Rishita Chaudhary

I saw a tree whose every little branch expanded and swelled with sympathy for the sun,” she writes. “I was made distinctly aware of the presence of something kindred to me.” Ailanthus altissima is often considered an invasive species. Bennett’s musings have an ethical component: if a nuisance tree, or a dead tree, or a dead rat is my kin, then... See more

“This is the entire essence of life: Who are you? What are you?” the young Leo Tolstoy distilled the eternal quest in his diary as he wrestled with moral development and the search for selfhood — a search that begins as soon as we become conscious, reaches a crescendo in the formative years of adolescence and young adulthood, and continues until... See more

A few weeks ago, the Scottish American philosopher Alasdair MacIntyre died, aged 96. His best known work, After Virtue , is an extraordinary book. Despite its considerable impact over the past few decades (it was published in 1981), it still reads as a startlingly original, radical critique of modern society, and of moral philosophy itself.... See more

In The Disappearance of Ritual, Byun-Chul Han explains that “Rituals are characterized by repetition. Repetition differs from routine in its capacity to create intensity.” ... Rituals involve enacting reality; tapping into the imaginal, the place between our minds and the world, to take on new and wider perspectives. We can do this by revisiting,... See more