. I start every morning with lovingkindness meditation, a Buddhist practice aimed at countering negative thoughts about yourself and others. The first step is to concentrate on your own happiness: “May I be well, may I be happy.” Next, you do the same for a good friend, a neutral person, a difficult person, and, finally, … 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. Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (September 29, 1934–October 20, 2021) echoes this belief in his book “Flow.” He starts by considering the perils of unconscious living afflicted by … Read more
We already know why the Socratic method is important in the age of AI. But the book of the same name claims that Socrates himself means little to many readers. They mostly associate him, its author notes, with the saying that the unexamined life is not worth living. And they know that his rational inquiries … Read more
I often describe myself as a reader and a writer. But there is one self-label that doesn’t get as much attention as it deserves — lifelong learner. That part of myself is on the never-ending path of self-improvement, an endeavor that is nourished, among other things, by Coursera. Case in point: “The Modern and the … Read more