Book Notes I have already mentioned this book and Seth Godin a few times in this blog so I am overdue to write notes about the first book I read this year. …

Josh Waitzkin Interview Josh Waitzkin does not do many interviews. He was the subject of the book and movie, Searching for Bobby Fischer and, after years of fame, he is now a private person. He is a chess and martial arts champion, and now trains a handful of finance industry execs for peak…

Professor George W. Bergstrom Jr. I meditate every morning after I floss and brush my teeth. Sometimes, I use apps to discover new teachers and today I opted for the guided Daily Dose meditation in Ten Percent Happier titled See Yourself Compassionately with Jess Morey who I had never sat with before. Jess guided us…

Relentlessly Refining Daily Tasks My dishwasher organizing skills have reached a level of sophistication during the pandemic that I am confident is world-class. I can endure your snickering; it’s ok. Don’t misunderstand me though. …

Accepting My Desire to Quit I’ve been tempted to break the social contract to which I committed in my first post to continue posting at least once a week this year. …

By Amanda Gorman No modern poetry has affected me more than Amanda Gorman’s poem at the Inauguration. It’s an art form that I have overlooked for at least 15 years. Poetry so often feels like the poet is trying too hard to be deep. …

Lessons from Buddhist philosophy I’ve been studying Zen Buddhist theory for the past six months. The philosophies seem based on a scientific understanding of the mind that align with modern neuroscience theories. One of the precepts that I think of often admonishes us not to intoxicate ourselves. Reb Anderson describes intoxication in Being Upright…

From my home kitchen For years, I and groups of friends hosted weekly dinner parties. I cooked whatever recipes looked interesting from that week’s NYT food section (some of which are now available in the NYT cookbook). It was daunting and gratifying, in success and failure, to cook elaborate meals created by renowned chefs…

Lessons on science, politics and ourselves Google News highlighted an interview that it thought I would like related to the Oumuamua (pronounced “oh moo ah moo ah”) interstellar object that was detected in 2017, passed through our solar system, and then sped away unexpectedly quickly. It was predictable that I would be interested. …