Reflections on Happiness and Cosmology — I. In Search of the Cosmos: A Plea for Astrology and Alchemy You might find it an odd, not to say also an especially infelicitous, way to begin these reflections on the nature of happiness by offering up a special plea for astrology and alchemy. But hear me out. I know precious little about either but enough about both to be able…

Preamble The question I ask in this long form essay is: “Why are people not kinder to one another and to all sentient beings? Why, indeed, is not kindness the default mode?” And the answer I come to is this one: we are not clear and we are not wise. I’d…

On groundlessness and existential homelessness I. A Dream In a dream, you see that you’re somewhere you’ve never been before, the landscape you survey appearing unrecognizable to you. Only in the next breath, it strikes you as if, no, this landscape is all too familiar. …

The Uninvited Confession, The New Confessional Over the years, and most especially during the coronavirus pandemic, I’ve noticed an unsettling trend: people I barely know or do not know at all will send me letters written in the mode of a confession. Completely out of the blue. The writer will not ask after me or mine…

A critique of Total Work in a time of COVID-19 Find Your Sweetness! Don’t “find your bliss!” if “finding your bliss” continues, mistakenly to be sure, to lead you to hunt for that chimera, Meaningful Work. The good news is that you don’t have to worry about finding meaningful work because meaningful work…

Starring the Mischievous Magician, The Clever Ones, & a Band of Merry Pranksters — Casting A Spell Once upon a time, there lived a mischievous magician in a realm just above that of upright, ambulatory, hairless creatures who’d taken to calling themselves homo sapiens.

In which I discuss Plotinus’s critiques of our entrepreneurial age — And indeed men, whenever they become too feeble to contemplate, undertake action as a shadow of contemplation and reason. For since the weakness of their souls does not make contemplating fit for them, not being able sufficiently to grasp the object of contemplation, and through this not being fulfilled, yet…