The Terrible Paradox of Self-Awareness: How Awareness Is the Beginning and End of Suffering

Whether we realize it or not, all of us experience pain associated with self-awareness. In an age when we are aware of so much--about ourselves and the world--this pain can be overwhelming. But the same awareness that causes us pain also opens the door to beauty and wonder. This is the paradox of self-awareness.

In a series of memorable aphorisms and short essays, Robert Pantano offers strategies for better confronting, understanding, and living within this paradox. Far from pretending certainty or a "magic pill," this moving collection offers tools for living well and finding comfort and peace without clear solutions.

Focusing on major issues of today such as personal alienation, nihilism, the futility of progress, and the malleability of truth, as well as timeless troubles such as desire, anxiety, aging, and death, The Terrible Paradox of Self-Awareness draws on and explores ideas of philosophy and self-development in a succinct, accessible style that will make the reader feel as much as think.