Stoic philosophy has been enjoying something of a renaissance in recent years. When I was younger I considered philosophy – specifically the arrogant academic mess that often springs to mind with the word nowadays – as more of an ugly step-sibling to the scientific method. If you couldn’t be a scientist, be a philosopher, a […]
How to Find Joy in Chaotic Times Read More »
Is ambition a virtue? The trait is responsible for the formation of countless empires – it drives us to be better people, to survive and to thrive. We admire go-getters, startup founders, people with gusto, and ambition is richly rewarded. We need ambitious people, certainly, and many of us would benefit from more of it
Ambition is an Appetite Read More »
The humble journal is a valuable tool. The journal, and its pragmatic cousin the ‘Commonplace Book’, have been used for millennia – the Stoic emperor Marcus Aurelius wrote his now famous ‘Meditations’ as a personal journal, rather than a treatise to be published, and inside it is buried countless insights he had collected over his
The Journal as a Tool for Thought Read More »
“I could do that.” It’s a short phrase that has been spoken by many a naive novice, looking at something that seems terribly simple, not yet wise enough to understand the menacing, underlying complexity. A fetching but simple looking oil painting seems so easy to emulate. It’s a misty blue ocean at sunset, blue and
Picking up a new hobby is always an interesting experience. It’s not usually very fun being bad at something, and most worthwhile pursuits have an investment of time and effort required to get the hang of them. Around a year ago I made the spontaneous decision to buy a few hundred bucks worth of leather-working
What I Learned Leather-Working for a Year Read More »
In our modern, secular society, the word ‘ritual’ can at times come across as antiquated. Many of us are divorced from religion in our daily lives, and ritual certainly smacks of a certain religiosity. In fact, a google search on the definition of ritual returns this: “Ritual – noun – a religious or solemn ceremony
The power of ritual – why your morning coffee is sacred. Read More »
In 1976 the biologist Richard Dawkins published a seminal book on evolutionary gene-theory, the Selfish Gene. Now a household name, Dawkins explored how our DNA’s ultimate drive is to replicate itself, and sometimes this drive for replication outweighs the desires of the ‘vehicle’ – us. Many of us intuitively understand now that some of our
1984 and the Runaway meme Read More »
In the ancient Roman Republic the office of ‘Censor’ was among one of their most prominent public positions. Much like the consulship – the preeminent position of the Republic – there were only two censors at any time, and their power was often only checked by their own compatriots and successors. The censor was responsible
