Amid the many things I hate about this pandemic, here’s one I love: watching a delicate new etiquette emerge. Here in western Massachusetts, we don’t just follow the CDC guidelines: we embrace them with a sense of humor and an air of courtesy. Sometimes we add a dash of panache. As a bottom line, we … Read More
Things are tough in the United States right now. According to the kind of motivational slogans people wear on t-shirts, when the going gets tough, the tough get going. They don’t falter. They don’t whine. They put on their game-face and rise to the challenge. Good for them. But what about the rest of us? … Read More
Here’s a great epigram I saw recently on a tee-shirt: … Read More
Medieval monks fought acedia, or sloth, while they chanted psalms for hours. Later, nineteenth-century philosophers sneered at ordinary people who found daily life boring. According to Nietzsche, “Is not life not a thousand times too short for us to bore ourselves?” According to Kierkegaard, “Boredom is the root of all evil—the despairing refusal to be … Read More