What if there's more to happiness and fulfillment than what you've been taught? Speaking about her book The Art of the Interesting, Lorraine Besser questions accepted notions of what constitutes a fulfilling life. She doesn’t just explore happiness and meaning; she challenges their dominance, exposing how chasing these ideals can sometimes leave us feeling empty and disillusioned.

Lorraine invites us to consider a different path: pursuing a psychologically rich life. This isn’t about endless joy or a sense of fulfillment that’s always just out of reach. It’s about diving into experiences that are novel, complex, and challenging—experiences that make us think deeply and feel intensely. Drawing from her own life and philosophical reflections, Lorraine shows us how to find interest and meaning in the every day, and she offers practical advice on how to weave psychological richness into the fabric of our lives.

This is more than just a conversation; it’s an important call to rethink what it means to live fully.

Lorraine Besser, PhD, is a professor of philosophy at Middlebury College, who specializes in the philosophy and psychology of the good life and teaches popular courses for undergraduates on happiness, well-being, and ethics. An internationally recognized scholar, she was a founding investigator on the research team studying psychological richness. She is the author of two academic books (The Philosophy of Happiness: An Interdisciplinary Introduction and Eudaimonic Ethics: The Philosophy and Psychology of Living Well) and dozens of professional journal articles on moral psychology.

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