Economic Crisis and the Art of Living

'The art of living' is a phrase that mean everything and nothing. For our Art of Living series it is replete with content, of course. It might mean that life cannot be lived as a series of questions and answers about right and wrong, as say a utilitarian approach to ethics might commend, because there are just too many variables in life to consider. Instead, life is an art a bit like, say, juggling balls: it takes balance and coordination, practice and character to do beautifully and well.

Here's another sense, apposite for these days of economic uncertainty, since it comes from John Maynard Keynes. He wrote:

It will be those peoples who can keep alive, and cultivate into a fuller perfection, the art of life itself and do not sell themselves for the means of life, who will be able to enjoy the abundance when it comes.

Keynes had the idea that capitalist prosperity would increasing supply enough to satisfy material needs. However, there was a risk that once these needs were met, people would forget that there were deeper needs that could not be met by material means: they would have so developed the habit of approaching needs materially - selling themselves to the means of life - that they would have forgotten how to address needs by other means - namely cultivating the fuller perfection, the art of life itself.