What is the Best Life for Men?

The core of Western political and philosophical thought since Socrates has been an attempt to answer this question through the application of reason. Socrates, Aristotle and Plato all believed that it was possible, by the use of reason, to discover what the perfect life or perfect society looked like. The idea of human and social perfection […]

The Horror of H.P. Lovecraft

Even wordsmiths have difficulty describing the immensity of the universe. After all, our sun is 1,000,000 times bigger than the earth and our galaxy contains approximately 300 billion stars, but there are also 100 million galaxies in our observable universe. Moreover, our observable universe, which is 13 billion light years away (1 light year = 6 trillion […]

Against Theory

I have a very dear friend who always sends me the latest scientific evidence showing that a vegan diet is the optimum one for good health. He has an answer for every objection, but so does another friend who happens to follow the Paleolithic diet, and is just as persuasive. Personally, I’m a cheating vegan, […]

Am I My Brother’s Keeper?

“… one hundred thousand people may have died from yesterday’s tsunami off the coast of Sumatra in Indonesia.” “Turn the volume up darling.” “What time do I have to pick up Jennifer?” “Terrible, that earthquake. After 5.” “It was the tsunami, did you see the video?” “Most of it. I feel so sorry for all […]

That Cad Socrates

In my youth Socrates was my hero, an intellectual superman, questioning everyone and everything, and his dignified but unjust death at the hands of the Athenians made him my favorite  ‘good guy’ in history. Now, older and humbler, I am not so sure. Antifragile:Things That Gain from Disorder, the latest book by Nassim Nicholas Taleb, contains an […]

Is The Ocean In The Bone Vault Only The Bone Vault’s Ocean?

My friend from Asia has powers and magic, he plucks a blue leaf from the young blue-gum And gazing upon it, gathering and quieting The God in his mind, creates an ocean more real than the ocean, the salt, the actual Appalling presence, the power of the waters. He believes that nothing is real except […]

What Is Your Relationship With Your Future Self?

Most of my financial planning clients feel strongly that they are willing to forgo present consumption for the sake of future consumption i.e. they are willing to make sacrifices now to ensure a financially secure retirement for themselves in the future. However, a few have no desire to make this sacrifice and simply don’t feel […]

The Importance Of Getting Lost

Your friend Steve gives you the key to his drink’s cupboard and tells you that if he asks for the key in the next few days you are not to give it to him. A few days later he asks for the key and you remind him what he originally said to you. He replies […]

A Sense of Wonder

Lying under the stars in the Sierra Nevada and having a front seat at the greatest and longest running celestial production, I can’t help but feel a quickening of the pulse, a swelling of the heart and a suspension of breath, the usual accompaniments of a profound sense of wonder. Richard Dawkins has described wonder […]

Imagine Your Children Are Dead

Imagining the loss of your children was one of the recommendations of the Stoic school of philosophy which included among its members Epictetus (55 AD – 135 AD), Marcus Aurelius (121 AD -180 AD), Seneca (4 BC – 65 AD) and Musonius Rufus (1st century AD). Stoicism is the western equivalent of Zen Buddhism minus the […]