Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World
I chose to practice Judaism because I wanted to find out how the religion has managed to foster such a strong sense of identity and community. I wanted to find out what they were doing right, because I get the sense that modern life values the ability to be transient. If there is a great
Yesterday I practiced negative visualization on my drive to work. I thought about the death of loved ones, how I could be living in poverty, how I could have some incurable and painful illness, and how I could be alone and without any friends or companionship. The rest of the work day went pretty well
There is a quote the origin of which I can’t remember, but it goes something like this: “people come to the monastery to find out why they came.” Many turn to spiritual traditions, personal development systems, and other sources of counsel to look for answers. But before we start looking for answers, maybe one of
Last Friday my manager called me into his office and told me the company was putting me on a project for the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). My political views are generally libertarian, so I believe that this government agency shouldn’t exist. This put me in a bit of an ethical bind, do I just
I watched the first few minutes of the State of the Union the day before yesterday, and I read some of the day-after commentary on the State of the Union.  Of course, some of the commentary irritated me, so during my ice bath, I thought about all those times I’ve participated in asinine political conversations
I’ve become a big fan of the hot shower after the ice bath. It completely beats shivering your butt off for 40 minutes. If you are planning on replicating my ice bath experiment, I suggest going through the first few weeks without a hot shower, and then the second few weeks with a hot shower.
Judaism is not a proselytizing religion, which means they don’t actively seek converts. You need to be born to a Jewish mother, or go through a rigorous conversion process that will weed out those who aren’t serious about converting. For this reason, I wasn’t sure how welcome I would be to the community. Christianity is
There’s a peculiar effect that I’ve observed in my attempts to embrace wu-wei this month: I have more creative insights. They tend to happen when I’m not doing anything in particular. At work, it is during my afternoon coffee breaks. At home, it’s in the shower or right before or after a nap. They also
Cal Newport recently wrote a post about how surprised he was at how mediocre Louis C.K. was early on in his career, especially considering how Louis C.K. is arguably the world’s top comedian at the moment. He makes the argument that Americans love the idea of outside sources (or innate talents) being responsible for someone’s
By Erica Note: I wrote this post in January and as I prepare to publish it today, I am thinking about the people who are defending Ukraine. This post mentions soldiers, and I hope it does so respectfully. I also hope that it calls to mind all of the moms, dads, and caretakers who are