Joseph

There are those, of a psychological bent, who would sa y t hat we are obsessed with time . They can point to individuals in American culture who are li terally time-ridden. And even the rest of us feel very strongly about time because we have been taught to take it so seriously. We have stressed this aspect of cu lt ure and developed it to a point... See more

The really important kind of freedom involves attention, and awareness, and discipline, and effort, and being able truly to care about other people and to sacrifice for them, over and over, in myriad petty little unsexy ways, every day. That is real freedom. The alternative is unconsciousness, the default-setting, the "rat race"-the constant... See more

There’s a Russian saying about nostalgia: “The past is more unpredictable than the future.” It’s so common for people’s memories about a time to become disconnected from how they actually felt at the time.

the most obvious, ubiquitous, important realities are often the ones that are the hardest to see and talk about.

If you want everybody to have the same truth, or to believe in the same things, then you’re talking about the loss of tension and the collapse of the world.

Complete attention,” Weil declared, “is like unconsciousness.” As such, it is a state that does not entail a particular action or stance, but instead suggests a form of reception, open and nonjudgmental, of the world.

“And I think it was memory that saved us. You see, we have already known that

Availability is no longer determined by one’s time, but by one’s attention. The problem, of course, is that our attention is constantly absorbed by the tools we use everyday, making us feel like we’re never truly available. As these tools continue to get nicer, prettier, and more powerful, it becomes increasingly difficult to stop checking them,... See more