The medium chill

For over 99 percent of our species’ history we lived amidst scarcity. Thus you, dear reader, like me and everyone else, evolved to seek out high-reward, low-energy-needed-to-acquire goods. This strategy worked well for hundreds of thousands of years. But now, in modern times of abundance, it is backfiring. Like so many things, what works, works—unt... See more

A few generations ago, most people didn't wake up in the morning and fret about whether or not they were living their lives to the fullest. Freedom has always been built into the American experiment, of course, but the freedom to take off and go rock-climbing for the afternoon, or to study engineering, or even to sneak in ten minutes for ourselves ... See more

We might choose to live outside a large metropolis, not to push ourselves forward for promotion, to avoid the limelight, and to do a satisfactory but undramatic kind of work. We can discover the subtle greatness of a life in which we exercise our virtues on a domestic canvas, in which we do not seek to be known by people we don’t ourselves know and

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The modern motivation for practicing frugality might be summed up in one word: escapism. Don’t be a cog in the machine. Escape the nine-to-five grind. Retire early. Hack life. Tune in, save up, and check out. But we need to be running to something, not just from something. Having a void in your life in which you wake up every morning with no struct

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“Enough” is not too little.

The idea of having “enough” might look like conservatism, leaving opportunity and potential on the table.

I don’t think that’s right.

“Enough” is realizing that the opposite—an insatiable appetite for more—will push you to the point of regret.

Reputation is invaluable.

Freedom and independence are invaluable.

Family and friend

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