Phil Nguyen

Spirituality promises a total explanation of everything. Tantra rejects that. Things often happen for no particular reason. There is no ultimate “why.” Not everything can be understood; and that’s fine.

“[y]ou never change something by fighting the existing reality. To change something, build a new model that makes the existing model obsolete.”

Passion and spaciousness together imply that you care deeply about the world, that you urgently want to fix problems, that you always do your best—and you are unruffled when you fail.

Having this realistic attitude produces a kind of fearlessness —a key attribute for tantrikas. It is not the idiot fearlessness—produced by spirituality—of being sure ... See more

Ever more people today have the means to live, but no meaning to live for.

“Man’s search for meaning,” Frankl writes, “is the primary motivation in his life and not a 'secondary rationalization' of instinctual drives.”

Romance is dead. You can’t wonder what your crush is up to you anymore because you can just watch their Instagram Story. You can’t wonder where they have been, what music they listen to, what their life is like; it’s all there, listed on their Facebook profile like a product description, their personality packaged into their Instagram grid. And now... See more

You’re a beginner. You haven’t become who you want to be—yet. You want to wake up in the mornings to write, but you often don’t manage it. What we learn from Agnes Callard—and Kafka, and Proust—is that here’s nothing wrong with this state of affairs, nothing to be ashamed of, no reason to stop. We can, and should, continue to aspire.

Your husband’s attention, even if he’s not the most impressive guy in the world, means something. It’s your home. It’s what supports you. Most women like the strong, protective, decisive man — so they can live underneath that umbrella. And they like when, underneath that umbrella, he also listens and plays and attends. It’s safety. It’s love.

A worldview is not—by itself—a path. It is not a path because it does not show you where to put your foot next. It might provide some overall sense of direction (“the purpose of life is the positive evolution of consciousness”). It does not answer the question “what can I do for the next fifteen minutes that takes me that way?”