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Do Sandy’s storm clouds have a silver lining?
This morning I heard a radio interview with a resident of one of New York’s storm-ravaged towns. It’s been more than a week since Sandy swept through the eastern seaboard, and locals are just starting to process the long-term implications of this natural disaster. It will be months and months before many homes and businesses are restored, and some communities will never again be the same. Yet this man concluded the interview with this thought: New Yorkers will learn from this experience, he said, and it will make us stronger. Make us stronger.
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Pounds of Personality
It's November, which means that Thanksgiving is rapidly approaching—and with it the season of temptation. Beginning with the giblet gravy and ending with the New Year’s Eve champagne toast, the weeks ahead will add a pound of weight to the typical American—a pound that will rarely be lost. That means steadily expanding waistlines as we move from young adulthood into middle age and beyond. But some people won’t follow this trend. Some are conscientious and disciplined and know where to draw the line on indulging, while others seem to lack control of their impulses and desires.
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Wealth and the 47 percent: An ancient debate
The first two debates of this presidential campaign have left little doubt about the central political and philosophical issue dividing the country today. The candidates have all drawn a bright line between the two parties on the issue of wealth, and how much we as a society should share it. Should we tax the haves to help out the have-nots, or let only the fittest thrive in a Darwinian struggle? This core idea shapes policy positions on Social Security, government health care programs, student loans, veterans’ benefits, and more. But it basically comes down to what’s called redistribution. Republicans think redistribution is a dirty word, a handout for the feckless 47 percent.
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Rx for Sisyphus: Take two Tylenol…
For the French philosopher and writer Albert Camus, the Greek myth of Sisyphus perfectly captured the human condition. Sisyphus was condemned to a life of meaningless activity—pushing a boulder up a hill again and again and again, without purpose or accomplishment. If the miscreant king had any hope of finding meaning in this existence, it had to come from inside him. This is the existential condition, as philosophers have described it from the 19th century on. Understanding the absurdity of it—and understanding that one is personally responsible for making life meaningful—can be a source of overpowering anxiety and unease—what philosophers have called existential dread.
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The Coattails Phenomenon: Getting Character From Others
My high school classmate Tom Gordon was everyone’s choice for least-likely-to-succeed. He drank too much and drove too fast, and got busted for petty theft again and again. He skipped school as often as he showed up, and was too undisciplined for sports or other organized activities. When he did get hired for part-time jobs, he’d either quit or get himself fired soon after. He was a loser. So imagine my bewilderment when I ran into Tom (whose name I have changed) some years later. He was sitting in a local diner, drinking coffee and reading several newspapers, including the Wall Street Journal.
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The Retirement Game
Retirement is an odd notion when you think of it, and a modern one in the scheme of human history. For our ancestors, the idea that you had earned enough money for one lifetime, that it was okay to stop working and enjoy the fruits of your labor—would have been incomprehensible. Indeed, until quite recently the deal was: You worked, you used what you had earned, and then you worked some more. Then you died. This is still true for way too many of the world’s people, who continue to live hand to mouth. But there are also many more people—and a growing number every year—who don’t really have to work anymore, but do, who forgo the leisure of their golden years to earn yet more money.
