Category: Philosophy as a Way of Life
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Sartre and Camus in New York – NYTimes.com
At Vassar he [Camus] gave a lecture on “The Crisis of Mankind” and was dazzled by the spectacle of “an army of long-legged young starlets, lazing on the lawn.” But he was preoccupied by what he thought of as the “American tragedy.” The tragedy of the students was that they…
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Singing in the Dark Temple of Midnight
I am here to sing thee songs. In this hall of thine I have a corner seat. In thy world I have no work to do; my useless life can only break out in tunes without a purpose. When the hour strikes for thy silent worship at the dark temple…
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“The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards…”
I shall ever try to drive all evils away from my heart and keep my love in flower, knowing that thou hast thy seat in the inmost shrine of my heart. And it shall be my endeavour to reveal thee in my actions, knowing it is thy power gives me…
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The ‘Busy’ Trap – NYTimes.com
I have spoken a lot to folks over the years about how AKEDIA or Sloth is not “mere laziness” but “spiritual/mindful laziness.” This manifests in two ways: Either as allowing yourself to just sit around in a dulled idle doing nothing attend to the world & focus your situation in order…
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Bankers and the neuroscience of greed | Ian Robertson | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk
While power in moderate doses can make people smarter, more strategic in their thinking, bolder and less depressed, in too-large doses it can make them egocentric and un-empathic, greedy for rewards – financial, sexual, interpersonal, material – likely to treat others as objects, and with a dulled perception of risk.…
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Textimony 20120630
“Faith is the bird that feels the light and sings when the dawn is still dark.” ~Rabindranath Tagore
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n+1: Death by Degrees
Here we have someone laying out some good lines on the real pay to play at the heart of our quickly crumbling meritocracy n+1: Death by Degrees.
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Garage Sale Existentialism | The New Existentialists
As the urban treasure hunters stop to peruse the wares, a very poor rendition of bedouin negotiating takes place between two suburbanite stalkers, one striving to sell his or her “valuable” wares and the other seeking to gain a prize at the lowest price possible. In this entrepreneurial dance of…
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Stars, Planets And The Meaningless Life : 13.7: Cosmos And Culture : NPR
The talks on Kepler were delightful and I drank in all the new science like a thirsty kid on a hot summer day. But none of what I learned pushed me out of my comfort zone and on to the ledge of my own mortality. Then, innocently, one of the…
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Daily chart: Buy me a river | The Economist
The weekly magazine The Economist reports on a new index that attempts to take stock of countries’ total wealth… Daily chart: Buy me a river | The Economist. I shared this with my beloved friend Alex Mosiak. Here is our interchange: Me: What do you think of this? Alex: In general,…
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On companionship
On companionship Today, I had the opportunity to meet the bright-minded young soul, Jordan Kincaid, who authored the above contemplation. Reading this, I am recalled to an aphorism from January, Textimony 20120128. I am also reminded of when my beloved mentor, Richard Owsley, was conferring with me on the creation…
CALL ME MAGGIE 