The gentle art of sanity amidst civilization
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At the end of my overseas trip I spent a week winding down in the peaceful surf town of Noosa, Australia. At that point I had over 5000 photographs and two hundred video clips, and I knew people would want to see them. So I took some time to put together a montage of photos [...]
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When I was six years old, I was crossing the little bridge on Center street when I realized I was doomed. I don’t know why it only occurred to me then, but once it did I couldn’t deny it. I was in Grade 1, and I liked my current teacher, but I was afraid of [...]
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Happiness is slippery. It doesn’t like to stick around. We know we’ve had it before, but it’s gone away, and we know there are certain things we have to do to find it again. Certain ducks have to be in a row. After all, if you didn’t have to do anything to be happy, you [...]
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I think it’s really helpful to forget you exist, and often. It sounds impossible, but it can be done. Here’s an exercise I do sometimes to achieve that perspective: Wherever I am, whatever location I am in, I picture the situation exactly as it would be if I wasn’t there. I just watch it like [...]
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When you sit back and reminisce about your life, it’s almost a given that the most enjoyable and memorable moments are the ones in which you were completely present. Do you look back with fondness all the times you spent thinking about work while you drove home, or pondered dinner while you wheeled down the [...]
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Recently I remarked on Facebook how I’ve been using a lot of exclamation marks recently! I’m not sure why, I used to hate them, but in emails and tweets and other short correspondence they do add a touch of enthusiasm that would otherwise be missing! But as you can see, they are also heavy-handed and [...]
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Time for another experiment. This one I’ve been meaning to do for a long time. The idea behind it has made the rounds for a few years now and I’m not the first to do it, but I think the concept is fascinating and brimming with potential. One day Will Bowen, a mild-mannered Missouri Reverend, challenged his [...]
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An expert poker player will shred a novice every time, even though both players have the same chance of drawing strong cards. Knowing the odds has something to do with it, but not as much as you might think. In Texas Hold’em, today’s most popular form of poker, each player only gets two cards so [...]
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When the mind is not crowded By imaginary things, It is the best season of your life. -Kabir I just chopped twelve hundred needless words from this article, which is fitting, because the point of all that blathering was to warn against getting lost in abstractions. I think too much. Virtually all of us do, [...]
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There was a moment last week when I found myself standing on a beach I never could have imagined. Bookended by two cliffs was a great, smooth expanse of the most otherworldly sand. It was like a Neapolitan ice cream of fine golden sand, exotic black obsidian grains, and clear, saltlike crystals. In the distance, [...]
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