Thomas

It’s easy to get into a routine of all the things that are supposed to be indicators of a good life, and yet that life is not good.

It’s just... fine.

The “good life” lives beyond those bounds.

the best narratives and metaphors for thinking about how life works come not from our technologies (machines, computers) but from life itself.

"If your grocery store has a "health food section", what does that make the rest of the store?"

An equanimous subject is ready to meet the world on its own terms.

“Once we’ve spent the carbon costs necessary to put a new building up,” Heatherwick argues, “it’s crucial that it stays there being useful for as long as humanly possible. The worst thing we can do is knock the building down after just a few decades and put something new up. This is why boring buildings are much worse for the environment than... See more

Leisure, it must be clearly understood, is a mental and spiritual attitude—it is not simply the result of external factors, it is not the inevitable result of spare time, a holiday, a weekend or a vacation. It is, in the first place, an attitude of mind, a condition of the soul, and as such utterly contrary to the ideal of “worker” in each and... See more

Walking lets you read the world — and much like the slow, contemplative mental processes involved in reading a book, the pace with which one moves through the world while walking allows for a different, deliberative kind of seeing . You notice more. You think more.