“Aesop, or Babrius (or whatever his name was), understood that, for a fable, all the persons must be impersonal,” G. K. Chesterton writes in the introduction to “Aesop’s Fables.” “They must be like abstractions in algebra, or like pieces in chess. The lion must always be stronger than the wolf, just as four is always … Read more
Many of us have grown up with nation-states as natural forms of political organization. But it wasn’t always so. As Philip Zelikow points out in his world history course, the creation of modern nations as we know them today was “a very conscious development,” which began in the mid-1800s in various countries around the world. … Read more
“It is easy in the world to live after the world’s opinion; it is easy in solitude to live after our own,” Emerson wrote while contemplating the value of solitude. More than a century later, psychologist Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (September 29, 1934–October 20, 2021) echoed this sentiment in his book “Flow,” expanding upon Emerson’s belief to … Read more
“Two roads diverged in a wood, and I — / I took the one less traveled by,” Robert Frost famously wrote in a poem that everyone loves and almost everyone gets wrong. It always reminds me that our everyday decisions can change our life in unpredictable ways. So the question we can ask ourselves: How … Read more