Wisdom for Lonely Times – Musings from Missoula
As a graduate student from the University of Montana in Missoula, traveling twice to England for degrees, and later as a college professor traveling first to India and then Hong Kong, I have had a lot of experience traveling away from friends and family. Each time I went overseas, I went essentially alone. And while the thrill of a new adventure kept me going for at least a few days
Finding Direction with the 3 P’s: Place, People, and Purpose – Musings from Missoula
When I was in college in Missoula, my favorite philosophy professor, Albert Borgmann, offered this bit of advice for a happy life: find a place that you love, with people you love, doing work that you love. These three factors of happiness can also be simplified as place, people, and purpose. Often when life is going poorly, we can sit down and look at these three for a few moments
The Power of Self-Therapy – Musings from Missoula
On that show “Alone”, they take people and drop them out into the wilderness with nothing but a bowie knife and a toothbrush. They don’t include toothpaste, so the contestants are forced to used black charcoal instead. My wife and I never miss an episode, and we’re not even hunters. I think it’s because we’re constantly picking up life tips. For example, self-talk. They say that before a person makes
Art as Therapy – Musings from Missoula, MT
It’s hard being a musician. Or any artist, really. You have more of a chance of being hit by lightning than you do of succeeding. And yet, us musicians and artists carry on. May I say, it helps if you’re one of the lucky few who are born at the right time and in the right environment. Remember Malcolm Gladwell’s “Outliers”? In that great book, we learned that Bill Gates
Celebrating Big Inclusion – Musings in Missoula
I have been a Buddhist and practicing meditator for over 20 years now. More than half of my life here in Missoula. For much of that time, the metta sutta and metta-bhavana (cultivation of loving-kindness) have been at or near the heart of my practice. Other practices, such as mindfulness of breathing, can be a wonderful adjunct to this central practice. For you, or other meditators, mindfulness might be the central practice.
Happy Stoic, Happy Buddha
One of the greatest parts of studying ancient thought is finding that many traditions, separated by centuries and sometimes oceans and mountains, could come to similar conclusions on important matters. Both Stoicism in ancient Greece and Buddhism in India and beyond had many similar ideas about finding happiness. This fact, along with the universal power of science, has helped shape me into a philosophical naturalist, meaning that I see truths