Alain de Botton in Zürich...

...about The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work
19 April 2012 @ Theatre Rigiblick, Zürich, Switzerland
Speaker: Alain de Botton

Theatre Rigiblick - stairway to heightened intellect

  

Hear, read, watch to learn more:
http://www.theschooloflife.com/
http://www.alaindebotton.com/

 
 

   

The escalation of the staircase leading up to the Theatre Rigiblick space confers a sense of intellectual elevation. This venue is an ideal platform for Alain de Botton to elaborate on his published dissertations about life and work. The audience, an ecclectic mix of well-to-do Swiss members of the "older generation" and a select few younger "mature student-like" anglo-saxon "expats" with interests exceeding those of standard and possibly less mentally engaging activities such as skiing, hiking and social drinking, ooze a wealth of “cultural, educated and intellectual” vibes.

Alain de Botton captivates his audience, as one imagines a guest lecturer in high-brow academic institutions would an amphitheatre full of eager-to-learn and disillusioned middle-class university students, striving to minimise the gap between their dreams and their reality. 

On this Thursday evening, Alain de Botton addresses a more mature audience, albeit with lingering eagerness, akin to that present in life’s younger apprentices, to find the answers to life’s perennial questions, some of which Alain de Botton raises during his eloquent and evidently practiced presentation: 

Can there be “…miraculous union of duty and pleasure…”?

Can we “…correct the silence that there is about our working lives…”?

Why has our work become such a “…cruel and definitive form of evaluation…”?

Alain de Botton's argumentation is thought-provoking and compelling, very much evidence based and remarkably unbiased. He is not preaching as much as sharing his views which, in hindsight might seem self-evident, but are in fact alarminingly enlightening. His work re-opens rusty old channels of communication and sweeps clear the dusty path to the understanding of life.

Further reading:





For my father

 

order it on: http://www.penguin.co.uk/



Why do so many of us love or hate our work?

How has it come to dominate our lives?

And what should we do about it?

Work makes us. Without it we are at a loss; in work we hope to have a measure of control over our lives. Yet for many of us, work is a straitjacket from which we cannot free ourselves.

Criss-crossing the world to visit workplaces and workers both ordinary and extraordinary, and drawing on the wit and wisdom of great artists, writers and thinkers, Alain de Botton here explores our love-hate relationship with our jobs. He poses and answers little and big questions, from what should I do with my life? to what will I have achieved when I retire?

The Pleasures and Sorrows of Work will not only explain why it is we do what we do all day, but through its sympathy, humour and insight will seek to help us make the most of it.

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