Year: 2012

• July 30, 2012

  From Boston to New York

  On the bus ride home from Boston, I was seated across the aisle from a man who was illustrative of the complexity of this human, all too human ethical life. He let one woman have the window seat. Some women spilled cookie crumbs on him and he reacted calmly. Throughout the ride, he spoke on…
• July 27, 2012

  A beautiful soul in a beautiful world: Toward a better understanding of sustainability

  On my run yesterday, I dreamed up the title of the informal talk I’ll be giving at the Future Perfect Festival to be held in Stockholm at the end of August. It is: “A Beautiful Soul in the Beautiful World: Toward a Better Understanding of Sustainability.” It may seem a non-starter for a festival on…
• July 26, 2012

  ‘A heaven in a wildflower…’

  I said, I am looking at a photograph. In the photo, there are green meadows and there is the silhouette of a tree draped across the summer grass. In my fingers which are stained with chalk, I am holding a clementine. I hold it up roundly, delicately, offering it to you. We are not looking…
• July 25, 2012

  On resilience and postulates

  Living by making postulates has helped me, even in the darker moments, not to fall into despair. Individuals in failing marriages despair that their lives could go otherwise. Institutions in free fall have lost the capacity to wonder whether they could be organized in some other, more robust fashion. Despair marks a defect in logic…
• July 24, 2012

  On climbing and humility

  I put my head down after every climb, after I finish climbing. Chalking up shows reverence to the rock, the wind, the approaching sky. A tree grows out of the shoulder, sun-brushed. The Daoist philosopher, sitting in a treehouse, lives according to nature.