"Waste no more time arguing what a good man should be. Be one." –Marcus Aurelius
How often have you heard the following? A complaint that someone ‘can eat whatever they want’ A complaint that something is easy for someone, such as ‘you like to run so it’s not as hard for you’ The implication is always that the person being talked about has it easy in some way that the…
In our current society, rationality and logic are put on a pedestal as the best parts of the human mind. I think if you asked, many people would say they are the only real part of conscious thinking. Emotions and instincts are suspect. This has been true in the West since the Age of Reason…
The Internet is full of examples of stores being cleaned out – and of the weird things that people are buying or (by contrast) not buying. We’ve all seen them. We know that this is because people are panic-buying things. And it feeds on itself. If you see someone panic-buying things, you start to wonder…
This is going to be a little controversial, and easily misunderstood, but I think it’s an important thought. It’s on the relationship between pain and weakness. I say controversial and misunderstood because I don’t mean weakness as an insult. I’m not even sure I mean it as the opposite of strength. I mean as the…
Recently, I was talking to a friend of mine. He’s getting married soon, and is getting a little tired of the process of planning the wedding. He told me that he’s not sure that it is worth it because he doesn’t know how much more he would enjoy the ceremony than simply eloping or doing…
I spent most of this past year traveling the world with my wife as part of a time off work. We were taking a sabbatical before we start the next stage of our lives – having children. We spent almost 9 months in Latin America, Europe, and Asia. In total, I’ve spent about 18 months…
I’d like to share some thoughts on the relationship a man has with rules throughout his life. How do we first encounter rules? What is the difference between a rule and a principal? What is the mark of a mature man in this context? Children start out without any rules or sense of boundaries, possibly…
When I was a kid self-esteem began to be promoted in schools. A lot of adults seemed to have a problem with it, but almost nothing is more conformist to the next idea than education. It’s a part of teachers’ identity to always be doing the next thing. So it stuck. At the time, I…
I sometimes hear about how online learning will supplant traditional schools and universities. But is a recording the same as having a teacher? I’ve taken some classes recently through Coursera and CodeAcademy, and here are my thoughts on how it stacks up. It very cheap. Many courses are free – others cost a lot less…
If you’re a mature man, you have some sense of your values and your vision in your life. Boys and young men often don’t know what they want – or they may know many things they want, but have not actually decided what’s most important to them. But a man has made some basic decisions…