Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder
""Music," the trailblazing composer Julia Perry wrote, "has a unifying effect on the peoples of the world, because they all understand and love it... And when they find themselves enjoying and loving the same music, they find themselves loving one another." But there is something beyond humanistic ideology in this elemental truth --something woven into the very structure and sensorium of our bodie... posted on Jan 16 2023, 3,642 reads

Two Types of Heartbreak
"A disciple asks the rebbe: Why does Torah tell us to place these words upon your hearts? Why does it not tell us to place these holy words in our hearts? The rebbe answers: It is because as we are, our hearts are closed, and we cannot place the holy words in our hearts. So we place them on top of our hearts. And there they stay until, one day, the heart breaks and the words fall in. The following... posted on Jan 15 2023, 3,231 reads

Window of Possibility
"We call our galaxy the Milky Way. There are at least 100 billion stars in it and our sun is one of those. A hundred billion is a big number, and humans are not evolved to appreciate numbers like that, but heres a try: If you had a bucket with a thousand marbles in it, you would need to procure 999,999 more of those buckets to get a billion marbles. Then youd have to repeat the process a hundred t... posted on Jan 14 2023, 2,057 reads

The Just Listen Project
Toussaint Bailey, a "husband, father, son, brother, executive and Black man in America," like so many others, has experienced daily the pain of racism. His sense of rage, sadness and confusion became more prominent after overtly racist events of the past few years. Struggling with how to continue to function as a Black CEO in a nearly all white firm, he had for the first time an authentic, raw con... posted on Jan 13 2023, 1,724 reads

How to Question Your Own Decisions
"When the Nobel Prizewinning physicist Arno Penzias was asked what led to his success, he explained that he made a daily habit of asking what he called "the jugular question." Penzias said, The first thing I do each morning is ask myself, Why do I strongly believe what I believe? Penzias felt it was critical to constantly examine your own assumptions. And this is important to do whenever making de... posted on Jan 12 2023, 2,067 reads

Into the Middle of Nowhere
"This film captures the wonder of childhood as 3 to 5-year-olds explore and test the boundaries of reality through play and imagination at an outdoor nursery in Fife, Scotland."... posted on Jan 11 2023, 2,282 reads

Ikebana and the Jedi Model
"The Japanese traditional arts including ikebana have adopted the apprenticeship model [of the Jedi]. Once you enter the world of ikebana, you are trained under one certain master for at least several years and if the master thinks you are ready to be a master, which is called "shihan" in Japanese, the master recommends you to the board of masters which would approve you as shihan. If approved, yo... posted on Jan 10 2023, 2,076 reads

Growing Through the Cracks: A Conversation with Sachi Maniar
Over the past ten years, Sachi Maniar has nurtured breathing spaces for young people in the midst of profound intensity. When she first stumbled into the company of youth in conflict with the law, with runaway, orphaned and abandoned children, Sachi felt herself inexplicably at home. The work that blossomed from that feeling would eventually turn into a full-fledged organization that has now touch... posted on Jan 09 2023, 2,426 reads

Five Thoughts About Sacrifice
"Sacrifice zone is defined as a geographic area that has been permanently impaired by environmental damage, often through locally unwanted land use. Take, for example, the boreal forest surrounding Fort McMurray near the Athabasca River in Alberta, once an expanse of wetlands, bogs, and trembling-aspen and white-spruce forest hunting grounds for First Nations people and habitat to caribou, bears,... posted on Jan 08 2023, 1,669 reads

The Systems View of Life
"This essay is excerpted from The Systems View of Life: A Unifying Vision, by Fritjof Capra and Pier Luigi Luisi (2014, Cambridge University Press). The book integrates the ideas, models, and theories underlying the systems view of life into a single coherent framework, exploring its implications for a broad range of endeavors, from economics and politics to medicine, psychology, and law."... posted on Jan 07 2023, 1,763 reads