Ancient Wisdom for a Modern World
In one of my English classes in high school, we read a story that took place in India and drew heavily on Indian culture and customs. I don’t remember what the story was about, but I do remember that the class had a spirited discussion about arranged marriage. When I say spirited discussion, I mean
I consider modern American culture to be fairly hedonist. Our measures for success are largely material. If you are able to live in a fancy house or apartment, take luxury vacations, and eat gourmet food, you are successful. The more pleasures you are able to attain, the more successful you are. Though I am against
Over the past few days, I’ve done 9 of the 10 prayers I was supposed up to do. To make up for the one I missed, I doubled up on an evening prayer. So far the most powerful prayer times are the Fajr and Isha’a, the pre-dawn and post-sunset prayers. The Fajr is a nice
Our brains like to make stories that make our experiences coherent. For example, if you graduate college and get a job at a reputable company, your brain might lump you into the “young professional” bucket and the extent to which you are psychologically content will be determined by how closely your experiences align with that script.
I’m sure most of you have made some kind of resolution for 2016, something that you feel needs correction and work. I’m personally back on a low-carb diet and I’m making sure to re-incorporate some of the ancient wisdom practices I abandoned after my experiments. But, most people fail at their New Year’s resolutions. A
I live in the DC area and one topic that inevitably comes up is career. Depending on the crowd, you’ll hear about the people still figuring what they want to do for real (while they work as government consultants), people who are trying to figure out the next step in their career, and others who
The Observer just published an article I wrote about what I learned during my month of Stoic ice baths. If you’re a regular reader of this blog the content will be pretty familiar, but I thought I’d share. As for what’s next, I decided to take a break from the 30-day experiments t and will
One of modernity’s “virtues” is its claim to reduce harmful variability in our lives. For example, in pre-industrial times, you might only have access to foods that are in season. Strawberries bloom in the spring, and in a time when international trade and refrigeration capability was limited, you could only eat strawberries in the spring.
I started Taoism month with the intent of contrasting productivity culture with the Taoist principle of wu-wei, or non-action. However, I’m finding the concept has utility even beyond the world of work. Emotional non-action Last week I learned that I will not be attending grad school in the fall. It was disappointing, and my
I’ve traveled a bit in Europe and in the Middle East, and one of the most attractive cultural elements of these places are their café cultures. In Egypt, you can walk down any road and find what I call “old man cafes.” You will see old Egyptian men sitting outside of a small shop or