Do you feel restless? Have you ever lied in bed at night looking up at the ceiling wondering "Is this all there is to life?" Or have you ever achieved\xa0a big goal in life only to feel let down?\n\nOver 1500 years ago, Catholic bishop, philosopher\xa0and theologian Augustine of Hippo had those\xa0same feelings of angst and wrote down some insights on how to deal with them and they're just as relevant today as they were then.\xa0\n\nMy guest today has written a book about Augustine's ancient insights on the anxiety of modern life and how this famous Catholic theologian\xa0has had a profound impact on Western philosophy, including among 20th-century existential philosophers. His name is James K. A. Smith and his book is\xa0On the Road with Saint Augustine.\xa0We begin our show discussing Augustine's biography and his oft-overlooked influence on atheistic\xa0existential philosophers like Heidegger, Sartre, and Camus.\xa0\n\nWe then dig into the big ideas that Augustine hit on his famous book\xa0Confessions\xa0including how to deal with existential angst, how to find your true self, what it means to be truly free in life, and how to deal with our restless ambition. Along the way, James shows how 20th-century existential philosophers dealt with these questions, why he thinks existentialism falls shorts to answering them, and why Augustine's solutions might be better.\n\nLots of great insights about big life questions in this episode.\n\nGet the snow notes at aom.is/augustine.