More day to dawn: Recent Episodes
Phil Oliver
Reflections in the spirit of Henry Thoreau ("Only that day dawns to which we are awake. There is more day to dawn. The sun is but a morning star." ) and William James ("the really vital question for us all is, What is this world going to be? What is life eventually to make of itself?").
Blogging at jposopher.blogspot.com and delightsprings.blogspot.com, tweeting @osopher.
"Write it on your heart that every day is the best day of the year,” and get on with it."
There's an intellectual form of self-neutering that's worse, in some ways, than the tragedy of Abelard and Heloise.
Our fourth and final Lifelong Learner's Happiness class at MTSU will glean the wisdom of Montaigne, Hume, James, Russell, Csikszentmihalyi, and Jennifer Michael Hecht. "Hang a sign that says HOME on a tree and you're done." And, Dr. Seuss: "Don't cry because it's over, smile because it happened.”
In search of Reality itself, we might do better to focus on lower-case realities like a well-pitched softball game or a World Series championship.
"The struggle itself toward the heights is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy."
Seneca, Stoics, Schopenhauer - if your "deeper nature" isn't happy enough, can you change it?
Looking at "This I Believe," and the conviction of some of us that the best philosophy comes from "feet on the ground."
Looking back at last year's Opening Day of the academic season, as this year's approaches.
In anticipation of a new academic year, reflections on why and how we play this college game and a tip to take the time YOU need to get what college can give you.
2d installment of the Springs project, a slow-read recording of "William James's 'Springs of Delight'-the Return to Life" (Vanderbilt Press, 2001), read by author Phil Oliver.
Wordsworth, Thoreau, and "the simple pleasures of a stroll"-close as we'll come to immortality.