How To Respond To Crazy People
One suspects Marcus Aurelius was referring to a particularly frustrating person, some opponent who just would not, or could not, get the message, when he wrote:“You can hold your breath until you’re b...
16 Jan 20192min
Don’t Be Distracted By Darkness
There’s no question that depressing things happen in this world. They always have and always will. People lie, cheat, steal. Envy, avarice, selfishness—it’s all out there. And it’s hard to miss. It’s ...
15 Jan 20192min
The Civil War Inside Each One Of Us
Martin Luther King Jr. was fond of using the American Civil War as a metaphor, not just to explain the divisive political landscape, but the divide within each person. Just as there was a North and So...
14 Jan 20193min
This Is What Karma Looks Like
There is a simple proposition at the heart of classical Christianity: if you are a good person and do good works on Earth, when you die you will enter the Kingdom of Heaven and know the full bounty of...
11 Jan 20193min
The Great Equalizer
The author Michael Malice has a running gag: whenever a celebrity dies he posts a meme that says RIP but is a photo of a similar looking but a very different (and very alive) celebrity. It’s partly a ...
10 Jan 20192min
If It’s Not Simple, It’s Bullshit
There’s not much in Stoicism that’s particularly groundbreaking: Focus on what you can control. Be a good person. Manage your emotions. A lot of the famous Stoic quotes are pretty basic too: Epictetus...
9 Jan 20192min
Find A Point!
Peter Barton’s beautiful memoir, Not Fade Away: A Short Life Well Lived, takes readers along a man’s search for meaning when he’s forced to confront mortality. Struggling for a reason to persist amid ...
8 Jan 20193min
The Habit You Must Start This Year
Why does Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations speak to us so? The answer, ironically, is that because the author had zero intention of doing so—in fact, he probably would have been mortified to know how well...
7 Jan 20193min
