The Meaningfulness Project: A personalized curriculum for a meaningful life
The Short Version: The Meaningfulness Project is a writing series (in progress) about how I’m learning to live a meaningful life. I think a “meaningful life” comes from long-term commitment to … Continue reading
People’s history and Sanders’ presidential run
As the 2016 U.S. presidential election approaches, debates, gaffes and email debacles loom larger in the media. With more voters actively supporting non-establishment candidates and relative outsiders, the tone of U.S. politics … Continue reading
A balanced life: Appropriate technology and community development in den Ouden’s ‘Are Freedom and Dignity Possible?’
If a hastily put-together profile on LinkedIn is to be believed, Bernard den Ouden was a professor of philosophy at the University of Hartford from 1969 until 2012. A friend … Continue reading
Sex, Love, Morality: Everything you need to know about Bertrand Russell’s ‘Marriage and Morals’
“Cruelty is in theory a perfectly adequate ground for divorce, but it may be interpreted so as to become absurd. When the most eminent of all film stars was divorced … Continue reading
Ideal industry: Steel and Cradle to Cradle ‘nutrient’ cycles
This photo of a steel foundry is courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Steel is currently the world’s most recycled material. Unlike many plastics and paper materials, steel does not necessarily degrade … Continue reading
Study says you can’t live forever … naturally
In this photo taken by Drew Kelly for The Wall Street Journal, Ray Kurzweil, famed transhumanist, inventor and author of “The Singularity Is Near” and other books, poses for a … Continue reading
Some insight into the life cycle of electronics
This photo shows the head and part of the torso of WEEE Man, a robot-like sculpture created by London designer Paul Bonomini to draw attention to the waste generated by our … Continue reading
Success and the alienation of self-mastery
Vita Sackville-West and Virginia Woolf, writer friends who shared a romantic interlude and were also pivotal in the development of each other’s work. Especially in Western culture, the idea of … Continue reading
Method acting, personality and identity: You are what you do
‘My Left Foot’ won Daniel Day Lewis the Academy Award for Best Actor. In the annals of Hollywood and the halls of acting schools, the work of method actors carries … Continue reading
Enlightened assistance: Exploring the limits of charity
Participants in World Vision Taiwan’s 30-hour Famine fill a stadium in Kaohsiung, Southern Taiwan. Every year in Taiwan and elsewhere, a Christian organization called World Vision holds a special event … Continue reading
Think Out Loud 