Description
A paradigm-shifting work that explores humanity’s most fundamental desire
Rebecca Newberger Goldstein argues that the need to matter is the source of our greatest progress and our deepest conflicts: the very crux of the human experience. Goldstein brings this profound idea to life through stories of people pursuing their unique mattering projects: the ragtime genius Scott Joplin, whose dedication to his ignored masterpiece, Treemonisha, ended in tragedy; an impoverished Chinese woman who rescued abandoned newborns; and a skinhead who as a young man dealt racial violence to feel he mattered but ultimately renounced that past. These portraits illuminate how our instinct for significance shapes identity, relationships, culture and conflict–and they point the way to a future where we might see there is enough mattering to go around. Deeply revealing and insightful, The Mattering Instinct is for those curious about why we seek to matter to ourselves and others–and how this insatiable longing that drives us apart may be the key to understanding each other.
Reviews
"The Mattering Instinct is a testament to the idea that humans find purpose when, as the poet Rumi wrote, we “let the beauty we love be what we do.” In a world fractured by competing claims on what’s important, Goldstein offers a vision that is both intellectually resonant and humane, reminding us that the struggle to justify our existence is the very thing that makes our existence matter." — John Kaag, The Atlantic
"The Mattering Instinct is an extraordinary and urgent book. Rebecca Goldstein helps us to see that so much of our lives, and so much of human history, is driven by the need to matter." — Jonathan Haidt, #1 New York Times best-selling author of The Anxious Generation and The Righteous Mind
"The Mattering Instinct synthesizes ideas that have preoccupied Goldstein for decades... Goldstein is such an engaging and enthusiastic storyteller... [Her] ambitions are grander — and she suggests that ours should be, too." — Jen Szalai, The New York Times
Also By: Rebecca Newberger Goldstein 
Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel
E Book, 2013
"A gem…An unforgettable account of one of the great moments in the history of human thought." —Steven Pinker
Incompleteness: The Proof and Paradox of Kurt Gödel
Paperback, 2006
"A gem…An unforgettable account of one of the great moments in the history of human thought." —Steven Pinker
Ebook
9781324096863
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£21.50
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