“What makes a man beautiful? Isn’t it being an excellent man? And so, if you wish to be beautiful, young man, work at this, the acquisition of human excellence. But what is this? Observe who you praise, when you praise many people without partiality: do you praise the fair or the unfair? ‘The fair.’ Do…
“Only those who decline to scramble up the career ladder are interesting as human beings. Nothing is more boring than a man with a career.” — Aleksandr I. Solzhenitsyn, The Gulag Archipelago A few days of sailing had the desired effect. The stress accumulated, overflowing and leaking out of my pores, revealed in comments and…
“This whole earth which we inhabit is but a point in space. How far apart, think you, dwell the two most distant inhabitants of yonder star, the breadth of whose disk cannot be appreciated by our instruments? Why should I feel lonely? Is not our planet in the Milky Way?” — Henry David Thoreau, Walden…
Lately, my personal quest to stack memories seems to be paying off. Scheduled experiences this year have been notable and surely memorable, but so too have the family cookouts, early morning plunges into the pool and evenings throwing axes or on a lake with friends. These are things we ought to do more often, we…
There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,There is a rapture on the lonely shore,There is society, where none intrudes,By the deep Sea, and music in its roar:I love not Man the less, but Nature more,From these our interviews, in which I stealFrom all I may be, or have been before,To mingle with the Universe,…
Have I lived enough?Have I loved enough?Have I considered Right Action enough, have I come to any conclusion?Have I experienced happiness with sufficient gratitude?Have I endured loneliness with grace? I say this, or perhaps I’m just thinking it.Actually, I probably think too much. Then I step out into the garden,where the gardener, who is said…
And we died of the future, of calling and mission only we could keep, leaping into every favorite season; sinking into roots, dreams, and books. — Li-Young Lee, First World “I am losing precious days. I am degenerating into a machine for making money. I am learning nothing in this trivial world of men. I…
California’s Joshua Tree National Park is technically a part of the Mojave Desert, but it straddles the Colorado Desert. Where the Mojave is considered a high elevation desert, the Colorado Desert is a low elevation desert. So Joshua Tree is the unique meeting place of the two extremes. It was protected as a national monument…
“Above all, do not lose your desire to walk: every day I walk myself into a state of well-being and walk away from every illness; I have walked myself into my best thoughts, and I know of no thought so burdensome that one cannot walk away from it.” — Søren Kierkegaard As I write this,…
The Welch-Dickey Loop Trail is one of the most popular trails in New Hampshire. There are many reasons for this, including its relative closeness compared to trails further north and its proximity to popular recreation destination Waterville Valley. But really, people hike this trail because the views are spectacular and you can do the hike…