Category: Meaning
10 Questions To Ask In A Different Way
The New Year is often a time for assessing things: For looking back over the past twelve months or twelve years, at our successes and shortcomings, our rejoices and regrets, and for looking ahead at what we hope for the future. The hard thing with any self-assessment, is not the…
Interview – Mud and Dreams
Mud and Dreams (Now Available!)
I am excited to announce that my first full book is now available. (You can find it here.) Mud and Dreams is a series of essays on the poetry and science of living. A work of “motivational poetics” the book speaks directly to the human concerns at the center of…
Discovering Meaning (3 Exercises)
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously said that “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Research and experience have shown this to be true. Having a sense of meaning makes us more resilient and persistent, and less dissuaded by setbacks. It helps us find creative…
Changing the Narrative (Part 1)
The stories we tell ourselves matter. They make a difference in how we think about who we are and the way we structure our lives. They affect the paths we blaze and those we follow. Our stories inform every sigh and every tear, keep us afloat, and connect us to…
Humanity and Saving a Nation
The poet Czeslaw Milosz once asked, ‘What is poetry which does not save/Nations or people?” In the 1989 work Zinky Boys, Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, shows us what is at stake. Alexievich, a Belarusian literary journalist, won the 2015 Nobel for her collections of haunting interviews. In Voices from…
Sitting in the Rain
Every two weeks I lead a pre-dawn meditation group in public rose garden. This morning, waking up at 5:15 to rain and a cold front that had crept in, I didn’t expect anyone else to join me. But I thought I would head over anyway. There is a pavilion under…
Seeking to Make Things Difficult
With every advance, every step forward, we also walk from something. Technological innovations really have brought us so much that makes our lives measurably better in so many ways. But unless we remain vigilant and active, we also lose something; something essential about being human. When faced the earlier inconveniences…
Enlightenment and Connection
Many of you know I host various philosophy and well-being discussions groups each month throughout the Raleigh-Durham area. You can find us here. At our lunch meeting last week, we had a wide-ranging and robust discussion on enlightenment, presence, and the relationship between sacred experience and the connections between people.…
10 Questions To Ask In A Different Way
The New Year is often a time for assessing things: For looking back over the past twelve months or twelve years, at our successes and shortcomings, our rejoices and regrets, and for looking ahead at what we hope for the future. The hard thing with any self-assessment, is not the…
Interview – Mud and Dreams
Mud and Dreams (Now Available!)
I am excited to announce that my first full book is now available. (You can find it here.) Mud and Dreams is a series of essays on the poetry and science of living. A work of “motivational poetics” the book speaks directly to the human concerns at the center of…
Discovering Meaning (3 Exercises)
The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche famously said that “He who has a why to live for can bear almost any how.” Research and experience have shown this to be true. Having a sense of meaning makes us more resilient and persistent, and less dissuaded by setbacks. It helps us find creative…
Changing the Narrative (Part 1)
The stories we tell ourselves matter. They make a difference in how we think about who we are and the way we structure our lives. They affect the paths we blaze and those we follow. Our stories inform every sigh and every tear, keep us afloat, and connect us to…
Humanity and Saving a Nation
The poet Czeslaw Milosz once asked, ‘What is poetry which does not save/Nations or people?” In the 1989 work Zinky Boys, Nobel Prize winner Svetlana Alexievich, shows us what is at stake. Alexievich, a Belarusian literary journalist, won the 2015 Nobel for her collections of haunting interviews. In Voices from…
Sitting in the Rain
Every two weeks I lead a pre-dawn meditation group in public rose garden. This morning, waking up at 5:15 to rain and a cold front that had crept in, I didn’t expect anyone else to join me. But I thought I would head over anyway. There is a pavilion under…
Seeking to Make Things Difficult
With every advance, every step forward, we also walk from something. Technological innovations really have brought us so much that makes our lives measurably better in so many ways. But unless we remain vigilant and active, we also lose something; something essential about being human. When faced the earlier inconveniences…
Enlightenment and Connection
Many of you know I host various philosophy and well-being discussions groups each month throughout the Raleigh-Durham area. You can find us here. At our lunch meeting last week, we had a wide-ranging and robust discussion on enlightenment, presence, and the relationship between sacred experience and the connections between people.…