickness:

We live in a hope sick world. We see this hope sickness everywhere. Hope is hard to come by, rare and diminishing. And has hope wanes, human flourishing wanes. Personally and collectively. Our emotional, social, and political lives are visibly sick, and much of our suffering is due to a loss of hope.

As I go on to describe in the chapter, these two issues--living a beautiful life and hope sickness--each involve teleology. That is to say, living your life with a purpose, goal, or end in view. Beyond the self-transcendence involved in eccentricity, a teleological posture toward life, given its intimate connection with meaning in life, is another critical factor in achieving mental health. Sadly, however, pervasive disenchantment has robbed us of teleology, replacing it with causality. And while this shift has been good for science it has proved disastrous for our mental health. 

How, then, to recover our lost teleology? How to recover hope and live a beautiful life? In the new chapter I turn to psychological research concerning what is called "sanctification theory" to illustrate how daily life goals and activities can be "sanctified" by connecting them toward transcendent purposes and ends. Teleology can be practiced. Hope sickness doesn't have to be our lot. Welcome to a beautiful life.