Collections

Seriousness saddles the work with a burden. It misses the playful side of being human. The chaotic exuberance of being present in the world. The light

We don’t stop playing because we grow old; we grow old because we stop playing. – George Bernard Shaw

What I really think good writing does: It enlivens that part of us that actually believes we are in this world, right now, and that being here somehow

There are two ways to make the world more mesmerizing: to seek out new and increasingly intense experiences, or to loosen the filters that make ordina

Novelist Charles Kingsley on happiness: “We act as though comfort and luxury were the chief requirements of life, when all that we need to make us hap

“Sometimes life feels a certain way that we call “absurd”: nothing matters, all efforts are for naught, everything seems random and perverse, positive

"There are two ways to make the world more mesmerizing: to seek out new and increasingly intense experiences, or to loosen the filters that make ordin

I have a theory about nostalgia: It happens because the best survival strategy in an uncertain world is to overworry. When you look back, you forget a

Everybody wants to have a village, but few are willing to be villagers. Building presence takes work. It requires vulnerability, patience, and the wil

“Authoritarians cannot rise if there are strong communities and people are acting with joy. That is, you need despair and anger in order for an author

They've still got their morning paper and their coffee and their time And they still enjoy their evenings with the skeptics and the wine But all the w

Side projects as the key to the good life By Marty Bell • 31 Jul 2025 When I was 13, I created a chat room for teenagers to talk about art and photog

We've made "work" synonymous with suffering, when it should be synonymous with building.

It is my belief that the World (or, if you will, the House, since the two are for all practical purposes identical) wishes an Inhabitant for Itself to

Theory of Other Worlds. Simply put, it said that when knowledge or power went out of this world it did two things: first, it created another place; an

One sentence puzzles me: The world was constantly speaking to Ancient Man. I do not understand why this sentence is in the past tense. The World still

we should all feel an obligation to tell stories about a human future that we actually want to be a part of.

“If you want a new world, start making it right now, in whatever you are doing.” This is the best advice I ever had, it came from Brian Eno. If you im

If something inside of you is real, we will probably find it interesting, and it will probably be universal. So you must risk placing real emotion at

Pain is not tragic. Pain is magic. Suffering is tragic. Suffering is what happens when we avoid pain and consequently miss our becoming.

“If your world is not enchanted, you’re not paying attention.”

When you learn something new for the first time you flail miserably at it, but eventually you identify your weaknesses and over time the process towar

Be Honest About Intentions: Clearly communicate what you can realistically commit to, avoiding overpromising.

To be capable of a care-cure relationship, with all its requisite predictability, one must therefore be free of mental confusion and balanced enough t

Winnicott places especial emphasis on reliability as a way of protecting the other from unpredictability

A sign of health in the mind is the ability of one individual to enter imaginatively and yet accurately into the thoughts and feelings and hopes and f

A sign of healthy love, therefore, is the ability to be reliable and responsible with — which is different from being resposible for — the thoughts an

It may be that we are only here to learn how to love.

If there is a fundamental challenge within these stories, it is simply to change our lurking suspicion that some lives matter less than other lives. W

The point of marriage is not to create a quick commonality by tearing down all boundaries; on the contrary, a good marriage is one in which each partn

The story of human intimacy is one of constantly allowing ourselves to see those we love most deeply in a new, more fractured light. Look hard. Risk t

To see her brighten when I came in, find her leaning into me as we discussed some household matter, improved my lot in ways I cannot adequately explai

So how do you feel your way towards a deeper, more secure connection with yourself and the world? You occupy the present moment and allow yourself to

Being open with your insecurities paradoxically makes you more confident and charismatic around others. The pain of honest confrontation is what gener