A New Year in ancient Babylon. The particulars of the ceremonial pomp may be different, but the idea of a new year is the same. A look at the humbling of the king and what the coming of a new year means for us today. With quotes from Hal Borland, T. S. Eliot & more.
What is our role? Like actors gracing the stage, every day we wake to a role; or to be more accurate, various roles. Quotes from Shakespeare, Herbert & more.
Get out of your own way. Once the obstruction is released there is life that will flow. And this is the truth. Life still exists beyond what hinders us. With quotes from Tolstoy, Descartes, Schuller & Seneca.
In Letter XXVIII of ‘Letters from a Stoic’, Seneca discusses the fallacy surrounding travel; what it achieves, and what it simply can’t. “A change of character, not a change of air, is what you need.”
Fatalism is a dead-end road and enthusiasm isn’t something we can ever afford to abandon. With quotes from Bishop Doane, R.W Emerson, D. Carnegie & F. Guizot.
If we supposedly have all the answers, what kind of relationship can we have with the inexplicable or the mysterious? Rainer Maria Rilke discusses possibility in the unknown and danger in the absolute.
In late 1902, a young officer cadet began corresponding with poet Rainer Maria Rilke. ‘Letters to a Young Poet’ is a collection of Rilke’s letters to the young aspiring writer. In Letter No. 8, Rilke addresses the transformative nature of sadness.
Marcus Aurelius was once the most powerful man on earth- a Roman Emperor. ‘Meditations’ reveals ‘The Philosopher’; a king concerned with being a good man. Including quotes from Meditations.
In recent history, the virtue of temperance has been associated with strict asceticism. A joyless lifestyle, filled with self-deprivation and suppression. But temperance was never meant to be an extreme. When we look further back in time, we find its essence and purpose. Quotes from Aristotle, Aquinas, Seneca & more.
And to the wounded- there will be further battles, but we shouldn’t live in fear of returning to the trenches. Quotes from Aristotle, Keats, Lewis & Chapin.