In Vivo: A Phenomenology of Life-Defining Moments

In Vivo: A Phenomenology of Life-Defining Moments is a philosophical essay on life by Gabor Csepregi, associate professor of philosophy at Université Laval in Canada; the Chinese edition was translated by Zheng Lurong and published in 2020 by China Water & Power Press. The author holds that life is largely long confusion and repetition, but there are always moments that pull a person out of the dimness of the everyday and let him suddenly see himself and the world clearly—such moments are "life-defining moments." The book is built around six kinds of such epiphanies: when a person alone makes a decision about his own life; when he breaks free from the inertia of drifting and becomes the craftsman of his own fate; when he resolves to follow a lifelong spiritual exemplar; when he is alone in a foreign land and sees the world anew with different eyes; when he is deeply moved by a melody that awakens his hearing and his soul; and when he firmly carries out his moral principles in action and feels wonder and awe before the starry sky and the moral law. Drawing on the phenomenological way of observation and citing thinkers such as Kierkegaard, Camus, and Minkowski, the author analyzes with plain yet thoughtful prose the loneliness, hesitation, motivation, and transformation within these moments, showing how people shape themselves through choice and decision and renew themselves under the call of beauty, exemplars, and morality. It is not a tool-style self-help manual and offers no quick step-by-step checklist; rather, it invites readers to slow down, look back at the moments in their own lives when things quietly turned, and try to leave room for such moments to occur in the days ahead.