"Seeking the answer to the question, ""What does it mean to live a real life?"", Alderman takes his readers on an imaginary hike into mountain country. Along the way he poses this question to the sages of past and present, from Lao Tzu to Carl Jung. What he discovers is a vision of a natural path that leads us to our real selves, and from there to a life well-lived. ends with a chapter on advanced life skills for finding this path"