Who Are You Studying Under?

Life is full of suffering, acute and benign. We come down with the flu. We are hit with a costly expense. Someone with power over us abuses their responsibility. Someone we love lies or hurts us. Peop...

10 Okt 20192min

According to the philosopher Blaise Pascal, at the root of most human activity is a desire to escape boredom and self-awareness. We go to elaborate measures, he said, to avoid even a few minutes of qu...

9 Okt 20193min

“What would you do if tomorrow you were diagnosed with terminal cancer?” We’ve all had a hypothetical question like that thrust in front of us at one point or another. It’s supposed to make us conside...

8 Okt 20193min

There’s a great lyric in the bridge of the new Bruce Springsteen song, Tucson Train: We fought hard over nothin'We fought till nothin' remainedI've carried that nothin' for a long timeDoesn’t that jus...

7 Okt 20192min

Here’s a way to feel good every single day, no matter what happens. A way to appreciate even a day stuck in the airport or putting out fires. It’s an exercise from Seneca. He said that a person who wr...

4 Okt 20192min

The philosopher and writer Nassim Taleb once said that, “Hard work will get you a professorship or a BMW. You need both work and luck for a Booker, a Nobel, or a private jet.” His point was that certa...

3 Okt 20193min

In one of his letters, Seneca tells us of an old Roman pleasantry that friends would exchange when greeting each other: “If you are well,” one would say after inquiring how someone was doing, “it is w...

2 Okt 20192min

Why did Marcus Aurelius study philosophy? What were Seneca or Confucius or Buddha trying to achieve as they pored over their books or sat deeply in thought? What have archery masters and Olympic boxin...

1 Okt 20194min