Almost Composed

Meditation and curiosity

What would Marcus Aurelius tweet?

October 6, 2021

For my sins, I recently stumbled back onto Twitter. The first casualty of social media is peace of mind—but since I’m also reading about stoicism, which places tranquility as the highest good, I’ve resolved not to use social media to amplify messages of distress and outrage. And boosting these messages is something I used to […]

categories: essays, philosophy

Personal computing

September 9, 2021

I have conflicted feelings about computers. As a boy, I loved nature and playing in the garden more than anything. I thought computers were sinister, inherently bad, maybe even evil. Then, around 1990, my parents bought my brother and I an Amiga 500. At first, I was disappointed. What did I want with a computer […]

categories: essays, reflections

Urgency to live

August 25, 2019

How should we live, considering that human history–as we’ve known it so far–may be coming to an end? If the ice caps melt, if the Amazon burns, if the world becomes a hot and desperate place we will lose the narrative of progress and security upon which our choices and values are based. What is […]

categories: essays, reflections

Thoughts on consciousness

June 11, 2019

If we believe that consciousness is the only ground of meaning and value (i.e. a universe without any conscious beings to experience it might as well not exist) then three conclusions may follow. 1) There would be nothing more worthwhile doing than enriching the conscious experience of self and others through activities like philosophy, meditation, […]

categories: philosophy, reflections

The Story of Stuff

July 27, 2015

The Story of Stuff is a powerful indictment of consumerism. In twenty minutes it paints a horrific picture of the planet-stripping supply chain that furnishes us with ephemeral gizmos. For instance, did you know that for every binload of recycling you put out, there are 70 bins of waste produced further up the chain? Most astonishing is […]

categories: reflections