ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author presents capacity to find and create frequent moments of joyful self-assertion and personal transcendence in part constitutes what Aristotle, in his Nicomachean Ethics, called eudaimonia—"human flourishing and well-being", also called the art of living the "good life". The capacity to engage ordinary experience along these lines is no easy matter, for it requires considerable effort, know how, and the fashioning of a rich internal world that, paradoxically, is other-directed, other-regarding, and other-serving rather than strictly "for oneself". Such ethical deepening, characterised by kindness and generosity, is the lynchpin, or at least an important prerequisite, for the self-mastery, self-discipline, and self-propulsion that is the royal road to finding and creating that earthly sense of paradise and immortality. The chapter provides "thick description" of what it is to engage in these activities skilfully, with the fullness of one's being, and always with an eye to fostering a sense of transformative, joyful self-assertion and personal transcendence.
