Good Living

If we want to understand and protect the values on which human life and liberty depend, we need clear understandings of the terms we use in thinking about them. Toward this end, it is helpful to understand the fallacy that Rand called “package-dealing” and the nature of what she called “anti-concepts.”

Living for Pleasure is a fun and much-needed introduction to the ideas of one of the world’s greatest philosophers. Epicurus’s teachings about reason, desire, and tranquility are as important now as they were twenty-three hundred years ago.

You may have heard of Virgin Atlantic, Virgin Mobile, or Virgin Galactic, but how much do you know about the mastermind behind all the Virgin companies—a man whose entrepreneurial spirit earned him the nickname Dr. Yes?

Superb literary tragedy induces in us unforgettable intellectual-emotional experiences of human error leading to the agonizing downfalls of even great (or formerly great) men. As philosophy, it does not tell but shows us in searing action many major errors to avoid if a flourishing life is our goal.

In Soul Celebrations and Spiritual Snacks, York draws our attention to two areas where many could benefit from focusing more and more regularly: the deep need for ongoing spiritual renewal—and numerous specific means by which to attain it.

Both Mike Rowe and Ayn Rand understand the necessity—and virtue—of personal responsibility. Their work offers powerful guidance for individuals to effect positive change in their own lives and beyond.

Most of us don’t know how or why music affects us the way it does, why we like the songs that we do. It’s the closest thing that we rational 21st-century people have to alchemy. But knowledge is power.

Including works by A. A. Milne, Thomas Paine, A. E. Housman, Paul Laurence Dunbar, Robert Frost, Edward Rowland Sill, Jon Hersey, and William Brighty Rands.

Wearing clothes we like serves an important psychological function: It enables us to experience and express our identity visually and tactilely. The more we consciously identify why we like certain clothes, the more we can choose those that best express our values—and the more pleasure and confidence we can gain from wearing them.

I recently spoke with Cal Newport about living the “deep life,” how our standard operating procedures are diminishing our ability to do meaningful work and what to do about it, and about what he’s learned from heroes such as Lincoln and Socrates about building a better world.