Most people operate from a fixed idea or concept of how things are supposed to be, rather functioning in the moment, where they can change anything as needed to accomplish and create more. This creates a tremendous limitation. We use conceptual constructs to create a purpose and a sense of rightness. Relationship, sex, sexuality, family, and the future are examples of conceptual constructs. Society is a construct. Culture, religion, and reputation are constructs. These things are not actually real; they are conceptual realities that have been dropped into our existence. We buy into them, and then at some point, we give up our awareness in order to buy the rightness of this reality. We accept the notion that being normal, average, and real-just like everybody else-is the best and only way to be. The problem with conceptual constructs is that they put you into conflict with yourself at every turn. This book is about becoming aware of the ideal concepts and constructs that create limitations and barriers to what is possible for you. The constructs have to come off so you can create a world that works for you.

This book discusses the theory that alternative relationship and family structures challenge the privileged status of the nuclear family as the preferable mode of family life for all, and the one to be endorsed and encouraged by society.

Please note: This is a companion version & not the original book. Sample Book Insights: #1 We have created utopian ideals, such as economic, political, and social perfection, freedom, and equality. We have religions, books about utopias, and utopian communities. None of them are real, and none of them work. #2 Concepts are the source of the creation of utopian possibility, which is the belief that something can be greater than oneness. These concepts were created when you were a tadpole in your mother’s stomach. #3 You have to be willing to lose all the fronts you’ve created that aren’t you in order to be everything you can be as you, which is infinitely better than the fronts you’ve created as you. #4 Persona is what you are and who you will be, regardless of what others think. When you try to be the person you want others to see you as instead of who you are, you are dead.

How looking beautiful has become a moral imperative in today's worldThe demand to be beautiful is increasingly important in today's visual and virtual culture. Rightly or wrongly, being perfect has become an ethical ideal to live by, and according to which we judge ourselves good or bad, a success or a failure. Perfect Me explores the changing nature of the beauty ideal, showing how it is more dominant, more demanding, and more global than ever before.Heather Widdows argues that our perception of the self is changing. More and more, we locate the self in the body--not just our actual, flawed bodies but our transforming and imagined ones. As this happens, we further embrace the beauty ideal. Nobody is firm enough, thin enough, smooth enough, or buff enough-not without significant effort and cosmetic intervention. And as more demanding practices become the norm, more will be required of us, and the beauty ideal will be harder and harder to resist.If you have ever felt the urge to "make the best of yourself" or worried that you were "letting yourself go," this book explains why. Perfect Me examines how the beauty ideal has come to define how we see ourselves and others and how we structure our daily practices-and how it enthralls us with promises of the good life that are dubious at best. Perfect Me demonstrates that we must first recognize the ethical nature of the beauty ideal if we are ever to address its harms.

The books that we choose to keep -- let alone read -- can say a lot about who we are and how we see ourselves. In My Ideal Bookshelf, dozens of leading cultural figures share the books that matter to them most; books that define their dreams and ambitions and in many cases helped them find their way in the world. Contributors include Malcolm Gladwell, Thomas Keller, Michael Chabon, Alice Waters, James Patterson, Maira Kalman, Judd Apatow, Chuck Klosterman, Miranda July, Alex Ross, Nancy Pearl, David Chang, Patti Smith, Jennifer Egan, and Dave Eggers, among many others. With colorful and endearingly hand-rendered images of book spines by Jane Mount, and first-person commentary from all the contributors, this is a perfect gift for avid readers, writers, and all who have known the influence of a great book.

"The last great work of the age of reason, the final instance when all human knowledge could be presented with a single point of view ... Unabashed optimism, and unabashed racism, pervades many entries in the 11th, and provide its defining characteristics ... Despite its occasional ugliness, the reputation of the 11th persists today because of the staggering depth of knowledge contained with its volumes. It is especially strong in its biographical entries. These delve deeply into the history of men and women prominent in their eras who have since been largely forgotten - except by the historians, scholars"-- The Guardian, https://www.theguardian.com/books/booksblog/2012/apr/10/encyclopedia-britannica-11th-edition.

An original reading of Nietzsche and Heidegger that paved the way for Vattimo’s conception of weak thought. In Beyond the Subject Gianni Vattimo offers a reading of Nietzsche and Heidegger that shows how the premises to overcome the metaphysical Subject were already embedded in their thought. Vattimo makes a case for a Nietzsche who is not concerned with the structure and glorification of the Overman, but rather with its opposite, by showing how it is the single individual who must see and accept his/her potential and then excel and develop an inner strength and ethic. He reads Heidegger as concerned with the inevitable distortion present in every interpretation, which, when confronted and accepted, humbles us to deal with a less overarching telos or Grund, and makes us more attuned to contingency and interpersonal communication—what Vattimo calls a “weakened” notion of being. These original readings of Nietzsche and Heidegger pave the way for Vattimo’s concept of weak thought and open up to a future social ethic that is less agonistic and more community oriented. This edition includes two supplementary essays from 1986 and 1988 that expand on the same themes, providing a deeper look at an important decade in the development of Vattimo’s thought.