Life On A B-I7

2025 Writing Project

A Year Pursuing Happiness

Each year I come up with a special writing project. The project has a topic that the entries revolve around. Past projects have also had a goal for the frequency of posting. All of this would be separate from normal journal entries like this one. Quite out of the blue this afternoon it struck me that reading influential texts on political and philosophical thought would be a worthwhile endeavor. To that end, I am going to propose (I’m speaking to myself now) that the following reading list would make an excellent goal. The inspiration for this project came from reading Jeffrey Rosen’s book “The Pursuit of Happiness.” It is a detailed yet readable presentation of the political and philosophical thought that guided the Founding Fathers. Rosen presents a list of the most cited books from the Founding Era. I propose to use this as the reading list for my project.

1. Cicero, Tusculan Disputations
2. Cicero, On Duties
3. Marcus Aurelius, Meditations
4. Seneca’s Essays
5. Epictetus’s Enchiridion
6. Plutarch’s Lives
7. Xenophon’s Memorabilia of Socrates
8. Hume’s Essays
9. Montesquieu’s The Spirit of the Laws
10. Locke’s An Essay Concerning Human Understanding
11. Locke’s Treatises on Government
12. Adam Smith’s The Theory of Moral Sentiments

I recognize this would be a significant undertaking, kind of like riding a bike across the country — I plan to do that as well. I won’t be able to do this alone. I’m not a scholar. I will need to consult supplemental sources to even understand most of the thoughts contained in these books, but that will be part of the challenge. I do have a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science, but I don’t expect that to be of much help since I spent almost my entire working life programming computers. The irony of that does not escape me. I credit Jeffery Rosen for the inspiration. “The Pursuit of Happiness” is a book I think every thoughtful person should read — at least once.