Vanaprastha: Communing with Nature
Vanaprastha is a Sanskrit term translated as “retiring to the forest.” Vana means “forest” and prastha means “going to.” American philosopher and academic John G. Messerly notes how retreat, reflection, and nature have present an ancient and enduring fellowship: A reader sent me a beautiful description of the tranquility he finds walking in and communing […]
The Wise Read a Lot
Charlie Munger at the 2004 Berkshire Hathaway Annual Meeting: I don’t know anybody who is wise who doesn’t read a lot. On the other hand, that alone won’t do it. You have to have a temperament, really, which grabs the correct ideas and does something with those ideas. And I think most people who read […]
Being With What Is
American clinical psychologist John Welwood writes in Ordinary Magic, Everyday Life as Spiritual Path (1992): At any moment, whatever we are experiencing, only one of two things is ever happening: either we are being with what is, or else we are resisting what is. Being with what is means letting ourselves have and feel our […]
Recognizing College-level Learning in Non-classroom Settings
McKinsey team on the significance of recognizing the learning happens outside the classroom: Giving adult students credit for the knowledge they’ve earned outside of school can reduce the amount of time it takes to complete a degree. Governments can partner with higher-ed institutions and the private sector to encourage testing and credentialing centers that award […]
When the Going Gets Tough, the Tough Relax
Fast Company’s Alan Webber summarizes nuggets of wisdom from his Rules of Thumb: 52 Truths for Winning at Business Without Losing Your Self (2009.) Rule #1: “When the going gets tough, the tough relax.” This rule came from an experience of my own, when I was about to conduct the most important interview of my […]
We Don’t Need to Allow Hate
Sereno Sky writes in Lonely Traveller (2014,) About unconditional love: It might be that the universe or ‘God’ loves people unconditionally, always trying to give people another chance to do better or if they can’t, it knows all the circumstances that prevent them from doing so. As humans, we dislike people who hurt animals, the […]
Richard Branson’s Hits and Misses
Virgin Group mogul Richard Branson takes risks and, when his ideas don’t work out, he still relishes having fun in being willing to try new things. From his New York Times interview, The businesses that we’ve been successful at are the ones where we have made a radical difference in people’s lives. The businesses that […]
Religion, a Jumble of False Assertions
Albert Einstein said of the physisct and Nobel laureate Paul Dirac, “This balancing on the dizzying path between genius and madness is awful.” At a October 1927 conference, Paul Dirac made acerbic comments about the purpose and meaning for religion: If we are honest—and scientists have to be—we must admit that religion is a jumble […]
Of Jean Racine and His Works
University of Wisconsin scholar Philip Butler studied the constantly shifting perception of playwright Jean Racine and his works. In Classicism and the Baroque in the Work of Racine, Philip Butler writes, There is in Racine a sort of intellectual Puritanism-or Jansenism-‘Which, in the same way as moral Puritanism, distrusts everything that can cause us too […]
Hans Bethe, the Nuclear Peacemaker
The Nobel prize-winning physicist Hans Bethe, was a key figure in the development of the nuclear energy and weaponry, including the ones dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Yet, he campaigned for nuclear power and nuclear disarmament. The Guardian notes in his obituary, Yet, in nuclear affairs, Bethe was perhaps the most polished, vocal and convincing […]