The Contemplative Life
I am about to leave on a one-month meditation retreat. Here is why....
Letters
The Contemplative Life
I am about to leave on a one-month meditation retreat. Here is why....
The Puzzle of Liberty
In this letter, I want to make the case for libertarian principles and introduce you to a problem I have been thinking about; *how do we get everyone to cooperate without coercion?*...
The Dawn of Life
Hello everyone, As usual, I hope you are all well. I want you to contemplate all the factors that your wellness depends on. Many of you will think instinctively to your loved ones; your friends and your family. You may also be thinking of the material things needed to sustain...
A Culture of Conversation
Hello everyone, It feels good to write to you each week like this. I sincerely hope you have been finding benefit in what I have to say. The reason I write these every week is because I have something to say, I have ideas that I believe will benefit others...
The Fountain of Youth
Hello everyone, I hope you are all well, and that you will continue to be well for decades to come. In today’s letter, I will be telling you all about the quest to ensure this happens, that is; the science behind what we have done to address the problem...
The Self-Liberating Mind
Hello everyone What does it mean to be doing well? There are two answers resonate with me here. One is when you feel like you are making steady progress on accomplishing your goals, and the other is when you are entirely carefree. The latter of the two tens to be...
The Spirit of Science
Hello everyone, I hope you are in high spirits. Wait, what does “high spirits” mean again? Does it imply that you are filled with vigour? I take that back; my concern is that you are feeling well not necessarily that you are overflowing with energy. I hope you have been...
Precious Jewels
Hello everyone, Is everything going well for you? I sure hope it is, and that you are all not taking it for granted. As expected, the United States is doing among the worst in the world regarding the pandemic. They are now experiencing hundreds of deaths per day. Amid everything...
Emptiness and the Real Blue Sky
Hello everyone, I sincerely hope you are as well as the laws of nature allow. Today's letter will be a little different. More casual. I want to share with you two stories, that I believe will shed light on some concepts in Buddhist philosophy. These are both stories I have...
The Bigger Picture
Hello everyone, The world seems to be falling apart. At the risk of sounding completely delusional I must ask — is it really? It was not long ago that the world's gaze was on bushfires ravaging Australia, and without time to recover the coronavirus has run rampant across the globe. We...
Creativity and the Cosmos
Hello everyone, I hope you are well — and that reading this letter will make a humble contribution to this. For those of you in parts of the US affected by the recent unrest, please look after yourselves — my thoughts are with you. Also, please do not forget that underneath all...
On Cynicism
Hello everyone, I trust you are all well. At the very least, you are well enough to have the leisure of reading this letter. It is a good start — contemplate for a moment how many people are living right now that do not have this luxury? I want to cut...
Happiness and Problem Solving Revisited
Hello everyone, I hope you are well and that you will continue to be so. It appears that the number of cases worldwide of COVID-19 are still increasing. It seems as if the curve is yet to flatten — at least globally. Many individual countries appear to be doing well. In...
Taking Children Seriously II
Taking Children Seriously (TCS) is simply the philosophy that it is both possible and desirable to raise a child without coercion. That's it....
Taking Children Seriously
Hello everyone, I hope you have all been doing as well as the laws of nature allow. I certainly have been. I have been helping test a user interface called Material Shell, very slowly trying to teach myself Japanese and reading through the short stories of Ted Chiang. It is...
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Articles
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“A rose by any other name would smell as sweet.” When we are born, we are given a name. We walk through life with a strong attachment to it, as if something about those syllables revealed who we really are. We pick up many more names on the way. I...
The Logic of not eating meat
For many of us, the consumption of meat is an everyday occurrence, an activity woven into the fabric of our lives. It is just the way it is, and the way it always has been. It can be difficult to imagine what life would be like without it. This is,...
Journey to the Present
Life is suffering. This statement is widely recognised as the first of the four noble truths of Buddhism. The only thing is, it’s wrong. The Buddha never said it. The word he used to describe life was the Pali word “dukkha”. This word often is mistranslated as suffering, but...
Musings against god
My mother was having trouble opening a drawer. She pulled and pulled, but it wouldn’t budge. Frustrated, she yelled “Jesus!” and it finally opened. “Did you see that? Because I asked Jesus I was able to open it.” This didn’t impress me. “So what you are saying is...
On Radical Compassion
Hatred. Anger. Jealousy. These are all forms of suffering. These are all mental defilements. It is in your own interest to banish these demons from your mind. Even from a purely selfish point of view, it can be said that there are some emotions we would truly be better off...
How far we have come
There are two biases that seem to be affecting all of us for the worse, that I would like to bring to your attention. 1. The Availability Bias[1] We judge the likelihood of events and the state of affairs based on how easily we can recall the data. Think...
The Value of Evidence
“A fire-breathing dragon lives in my garage” “Show me,” you say. I lead you to my garage. You look inside and see a ladder, empty paint cans, an old tricycle–but no dragon. “Where’s the dragon?” you ask. “Oh, she’s right here,” I reply, waving vaguely. “I neglected...
Don't Stress
In life we come across a whole myriad of different kinds of situations, each requiring us to respond in different ways. Not knowing how to address the different vicissitudes of life is a cause for much of the difficulty in it. There isn’t a single clear cut solution to...
The Absolute Truth
Venkataraman was a seemingly ordinary sixteen year old. One day he found himself suddenly paralysed with a fear of death. He laid down on the floor of his uncle’s study convinced he was about to die. Instead of remaining terrified he asked himself; “Who was it that was about to die?"...
The Thousand Finger Garland
This is my rendition of an ancient tale. This is not the original story. I did not create the events in it.[1] There once lived a miserable man. He was profoundly dissatisfied with everything in his life. Nothing he tried to do, ever seemed to go right. No one...
What is Morality?
Where exactly do we draw the line between what we call good and what we call bad? What is it we hope to accomplish by walking a straight path in life? The purpose in this piece is to make the case, that morality is concerned with safeguarding the well being...
Truths about Beliefs
In this piece I want to demonstrate the following three propositions; 1. Our beliefs necessarily prevent or enable us to get what we value out of life. 2. We do not choose our beliefs. 3.Beliefs are unworthy of respect...
The Overrated Nature of "Nature"
When people use the word “nature” what they usually mean seems to be “things that happen without people doing things”. Notice something? Like how arbitrary it is. Why do we so quick to separate humans and nature as if they were two entirely separable things?...