Today’s cult of convenience fails to acknowledge that difficulty is a constitutive feature of human experience. Convenience is all destination and no journey. But climbing a mountain is different from taking the tram to the top, even if you end up at the same place. We are becoming people who care mainly or only about outcomes. We ar

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Prentis Hemphill's definition of embodiment—the understanding of what is habituated in us; the process of becoming more aware of and practiced in our behaviors.

It’s so strange how we’re able to carry forward this mystery of personal identity even when our present selves are so different from our future selves and from our past selves most of all. I think a lot about this question of, what is a person? Am I the same person as my childhood self? Sure, we share the same body, but even that body is so differe... See more

Creating high density of not only people, but ideas and energy = serendipity and aliveness. Lewis Mumford writes that the primary purpose of the city is “to permit—indeed, to encourage—the greatest possible number of meetings, encounters, challenges, between varied persons and groups, providing as it were a stage upon which the drama of social life... See more

Only that nothing works out the way you plan, which is a blessing every hour. Life always takes a different form, if only because life will always be more imaginative — deeper, wiser, more surprising — than you are.

Inherently, we could never judge someone’s taste on a single choice. Every person embodies 100s of choices, and we incorporate all of this information in understanding the person. In the times when the choices all work together to clarify the sensibility, this is known as congruence .

Without congruence, there cannot be good taste. (And a lot of bad... See more

A big problem with bubbles is the reflexive association between wealth and wisdom, so a bunch of crazy ideas are taken seriously because a temporarily rich person said it.

On a cold Monday in December, 65 people were gathered for Reading Rhythms, an event that bills itself as “not a book club” but “a reading party.” The parties, which began in May, take place on rooftops, in parks and at bars. The premise is simple: Show up with a book, commit to vanquishing a chapter or two and chat with strangers about what you’ve ... See more