It has taken me nearly 32 years of living, but I’m finally coming to fully appreciate the importance of stillness. Just being. Doing nothing. When I start class, students are invited to participate in a mindful breathing meditation. When I drive home from work now, the radio is turned off. I’ve even begun practicing a simple breathing exercise for 15 minutes a day. So far, count me in as someone who believes in the power of mindfulness, which is covered in depth in this story from The Atlantic. For fifteen… Read more Creating Time and Space for Just Being. →
I’ll be the first one to admit it: I value financial security and material comfort, I save for retirement, and I sometimes worry about finances. But after reading Ben Hewitt’s book Saved: How I Quit Worry About Money and Became the Richest Guy in the World, I’ve been inspired to blog. Like Bill McKibben’s Deep Economy, the text challenged me to ponder just how unsustainable the modern paradigm of constant corporate and economic growth is, urging us to examine what it means to be wealthy. Let’s consider community, time,… Read more Wealth As Community, Time, and Freedom →
I’m not sure when I realized a determination to continue to learn and do things that do not actively require a digital screen. This desire to be present and… Read more What Do You Do Without A Screen? →
In 1994, when I was 13 years old, I did what I suspect many 13 year-old boys might do. I snuck into my younger sister’s room, found her colorfully-bound private… Read more Would You–Or Do You–Monitor Your Child’s Digital Activity? →
As much as I love being online, blogging, Tweeting, and the like, I don’t like how demanding it feels sometimes. How, if I don’t write a captivating post or send… Read more Maintaining a Blogging Presence, Catalysts, and Inspiration →
I strolled through the Vrijdagmarkt in Ghent, Belgium, last Sunday morning, still slightly hungover from a sprawling bike scavenger hunt through the city the previous day. A veteran farmer with white… Read more Europe, 10 Years Later: In the Moment →
I like the feeling of being in a different place, traveling and exploring where slight discomfort and the need to discover language, food, colloquialisms, and public transit, among other things,… Read more Dispatch from Oxford →
I awoke this morning to feed and water my hens, only to find two of them mangled by an unknown assassin. Both heads were missing. There was no sign of… Read more Why I Can’t Romanticize The Lives Of Our Chickens →
What kind of crazy society would allow—and nourish—such a ridiculous manufactured landscape? Do we desire vacations to escape or embrace consumer culture? Or both? “Our ability to shut the destroyed… Read more Nature and Manufactured Landscapes: A Quintessentially American Vacation? →
Paul Barnwell 