The Purpose-Focused Life

we are starved for personal relationships but we are simultaneously discouraged from nurturing them, de-skilled in the relevant habits, and sold inadequate substitutes in their place.

The principle “Life cannot be delegated” is simply a guidepost.5 It keeps before us the possibility that we might, if we are not careful, delegate away a form of life that is full and whole, rewarding and meaningful. We ought to be especially careful in the cases where what we delegate to a device, app, agent, or system is an aspect of how we... See more

Every morning, those are the first words I type.

How do I want to live today?

I’ve come to refer to this as “the living question.”

And holy shit. It’s hard to over-emphasize how meaningful this small shift has been for me. As someone who habitually escapes into grandiose daydreaming about my future, or wallowing in the mistakes of the past, this... See more

A philosopher-builder starts with explicit moral commitments, constantly examined and refined. For example, they recognize that human autonomy—people's ability to deliberate about their goals and pursue them freely—is essential to what makes achievement meaningful.

Purpose creep is a process of psychological aggregation that takes projects that are modest in scope and inflates them into the type of impossible, burdensome task that makes us balk and then retreat.

manufactured neediness prepares the ground for new commodities. The goal is not to alleviate loneliness or isolation by fostering vernacular human relationships, which, of course, cannot be readily monetized, but to insinuate, pejoratively, that such relationships are inefficient and full of friction.

Franklin's approach reveals what distinguishes philosopher-builders from ordinary builders: the intellectual courage to question prevailing assumptions, the moral clarity to build for human flourishing rather than mere optimization, and the pioneering vision to shape the future rather than merely respond to it.

I always think of “inspiration” as an amateur word. Inspiration is being propelled to do something, or to think something, or to go somewhere, by some sort of external stimulus. And that to me is undependable.

But purpose—purpose is a white-hot fire inside of you, a self-delusion that keeps you coming back into the room to work decade after decade,... See more