*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* What is the right way to respond to the deaths of others? Should you be more loyal to your family or to your […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* Do our past mistakes work out for the best? What is the right way to die? And how can reading too many /r/gameofthrones Reddit threads […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* What is the nature of titles? What really drives evil? And is memory really what makes us human? This week, as the Night King’s […]
*SPOILER ALERT FOR GAME OF THRONES, OBVIOUSLY. Don’t listen to this if you haven’t watched the show!* We’re excited to be back podcasting on the philosophical themes of Game of Thrones, and the first episode of this final season brought great […]
Game of Thrones season 8 is almost here, which means conversation about the themes, characters, and plots of the show is about to come to a water cooler near you. Go ahead, geek out! I’m looking forward to being a fan […]
Some of us long for variety in our lives. We like reading new books, trying new kinds of skills, going to new places. We can’t stand the idea of being pigeonholed. We’re the kind of people psychologists would pin down […]
I have a burning hatred for the idea of the “guilty pleasure.” Oh, I understand the concept. You take pleasure from something for which you also feel guilty for enjoying – from watching YouTube cat videos to eating chocolate ice cream. But […]
Some words just have a magical quality. “To sell your soul is the easiest thing in the world. That’s what everybody does every hour of his life. If I asked you to keep your soul – would you understand why […]
As part of my Charity:Water campaign, I’m writing blog posts for people who contribute $25 or more to bring clean water to 23 people. You have a word/topic/question you want me to riff on? I’ll (probably) write it. This blog […]
“You either die a hero, or live long enough to see yourself become the villain.” – Harvey Dent, The Dark Knight What if I become evil? This is a great tragedy: to go through life struggling for the good only to become […]
Do you believe you’re free? Ask yourself how hard it would be for someone to enslave you – politically, emotionally, financially, physically, relationally, mentally. Do you have debt? We may no longer have debtor’s prisons, but for all intents and purposes, […]
Why be good? People have spilled a lot of ink on this one. And there are countless bad arguments (“god commands it!” or “society says so!”) as well as more good arguments than you might guess. Some are pretty simple […]
“For truly I tell you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see but did not see it, and to hear what you hear but did not hear it.” – Matthew 13:17 What if I told you […]
When’s the last time a short film punched you in the gut in a happy, beautiful sort of way? Enter “The Man and His Wife,” a silent film written and directed by my friend Levi Adkins*. The story (kept to […]
Have you ever wondered how our time will be remembered? You start to ask this question a lot if you’ve read a lot of history. The passage of time can either paint a positive or negative picture of how you and […]
Set aside the ethics of hunting itself, and you find that *within* the act of hunting, there’s a whole world of right and wrong. Tonight I sat in a tower stand for hours without seeing any activity from the deer population. […]
I was talking with some church friends last night about the frustrating cycle of history found in the Biblical stories. People turn to violence and injustice and fall to violence and injustice again and again, cycle after cycle. It’s really […]
I’m undertaking a new writing challenge: write one post a day for as many days as possible based on things at my desk. This is day 7 of that challenge. One of my favorite things about my company is the […]
The Milgram Experiment was a famous psychological experiment in which participants administered “shocks” to other humans under the direction of authoritative-looking “scientists” in lab coats. Long story short, the experiment found (much to the surprise of its creators) that the […]
There aren’t many physical places left in this world where philosophical conversations happen between philosophical opponents. The Internet has made it easy to hole up into our own echo chambers, or to get into shouting matches. It would seem there is […]
“Radical” is a scary word, but radicals are (fundamentally) just very consistent people. If they believe in a principle, they believe that it applies to the very root (“radix” – a Latin term) of things. If they believe in non-aggression as a […]
People love the idea of alternate universes. As big as the universe is, it seems we aren’t satisfied with things being just the way we are. We often want to know how things could have been different for us if […]
Some people and organizations feel they have to make a choice between idealism and dry pragmatism. There are a lot of reasons for this, but one of them is the false equivalency of idealistic behavior and ideological behavior. To be […]
WARNING: this post contains spoilers. “Whoever destroys a soul [of Israel], it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life of Israel, it is considered as if he saved an entire world.” – The Talmud One of the […]
SPOILER ALERT: If you haven’t seen the movie Saving Private Ryan, be warned that I’m about to reveal the ending. In Saving Private Ryan, a squad of Army Rangers led by Captain John Miller (played by Tom Hanks) sets off deep into […]
In my experience, most people do not recognize a moral dilemma if it hits them in the face. However we choose to label them, however, most of us face hard decisions about right and wrong at least several times a day. Given that we […]
A lot of young people toss their youthful optimism, playfulness, and their moral idealism out the window at a certain age because they believe that “wisdom” requires it. Now it’s true that in many cases wisdom requires us to surrender our […]
I want intentional friendships that are deep, reliable, and life-giving. To get those kinds of friendships, I need spend time with my friends that isn’t just “hanging out”. Here are four ways I’m building intentional friendships in my life right now: 1. Book club(s) […]
I’m a big believer that good mythology and stories can teach us how to live well. In the past year or so, that has led me to thinkers like Joseph Campbell and Jordan Peterson, who both have left a big mark on […]
It’s no shame to be shy, cautious, and careful. Yes, you might be unadventurous by temperament. But for the unadventurous, everything ventured becomes an adventure. You don’t have to have less courage. You’ll get to spend more time arm-in-arm with courage than the boldest. […]