Over 2 millennia ago, Socrates declared that the unexamined life is not worth living. If we were to adapt this maxim for the 21st century, a good candidate would be “the unoptimized life is not worth living.” It seems everywhere…
I recently stumbled upon the practice of keeping a commonplace book and I haven’t been able to get it out of my mind since. I was struck by how it seems to embody the natural messiness of life and support…
The most important relationship you will ever have is with yourself. But sometimes, you need a companion. Another person won’t do. Although a good friend is one of life’s blessings, you can’t always dump all your existential dreads, worries, anxieties…
The American novelist Flannery O’Connor once said “I write to discover what I know.” I think if you need a reason to write, you can’t do better than this. Our thoughts always appear better in the warm and cushy dwellings…
As Sartre said, “Man is nothing else but what he makes of himself.” We create ourselves. We have the capacity to tap into our potential and actualize it. Like a sculptor who chisels away at marble, over the course of…
In recent decades, meditation has captured the imaginations of western citizens. In the last 10 years alone, the number of Americans who practice meditation has tripled. And the pandemic has brought even more people to the practice, for obvious reasons.…
Here’s a collection of what I learned in 2022: 24 amazing things that caught my attention this year. I chose them based on one simple criterion: all of them made me go “wow, wait a sec…” and many have inspired…
Where does your mind go when you’re not working on anything in particular? Giving your brain a specific list of problems to keep running in the background and be on the lookout for possible solutions is a brilliant exercise for…
Chiselled on a column at the Temple of Apollo reads the well-known aphorism Know thyself. This ancient bit of ancient wisdom is still relevant today. Self-examination is an effective way of shining light on your own patterns of thought and…
Keep good company – that is, go to the Louvre. (Paul Cézanne) The last time I dedicated hours to a museum visit was a few years ago when I went to the Prague National Gallery, which hosts permanent and short-term…