Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World
Friday night I hosted my very first Shabbat dinner. My girlfriend and I invited seven of our friends over to welcome the Sabbath and spend a pleasant evening drinking wine and eating the questionable brisket I prepared. Preparing for Shabbat dinner was actually quite stressful. We stressed over the invite list, the food, cleaning, etc.
We live in a culture that cultivates excessive focus on the self. My day is filled with thoughts that cycle between what I want, what I don’t want, what I want but don’t have, and what I have but don’t want. Yesterday, as in most days, I was thinking about the type of career I
After my ice bath yesterday, I felt a great sense of satisfaction at reaching the halfway point of my Stoicism month. It’s rare that I stick to any pursuit for any period of time, so I was proud of myself. I learned to feel great pleasure when my body stops shivering post-ice bath. The muscles
My thirteenth ice bath was mostly uneventful. I did feel a bit hurried in the morning as I had a few errands to run and a dinner with a Jesuit priest to go to (more on that in a bit). The bath definitely had a calming effect. This could be a physiological reaction, or it
I finished my first week of ice baths yesterday. The ice bath was the same, but it felt good to stick with something for a week. I could have made an exception based on various rationalizations “oh it’s Sunday, no one takes ice baths on Sunday!” or “I have friends coming over, I don’t want
When I was an elementary school, one of my teachers taught us about Buddhism, as part of a world religions unit. I remember learning that Buddhists believe in re-incarnation, or re-birth. This fascinated me. I thought it would fun to be reborn as a dog or bird or other animal (it’s clear I didn’t understand
David Brooks [you may have noticed I have a man-crush on him] wrote an excellent piece titled The Subtle Sensations of Faith. One of his main points is that all humans experience a sense of wonder, awe, of being a part of something bigger and incomprehensible. Even people that claim they have no religious impulse
A friend of mine passed along this article titled Religion, Heuristics, and Intergenerational Risk Management, written by one of my favorite authors and thinkers, Nassim Taleb. The main idea Taleb and co-author Rupert Read promotes is that religion is valuable because it acts a transmitter of risk-management heuristics. Religion, through its teachings, act as counterweights
I’m writing this from my hometown of Lexington, MA (yes, the birthplace of America). I’m back for a week or so because my parents just sold their house, and I wanted to a) see it for the last time and b) get my junk out of my room. A few observations about being back: Familiarity
Buddhism: Day 10 and 11 A reader e-mailed yesterday in response to my post, The Case Against DIY Religion. In the post, I argue that the DIY method to spiritual and ethics will likely be less effective than adopting an established a religion system. In her e-mail, she made the point that one of the