Intellectual Superiority Complex
Ivan Karamazov has lost his faith precisely because he has elevated himself above the people. In this case, “the people” are not necessarily peasants, but are what Ivan, a modern intellectual, is not: human beings…
One Kind Gesture
I am grateful to Gary Saul Morson, for his book that has engaged me over the last year, Wisdom Confronts Certainty, as well as many of his articles and essays. Thanks to Morson’s insights here…
Hold It All
Joseph Needham has described the unity of Chinese civilisation as organismic, with the various parts functioning like those of a living organism. We think of Confucianism, Taoism and Buddhism, and even of popular religion. These…
Fire/3
We are full of craving, always running after things. We want to become a director or president of a company, we want to buy a beautiful car or a nice house, or go on an…
Camerados
I swore an oath of eternal brotherhood with Yuan-ruo, and pledged him my everlasting allegiance, as an expression of my lifelong loyalty to him. Chinese people have always treated their friends with this sort of…
Kindred Spirits
Sometimes I feel overwhelmed. But I try to work one day at a time. If we just worry about the big picture, we are powerless. So my secret is to start right away doing whatever…
Don’t Be Swayed by External Circumstances
The great remedy which heaven has put in our hands is patience, by which, though we cannot lessen the torments of the body, we can in a great measure preserve the peace of the mind,…
Share the Wealth with Chris Wallach: Love to All
When my father died in 2011, I was given the box of letters he had written to his mother and father during WWII. Albert Whitney Wallach started writing on his way to Boot Camp…
Why Read, Why Write
Books without the knowledge of life are useless…for what should books teach but the art of living? —Dr. Samuel Johnson, A Johnson Sampler, edited by Henry Darcy Curwen, p. 44. The only end of writing…
Accept Loss Forever
Bo Juyi, On Hearing Someone Sing a Poem by Yuan Zhen No new poems his brush will trace;Even his fame is dead.His old poems are deep in dustAt the bottom of boxes and cupboards.Once lately,…