Tag: philosophy

  • On Meaningful Work

    On Meaningful Work

    Why do I always follow up my plans for doing my writing with, “once I get my house in order?” A perusal of productivity books by men and women gives me some insight.

  • Rebellion! Doing things for their own sake.

    Rebellion! Doing things for their own sake.

    How do you decide, of all the infinite things you could be doing, what you should do? What if… you just did things you wanted to do?

  • My Best Work

    Which element of your best work do you most want to #amplify this year? Instead of considering simply doing more work, take the time to consider which elements of your work would most light you up to amplify. What’s holding you back from amplifying it? Is it that obscure little thing no one will care about?…

  • Perspective Vortex

    Perspective Vortex

    “They” would miss me, in some sense, but they wouldn’t know it. The work that I haven’t done, the book that is sketched out on the wall of my office kitchen, the workshops I’ve only half written, or that I have written but not taught, or finished but not promoted… they are unfinished business that…

  • Surfing (Metaphorically)

    I have long wanted to learn to surf, although I’m also terrified of it. (There are a lot of things like that in my life.) Please take this post as metaphor-from-a-distance, because watching other people surf has still given me some insight into how my life flows. First thing, before you can do awesome jumpy…

  • Voila! Instant Art!

    I’m taking a Coursera course about art concepts, and this week the assignment was to create an environmental installation piece. Since I had it up, photographed, and down within 10 minutes, I felt that I should share it more broadly… give it a chance to breathe, as it were. So, without further ado, Garden Party!…

  • On Genius, Enlightenment and The Voices

    There is a Buddhist fable about a traveller who arrives at an enlightened sage. “Please, master,” he says. “Please. I want to know how to become enlightened.” “Are you sure?” asks the sage. “Oh, yes. Absolutely.” “Are you willing to go through whatever it takes?” “Anything. I’ll do anything.” The sage looked him in the…

  • Dancing into the Future

    I don’t know what comes next. I mean, I really have no idea what I’m going to do. There will be things that I’ve started (raising kids, building the greenhouse, making the beer) that need finishing. (And by “finishing,” I mean, “continued commitment over a period of days-to-months-to-years-to-TheRestOfMyLife without which all previous effort is wasted”) …

  • After Loch Ness

    I read a short story this week about an utterly conventional and dull fellow who found himself hiking in the “wilds of Scotland” (his complaint, having been forced to go for a walk by his new wife while on their winter honeymoon). At the end of the story, while watching the sun set, they see…

  • Thinking about Thinking

    You might not be surprised to hear that I’m big on metacognition. It’s one of my things. It might actually be my thing. I have struggled with this, because in the academic world I was brought up in, one does not become an expert in process, one becomes an expert in object. The topics in…

  • Gender Inclusive Language

    This falls into the “tidbits from my notebook” category: “Our most important stories are silent, woven into the fabric of our language. (This is not a novel idea. There are no novel ideas, but paradoxically, each particular combination is unique.) “Everybody knows that ‘he’ includes women,” is only even available as a thought because somebody…

  • Slowing Down

    A radical, heretical proposal to our energy problems. Use less energy.