Liberty, Self-Limitation and COVID-19

These have been stressful, unusual times. There are no easy answers as to how we protect one another from the medical risks of COVID-19, while also enabling people to support themselves and their families.  Opinions vary and emotions run deep. As state and local governments begin to relax the restrictions that have been…

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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…

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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…

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Back to the Cave Again

In the Republic, Plato gives us his “allegory of the cave”. Prisoners who are chained to their spots underground see only images flickering on the wall. They have no other reality. They are shown shadows of puppets without dimensions, without substance. Our poor little creatures know nothing else of life.…

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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.…

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Teach Us To Care and Not To Care

It is dangerous to care. We count on people, and we should.  But people will ignore you. They will try to convince you to do what they understand. They will even undermine. We have to learn to care enough, not to care. Be respectful and kind and forgiving, but do…

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Communities of the Heart

One day each month, I lead a well-being discussion over lunch in Research Triangle Park, North Carolina.  (Details can be found here) The talks are part philosophy, part psychology. There is a tentative spirituality that often creeps in, and is always welcomed. But at their core, the dialogues are human,…

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Absence and Return

For several years, I have been loosely involved with an online Buddhist community. About a year ago, I began to get more active and made some commitments to the group. I was going to meditate more. I would be more mindful in my eating. One night each week, I would…

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Be Ordinary

In his poem “Born Yesterday”, Phillip Larkin looks at a new born baby and wishes, not that she is beautiful or smart or talented, but that she is ordinary. There is great value in our just being. There is something essential about remaining attentive to those around us, whatever the…

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