Decide Who You Want to Be, Not What You Want to Do

Some skepticism about “one true callings” is in order, but I do think there’s a reason we have the notion of vocation, and I don’t think it’s all just idle imagination to think that there are better and worse ways to spend your years. However, I do think there’s a better way to find what the right way is. Instead of asking myself what I want to do with my life, I ask myself what kind of person I want to be.

The -Ism No One is Talking About.

Children are wild and free. This alone can be very triggering to some people, but they are and that is the truth of their biology. They are meant to move, explore, be rowdy, run around, test things, play, and be in connection with other people. And not just for a couple of hours blocked off every day, but all the time. They are meant to live it. The problem is not children, the problem is a society that makes no room for them to be who they are. 

When Does Tradition Become Tyranny?

Traditions emerge for a reason.  Society is impossible without them.  Traditions provide lenses, rules, norms, and expectations that help make sense of the world, harmonize competing aims and interests, provide stability, and enable long-term planning. But tradition can be tyrannical.  Traditions can oppress, restrict, stagnate, and destroy individuals and society. So where’s the line?  When does tradition become tyranny?

The Liberal Spirit and Its Opposite, Alt-Rightism

Maybe a few self-described libertarians cling to the idea that property is essentially about exclusion, but they are fated to hit a wall: liberalism is a spirit as well as a set of ideas, and it cannot be turned against itself. It fosters human solidarity, not separation. Libertarianism, like its precursor, is an answer to the question: under what conditions do reasoning social animals best flourish?  In answering that question the way it has, liberalism offers no home to sowers of division.