Título: The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life
Autor: David Brooks
Sinopse: #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • Everybody tells you to live for a cause larger than yourself, but how exactly do you do it? The author of The Road to Character explores what it takes to lead a meaningful life in a self-centered world.
“Deeply moving, frequently eloquent and extraordinarily incisive.”—The Washington Post
Every so often, you meet people who radiate joy—who seem to know why they were put on this earth, who glow with a kind of inner light. Life, for these people, has often followed what we might think of as a two-mountain shape. They get out of school, they start a career, and they begin climbing the mountain they thought they were meant to climb. Their goals on this first mountain are the ones our culture endorses: to be a success, to make your mark, to experience personal happiness. But when they get to the top of that mountain, something happens. They look around and find the view . . . unsatisfying. They realize: This wasn’t my mountain after all. There’s another, bigger mountain out there that is actually my mountain.
And so they embark on a new journey. On the second mountain, life moves from self-centered to other-centered. They want the things that are truly worth wanting, not the things other people tell them to want. They embrace a life of interdependence, not independence. They surrender to a life of commitment.
In The Second Mountain, David Brooks explores the four commitments that define a life of meaning and purpose: to a spouse and family, to a vocation, to a philosophy or faith, and to a community. Our personal fulfillment depends on how well we choose and execute these commitments. Brooks looks at a range of people who have lived joyous, committed lives, and who have embraced the necessity and beauty of dependence. He gathers their wisdom on how to choose a partner, how to pick a vocation, how to live out a philosophy, and how we can begin to integrate our commitments into one overriding purpose.
In short, this book is meant to help us all lead more meaningful lives. But it’s also a provocative social commentary. We live in a society, Brooks argues, that celebrates freedom, that tells us to be true to ourselves, at the expense of surrendering to a cause, rooting ourselves in a neighborhood, binding ourselves to others by social solidarity and love. We have taken individualism to the extreme—and in the process we have torn the social fabric in a thousand different ways. The path to repair is through making deeper commitments. In The Second Mountain, Brooks shows what can happen when we put commitment-making at the center of our lives.
Contexto da obra
Como livro em inglês, esta obra costuma ganhar também uma camada própria de interesse editorial e linguístico. “The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life”, de David Brooks, publicado pela editora Random House Trade Paperbacks, em 2020 e com 384 páginas, integra a categoria Livros em Inglês. Por isso, o interesse da obra tende a se ampliar quando o leitor considera também a relação com a língua em que ela circula.
Editora: Random House Trade Paperbacks
Páginas: 384
Ano: 2020-05-26
Edição:
Linguagem: en
ISBN: 0812983424
ISBN13: 9780812983425
Sobre a editora
Os livros da editora Random House Trade Paperbacks costumam oferecer narrativas densas e envolventes, que transitam entre o suspense psicológico, a história reimaginada e o ensaio reflexivo. O catálogo traz desde thrillers que exploram perseguições implacáveis e mistérios criminais até biografias e relatos históricos que iluminam personagens e eventos marcantes com detalhes minuciosos. A linguagem varia do tom tenso e urgente ao didático e analítico, com obras que também investigam processos mentais e sociais, como o aprendizado e a moralidade. Há ainda espaço para ficções que mesclam aventura e especulação filosófica, além de narrativas que exploram relações humanas complexas em contextos contemporâneos ou históricos.
