Uncategorized - The Right Way to Flourish

In Passing–Thomas Berry

June 6, 2009No Comments

Today’s newspapers carry the [obituary](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/04/us/04berry.html) of Thomas Berry. No one has been more articulate and evocative about sustainability, even though he rarely used that word. Ordained as a Catholic monk in 1942, Berry left the isolation of the monastery to take up an academic career, teaching at a number of leading Catholic universities. But it is his writing that will be his most important legacy. In *The Dream of the Earth*, Berry tells of the power of nature to nurture spirituality in human beings, but also warned against the loss of that same “nature” to the forces of modernity. He… Read More

M(u)alling Over the Future of Shopping

June 4, 20091 Comment

Malls are, perhaps, the most obvious symbol of consumption in the US. Allison Arieff, in her [By Design blog](http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/), [reports on the recent convention](http://arieff.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/06/01/rethinking-the-mall/) of the International Council on Shopping Centers. > At the 2009 International Council on Shopping Centers convention held in Las Vegas last month, pedestrian-oriented development was not top of mind (though in a 3.2 million-square-foot convention center, walking was a defining part of the experience). Despite a nearly 50 percent drop in attendance from prior years, most talk at ICSC was of how business as usual could resume once “things came back.” > The addictive nature… Read More

GM and Sustainabiity

June 2, 2009No Comments

Again I go to David Brooks for the theme of today’s post. [Brooks’ column](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/02/opinion/02brooks.html?_r=1&ref=opinion) was all about the GM bankruptcy and the quagmire that it has become for all those who have to deal with it. But that’s not all of what I saw in the article. Brooks has focused on the culture at GM as the cause of the quagmire and infers that none of the steps that are being taken will do much to change it. > Bureaucratic restructuring won’t fix the company. Clever financing schemes won’t fix the company. G.M.’s core problem is its corporate and workplace… Read More

Being in Philadelphia

June 1, 2009No Comments

Once again, the NYTimes [“Happy Days” blog](http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/) has a great story about what **being** is all about. Philosopher and shrinks talk about being and happiness, but the place to find either is out there in real life. Linh Dinh, a writer living in Philadelphia, authored [today’s column.](http://happydays.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/05/31/get-together-slim-down/?ref=opinion) The lines that I found most illuminating were these coming after a lot of talk about the seamy side of Philly. > Economically, my life is one long depression, punctuated by rare episodes of relative affluence, which to me is the cash to buy any entrée costing more than 10 bucks. But am… Read More

Moving to a New Server

May 31, 2009No Comments

For the next few days, I will be unable to post new material. The site may become unavailable for a short period. I should be back in full swing by mid-week. Everything you need to link to the site stays the same.

Continuous Partial Attention

May 31, 2009No Comments

I have become much more conscious lately of the omnipresence of Blackberries, iPhones, and other smart phones. (Disclosure, although I am a techie in most realms, I still hold on to my most basic cellphone, in spite of all sorts of incentives to upgrade.) Couple this awareness to the many articles on the web discussing, extolling, and critiquing the use of Twitter, and I land squarely on Linda Stone’s concept of continuous partial attention. Here’s what she says about it. > To pay continuous partial attention is to pay partial attention — CONTINUOUSLY. It is motivated by a desire to… Read More

Try Living Without Emotion

May 29, 20091 Comment

The hubbub over Judge Sotomayor centers as much on her mental processes as it does on her legal positions. Fueled by the remarks of the President stating that he was looking for Justices that could put themselves in the shoes of others and by his use of the word, empathy, a few earlier remarks of Sotomayor’s has created a firestorm. Credit David Brooks with [writing his column](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/29/opinion/29brooks.html) arguing for a sensible way of understanding empathy and the role of emotion in the way we think and act. If you can put the immediate political context of this subject aside for… Read More

Be Careful with Adaptation

May 27, 20091 Comment

In Environment 360, the Yale Environmental Journal, Bruce Stutz [writes about adaptation](http://e360.yale.edu/content/feature.msp?id=2156) as an increasingly legitimate response to global warning. The begrudging acceptance of this strategy reflects a growing beliefs that we are moving too late to prevent significant temperature rise along with all its consequences. > “My view is that we’ll be lucky if we can stop CO2 at 600 ppm,” says Wallace Broecker, a geoscientist at Columbia University’s Earth Institute. “There’s no way we’re going to stop at 450. Impossible. If we’re going to double CO2, we’d better prepare what we’re going to do about it.” > >… Read More

Finding Happiness Under a [Philosopher’s] Stone

May 26, 2009No Comments

A few days ago, I started to follow a blog in the New York Times called *Happy Days*. My first [post](http://www.johnehrenfeld.com/2009/05/happiness-continued.html#comments) features an article by Daniel Gilbert about how people react to uncertainty. The bloggers at the Times publish articles that look at how people are finding or not finding contentment in their lives under today’s difficult circumstances. While contentment does not equate exactly to flourishing, it suggests the same sort of positive reflections. Enough of what I have read in the column so far depicts a realization that contentment is not tied to having, but rather to Being. *Happy… Read More

. . . and the Art of Motorcycle Mechanics

May 25, 2009No Comments

Every so often, I read something that reminds me that I can’t quite shake off my academic leanings when I write. Today I ran across just such an article in the NYTimes Sunday Magazine section. In many fewer and more evocative words, “[The Case for Working With Your Hands](http://www.nytimes.com/2009/05/24/magazine/24labor-t.html?_r=2&ref=todayspaper&pagewanted=all),” by Matthew B. Crawford captures much of the concept of Being that I was painfully able to write about. Crawford turned his back on a hard-earned Ph. D. to become a motorcycle mechanic and in doing so found a deep satisfaction that was missing from his short career in the “information/knowledge”… Read More