Today's excerpt comes from a paper by Bernard Williams, in which he explores the charge that we sometime levy upon people who refuse to do something because they find it “morally distasteful." Are such people self-indulgent.

Join the discussion at community.alifeofthought.com, or read the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15.

In this episode, "Freud on Transience," we look at a thoughtful piece Freud wrote just after World War I. He's wrestling with something we've all felt - why does knowing something beautiful won't last forever make it harder to enjoy?

Freud makes an interesting point: beauty doesn't become less beautiful just because it's temporary. The real problem is how we handle knowing it will end. Instead of letting that knowledge ruin our experience, he suggests we might actually appreciate beautiful things more because they're fleeting.

It's one of those ideas that makes you think about bigger questions - like how we deal with the fact that nothing lasts forever, including life itself. Freud's take might change how you see those moments when you're enjoying something but can't stop thinking about how it won't be around forever.

You can read the annotations at alifeofthought.com/d15, or jump into the discussion at community.alifeofthought.com.

In todays excerpt, we turn to one of Plato's most famous dialogues: the Symposium. Specifically, we look at an exchange between Socrates and Agathon. Socrates discusses the nature of desire with Agathon, and attempts to show him that to desire something, we must lack it or forsee our lacking it (i.e., one cannot desire what he already has). But this is a problem: because it means that if love is for beautiful and lovely things, then love itself must lack beautiful and lovely things. So does this mean love is ugly! Woah! What a conclusion that would be! Let's think through it together.

Do you have thoughts? Agree -- or disagree, let's think through them together. Join the conversation at community.alifeofthought.com

Or, you can read or engage with the annotations yourself at alifeofthought.com/d15