remembering wonder

In a letter to his wife in 1780, John Adams, one of America’s founders, expressed a sentiment that was very similar to what my grandfather felt — and with which many veterans undoubtedly agree. He wrote:

I must study politics and war, that our sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy. Our sons ought to study mathematics and

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Listen, this is not to excuse shitty people or “radical acceptance” as a form of laziness. And it’s certainly not a war cry for “you’re perfect just the way you are”—barf. I’ve microdosed psilocybin (and will again in the future), I meditate, do (and teach) breathwork, journal, love palo santo, and will likely do ayahuasca at some point. But not... See more

The passions of people raised in a kinder, gentler world may be alien and incomprehensible to the older generation, but they are no less intense, and the culture around them is no less complex. Adversity forces us to rise to its challenge, but abundance allows us to discover who we might become, and that is a different sort of adventure.

Nor, I think, are we simply on a temporary upswing. Some romanticists imagine that society is a cycle, where hard times create strong men, who create good times, which creates weak men, who create hard times. But whether or not that sort of institutional cycle exists, the technologies discovered during the last upswing will be preserved. Countries... See more

Our legacy is to fill the Universe with children who laugh more than we were allowed to.