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Walter Kaufmann believed that there is an urgency in life and expressing oneself or, at least, there should be. The full significance of this urgency is captured is the following excerpt:<\/p>\nWalter Kaufmann believed that there is an urgency in life and expressing oneself or, at least, there should be. The full significance of this urgency is captured is the following excerpt:<\/p>\n
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\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Let people who do not know what to do with themselves in this life, but fritter away their time hope for eternal life. If one lives intensely, the time comes when sleep seems bliss. If one loves intensely, the time comes when death seems bliss\u2026 The life I want is a life I could not endure in eternity. It is a life of love and intensity, suffering and creation\u2026 As one deserves a good night\u2019s sleep, one also deserves to die. Why should I hope to wake again? To do what I have not done in the time I\u2019ve had? All of us have so much more time than we use well\u2026 Lives are spoiled and made rotten by the sense that death is distant and irrelevant\u2026 But it makes for a better life if one has a rendezvous with death\u2026 There is nothing morbid about thinking and speaking of death. Those who disparage honesty do not know its joy.<\/em><\/p>\n – from The Faith of a Heretic<\/em><\/a>, by Walter Kaufmann.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n In his book Socrates Caf\u00e9<\/em>, Chris Phillips describes the impact this passage had on his life quest.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Kaufmann\u2019s words made me realize not how short and precious life is, but how unbearably long and meaningless much of my life had seemed to me. And they made me realize how inexcusable it was for me to have allowed my life to take on such soporific dimensions by abandoning my search for meaning.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Chris Phillips is an American writer and modern day philosopher, author of the best-sellers Socrates Caf\u00e9<\/em><\/a> and Six Questions of Socrates<\/em><\/a>. For anyone wishing to dive deep into the questions of being and self-expression, these provocative books are a #must_read<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Walter Kaufmann (1921 \u2013 1980) is a German philosopher, primarily known for his scholarly works of Friedrich Nietzsche and Goethe\u2019s Faust<\/em>.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n .<\/p>\n