Two cavemen, Gronk and Thogg, were sitting on a rock ledge, overlooking the expanse of land that stretched before them. The afternoon sun was full and bright; not a cloud was in the sky. In the near distance, wildlife grazed or darted playfully to and fro. The warbled songs and stabbing calls of various birds … More Caveman Wisdom
Many Americans are convinced that the COVID pandemic is over. Thinking this way would be a mistake. I know because my wife contracted the virus at some point recently and tested positive on Friday of last week. Despite being fully vaccinated, she’s feeling quite unwell. As a result, I’ve moved into the front bedroom—the one … More All that Jazz
In a previous post, I mentioned that reliance on “providentialistic” views was one potential difficulty for present-day Stoics. Today I’ll explain this a bit. When I say “providentialistic” or “providentialism,” I’m referring to what theoretical discourses term “divine providence,” or perhaps more accurately, a belief in divine providence. In short, belief in divine providence is … More The Pitfall of Reliance on Providentialism
This post is going to appear like a major detour from my usual topics related to consciousness and enlightenment, but it does contain a little information related to the law of attraction. The law, which many persons may find questionable, or outright unbelievable, is that we bring about what we think about. This can also … More The Heart Always Wins
This past Saturday, I got up early because I had a Zoom meeting with a Pointless Overthinking colleague who lives on the other side of the planet. Despite my best efforts, I’d gotten up a touch late and was in a hurry to get breakfast eaten so I wouldn’t be tardy for our online rendezvous. … More It’s Not a Bug; It’s a Feature
An introduction to the Big Five Personality Model: How it developed, why it’s reliable and how to use it to understand yourself. … More The Big Five Personality Model: An Empirical Tool for Understanding Yourself
San Antonio, Texas, the city where I currently live, is located about eighty miles away from Uvalde, a town that has been in the news a lot in recent days. Unless you’ve been doing a Rip Van Winkle lately or are someone who lives outside the United States, I probably don’t need to tell you … More Uvalde, the State of the Electorate, and a Rant
I sometimes get the impression that Stoicism is often taken as, and practiced as if it were, a way to finally control everything, including our feelings. Yet this is quite incorrect. Stoicism is not about becoming able to control everything. It is about finally starting to begin to acknowledge that we don’t and can’t, and … More Note on acceptance, control, and Stoicism
I think one pitfall we tend to encounter, when we try to put Stoic teachings into practice, is that of becoming unfeeling, “like a stone.” I mentioned four such difficulties in a previous post. Here, I want to expand on this particular one. What this expression means, becoming or being “unfeeling like a stone,” is … More The pitfall wherein we become unfeeling
So, as I have mentioned more often than is dignified, I have a theater company. Specifically, an online theater company we started in 2020. We did well critically in our first season, but the opposite of well in terms of making any money. We were also really bad at even breaking even. Frankly, we weren’t … More Allow Me To Use This Space To Express My Opinion That I Have Too Many Spaces To Express My Opinions
The other day on a weekend I was trying to get my children out the door to go to the zoo. I looked over and both my children were lying on the floor near the back door looking at a lady bug. When was the last time you laid on the ground to look at … More The Lens We Look Through
I almost never have writer’s block, but I’ve had it recently. That’s at least partly a function of having published somewhere between 150 and 200 pieces on this website. Here’s the thing. Writer’s block does exist. It’s often a byproduct of mental fatigue. It can also be caused by what I’ll call “bad living.” In … More The Result of “Bad Living”
Not, of course, negative in the sense of bad or unpleasant. How could … More Happiness defined negatively?
Today, my aim is to engage in a little self-care. I’m not sure how this is going to turn out, but I’m certain of my purpose. I want to get a few things off my chest. I want to look at myself in a kind of metaphorical “mirror” and write about what I see when … More Finding My Way
Several days ago, I found myself sitting in a Zoom meeting at work. My mind was wandering, mostly because I wasn’t even for sure why I’d been invited to participate. An idea suddenly came to me, so I reached for the notebook I always keep at hand to capture writing topics when they come. The … More Troy’s Law of Complexification
Epicurus’ analysis of happiness is one my mind returns to periodically. … More Epicurus and Genuine Happiness
I come by conflict avoidance honestly. By that I mean it’s deeply steeped in my family history. I never heard my parents argue when I was growing up. Assuming that they did instead of just avoid all conflict, they must have done it entirely behind closed doors. As a Presbyterian pastor, my dear dad was … More Building Trust
There are great therapeutic benefits to writing backed by science, that’s why I have been writing a blog since 2017 and I am in good health 🙂 Before that I used to write a journal. I started writing two books, finished and published only one (it is in Italian, not a big success yet, only … More Writing is Good for Your Health
The Parable of the Second Arrow According to the Buddha, any time we suffer misfortune, two arrows fly our way. The first arrow is the bad event itself, which certainly can (and often does) cause pain. The second arrow is our reaction to the bad event, the suffering we attach to our pain. This secondary pain, he tells us, is … More Escaping the Emotional Rabbit Hole
When you feel so tired … More When you feel so tired