Sharing what I have learned from what I have read: A blog by Joe Abittan
We live in a very dangerous world, but we don't always recognize it. Most of the time we move about our lives without feeling too much threat to our own personal safety and to our lives, but sudden events can remind us of how close death can be. We see terrible car crashes, are forced … Continue reading Ever Present Perils
In Letters From a Stoic, Seneca quotes Epicurus in writing, “It is wrong to live under constraint; but no man is constrained to live under constraint.” Quite frankly, Seneca and Epicurus are wrong. The stoic thinkers make two arguments in the short quote, and both fail to live up to the reality of humankind's … Continue reading Living Under Constraints
In Letters From a Stoic Seneca writes, "Let us try to maintain a higher standard of life than that of the multitude, but not a contrary standard; otherwise, we shall frighten away and repel the very persons whom we are trying to improve." On an initial quick read, this quote seems to be saying, live … Continue reading Lets Consider Our Standards for Life
I started a new job a few months back and my commute time has doubled. I was already driving a good distance across Reno, NV (I know it is not LA, San Francisco, or Washington DC but it was still not fun), and now I am driving about twice as far to our State Capitol … Continue reading Rhythms and Routines
Yesterday I listened to Tyler Cowen's latest episode of his podcast Conversations With Tyler in which he interviewed Karl Ove Knausgard. In typical Tyler Cowen fashion, the interview went all over the place, with in-depth questions about Knausgard's writing, influences, and thoughts on a variety of topics. Early in the interview Cowen asked Knausgard about … Continue reading Embrace Your Life
"The art of taking feedback is such a crucial skill in life," Ryan holiday writes in his book Ego is the Enemy. If we are honest with ourselves, which is hard and uncomfortable, we see that we are not quite as great as we like to believe and we don't exist in the center of … Continue reading Criticism and Ego
I often think about status and about how we act to try to increase our status. When human beings were evolving and we lived in small tribes of 50 to 250 people, status mattered quite a bit. Higher status people were able to reproduce and pass their genes along, while lower status people were not … Continue reading Living With Others
Thich Nhat Hanh wrote the book The Miracle of Mindfulness to share his thoughts, experiences, and lessons learned from a life of practicing mindfulness. He details the benefits of living a more mindful life, describes techniques to bring mindfulness into our lives, and presents our daily consciousness in varying perspective to highlight the importance of mindfulness … Continue reading Mindfulness Enables us to Live
“Profound connections exist between all; interdependency so manifest that perceived separation is a delusion.” Senator Cory Booker writes to start one of the chapters in his book United. Throughout his book, Senator Booker examines the way society is organized, the relation between personal responsibility and to social responsability, and how truly dependent we are on … Continue reading Profound Connections
Cory Booker starts one of the chapters in his book United with a quote from John F. Kennedy, “So let us not be petty when our cause is great. Let us not quarrel amongst ourselves when our Nation’s future is at stake” The first couple of paragraphs of the chapter that starts with this … Continue reading Quarrels