When I was in high school my philosophy teacher, Mr. Linn (yes, I had a philosophy teacher in high school) told me that the quote, “To be is to be seen” is attributed to Jean Paul Sartre. At least I think he said it was Sartre, I might be mis-remembering. I could look it up, […]
Love without reward
Here’s a quote I found that is attributed (I hope rightly) to the Jewish/French philosopher Emmanuel Levinas: “Faith is not a question of the existence or non-existence of God. It is believing that love without reward is valuable.” Recently I’ve been thinking a lot about spirituality. For the purposes of this post let’s say that […]
Refusing to see
So I’ve been watching “Empire” on Fox. Not in real time, but on Hulu. And I’ve got to admit. So far it’s been a pleasure. A guilty pleasure, but a pleasure nonetheless. There are lots of story lines woven throughout the show. One of them has to do with a father’s unwillingness (inability?) to accept […]
Lead like the great conductors
As a musician I believe that music is a great teacher. The lessons that musicians are able to learn through music, if they’re willing to learn them, go far beyond the mechanics of playing any particular instrument. In this, one of my favorite TED Talks, Israeli conductor, Itay Talgam, studies the conducting styles of several […]
Learning joy
I recently attended a conference and found myself sitting next to someone. We instantly hit it off. During our time together he made a comment about how he had learned to find and experience joy. At first glance joy seems like something that we don’t have to learn. It seems like something that just washes […]
Open questions
Here’s my bias: I think it’s good to be open. I think that openness is a fundamental posture that human beings can assume to matters of ultimate concern. We can and should have open eyes, open minds, open hearts, open arms, open homes, and open doors. Being open is better than being closed– always and […]