Ancient Stories
My point, once again, is not that those ancient people told literal stories and we are now smart enough to take them symbolically, but that they told them symbolically and we are now dumb enough to take them literally.
John Dominic Crossan
The Pagan Christ: Recovering the Lost Light
Tom Harpur
First Things First
Take your time, don’t rush. Some problems are harder than others. Deal with the ones right in front of you first. Come back to the others later.
Right Things, Right Now
The process is about doing the right things, right now — not worrying about what might happen later, or the results, or the whole picture.
The Obstacle is the Way
Ryan Holiday
The Present Moment
The present moment is the only dimension of existence worth inhabiting, because it’s the only one available to us — the past is no longer and the future has yet to come. Yet we live virtually all of our lives somewhere between memories and aspirations, nostalgia and expectation. Greek philosophers looked upon the past and future as the source of all anxieties which tarnish the present.
A Life Worth Living
We imagine we would be much happier with things like new shoes, a faster computer, a bigger house, more exotic holidays, different friends. However, by regretting the past and guessing the future, we end up missing the only life worth living — the one which proceeds from the here and now and deserves to be savored.
A Brief History of Thought
Luc Ferry
Our Place in the Universe
Modern astronomy has given us a perspective on our place in the universe. Life is a fragile development in an air pocket on the surface of Earth, a small planet revolving around a minor star in a galaxy of trillions of stars in a world of billions of galaxies.
Competing Agendas
Our fate is intertwined with our planetary air pocket and the life that shares it. Within the “small space” many competing agendas bump up against each other — species against species, group against group, individual against individual.
Importance of Life
If humans are important, it is because we are important to ourselves. And, if life is important, it is because life is important to us.
Staying Sane in a Crazy World
Sherwin Wine
The Enlightenment was the prelude to modern times, and boldly challenged religious establishments. Beginning in the 17th century, the Enlightenment philosophers abandoned piety and proclaimed the supremacy of Reason.
Descartes and Spinoza, Hobbes and Leibniz changed the rules of intellectual discourse. The dialogue was now secular. Appeals to the Bible and to Church doctrine gave way to Truth, which stood on the pillars of intuition and evidence.
Staying Sane in a Crazy World
Sherwin Wine
Who Knows Anyhow? 