Category: education

• March 27, 2012

  On putting life in order

  My article on philosophical practice, “Counselling: Putting Lives in Order,” can now be viewed at The Philosophers’ Magazine website. It appears, appropriately and ironically, in TPM 57, “Philosophy’s Empty Ideas,” after Alain de Botton’s essay on secularists’ need for religion and before Julian Baggini’s interview with Patricia Churchland, a proponent of eliminative materialism. It’s nice…
• March 26, 2012

  Is it possible to have a plan for life?

  Attention is the rarest and purest forms of generosity. –Simone Weil (the quote from Weil was brought to my attention by my friend Carolyn Veith) This past week, one new conversation partner told me, “I had a plan for my life and I didn’t stick to it. Now I feel awful.” Her assumption is that…
• March 24, 2012

  In memoriam Compaq Presario, 2007-12

  This time my Compaq shut down for good. I was about to say hello when all went dark and pixely–all except the well-lit room and the glistening night and the buildings mocking my pixels. My childhood dog had grown glistening eyes and vacant ribs in the years before he died. He died in his sleep…
• March 23, 2012

  ‘I had my regret and so I wrote…’

  I remember it being cold and she was underdressed. That night I offered her my gloves but not my coat. I have since regretted that. It was the Sabbath, Hegel writes, but Jesus paid no heed. He saw the hungry man and plucked an ear of corn, giving it to him. I got reacquainted this…
• March 22, 2012

  When a vague question is asking to be asked

  In his actions, gestures, demeanour and speech, the [Daoist] sage shows himself to be responsive but steady, focused but spontaneous, firm but flexible, reserved but accessible. He follows no rigid plans, and does not espouse goals that are to be achieved come what may. Hence, he does not force people or things to fit in…