Reclaim The Brain

Mary Oliver said, “Attention is the beginning of devotion.”

Basic dynamic in life: there is nothing meaningful enough to make you happy that could not make you sad if you lost it. This is the paradox of feeling, and it’s inherent and existential. If things inspire real positive emotion in you then they are necessarily things in which you are sufficiently invested that you would feel negative emotions when... See more

Research has long shown that health and longevity come down to five fundamental lifestyle behaviors: exercising regularly, eating a nutritious diet, eschewing cigarettes, limiting alcohol consumption and nurturing meaningful relationships.

I think of writing a lot like walking. It’s rarely the most popular, the most effective, or the most efficient way of getting to your destination. I don’t always want to do it, and it’s not always technically enjoyable; sometimes it’s boring or slow, sometimes it’s tiring and pointless, sometimes it’s cold or wet or windy and I’m retracing the same... See more

The scientific virtues are:

• Stupidity


• Arrogance


• Laziness


• Carefreeness


• Beauty


• Rebellion


• Humor

If you do not deep read, you do not cultivate a capacity to think, imagine, and create; you therefore may not realize that anything more satisfying than a video game even exists.

Attention is first philosophy—

Philosophy is not only a system of thought but a mode of attentiveness, an exercised openness to what exceeds us yet calls us to deeper participation. Its systematic aspects are downstream of this attentiveness, and can certainly become a scaffolding by which others can train their own attention, but it is at its root... See more