“Give yourself fully to your endeavors. Decide to construct your character through excellent actions and determine to pay the price of a worthy goal. The trials you encounter will introduce you to your strengths.” – Epictetus
I often ask people taking pictures of family or friends if they’d like me to take a photo of them with the rest of their group instead of being the hidden photographer behind the camera. Most gratefully say yes, and usually return the favor if I’m with others myself. As an avid documenter of places,…
I’m deep into a phase of life where I invest time in the ritual of making excellent coffee. That doesn’t mean investing in expensive coffee making equipment. No, that would be absurd and counter to what a ritual should be. You should be able to make a great coffee anywhere you can boil water –…
I’m bouncing again, book-to-book, pulling this book off the shelf, scanning over that sentence on the Kindle app, and stacking the pile higher. It’s funny how one thing sparks another thing, it’s what Robert Maynard Hutchins called The Great Conversation, written work building on written work, theory built on theory, across time, but shrunken down…
“You can’t be normal and expect abnormal results.” – Naval Ravikant There’s nothing wrong with normal; the pursuit of normal usually offers you an average, lovely life. But if you want to be ultra-wealthy or a washboard abs model or win the Olympics or be an astronaut or a Nobel Peace Prize winner, well, be…
This weekend the bluebirds came back. I needed that more than I realized. It’s a small sign of brighter days ahead in the ebb and flow world of New England in March, like early crocuses or the green spear tips of daffodils breaking the ground. We could use more signs of hope in this particularly…
“If by some fiat I had to restrict all this writing to one sentence, this is the one I would choose: The summit of Mt. Everest is marine limestone.” – John McPhee Now and then I re-read that quote to shake myself out of my own head. The implications of that McPhee sentence are profound…
