Walk

Walk: Rediscover the Most Natural Way to Boost Your Health and Longevity―One Step at a Time https://a.co/d/08o3aTF4

every day

“One ought, every day at least, to hear a little song, read a good poem, see a fine picture, and, if it were possible, to speak a few reasonable words.” — Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

Vitalism

"...The celebration of animal spirits can descend into triviality or worse — a fascist cult of violence. But it has more serious and valuable meanings as a reverence for life itself, as well as a broader connection with the recognition that the universe is alive. As a way of being in the world, vitalism has inspired thinkers from Walt Whitman to William James to Aldo Leopold. Not to mention Ludwig Wittgenstein, who sought to cultivate “the experience of seeing the world as a miracle.”
...
https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/01/opinion/donald-trump-animal-spirits.html?smid=em-share

Stewart Brand, Maintenance: Of Everything - The Ezra Klein Show

At 87, Stewart says, self-maintenance is nearly a full-time job. 

Stewart Brand might be the most influential philosopher of the internet – at least in its more idealistic era. In the 1960s, Brand was the central bridge figure between the San Francisco counterculture and the emerging technology scene. He created the legendary Trips Festival with Ken Kesey in 1966, and was there at “the mother of all demos” in 1968. And he created and edited the Whole Earth Catalog, which Steve Jobs called “one of the bibles of my generation” and “Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along.” 

Brand has seen Silicon Valley evolve in the decades since. And along the way, he has written many brilliant books about our relationship to technology, the built environment and the natural world. His latest book is “Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One.” 

In this conversation, we discuss everything from dropping acid to the genesis of the Whole Earth Catalog, what he thinks A.I. will reveal about humanity, the 40 years he’s spent living on a tugboat and the importance of maintenance in a culture that prizes novelty and disposability.

Mentioned:

Ezra is moderating a forum on housing and affordability with some of the top California gubernatorial candidates. The event is on Friday, May 8, in Oakland, CA. You can buy tickets here. Use the code EKSHOWfor 20 percent off your order.

Maintenance: Of Everything, Part One by Stewart Brand

“We Didn’t Ask for This Internet” with Cory Doctorow and Tim Wu, The Ezra Klein Show

I And Thou by Martin Buber

Book Recommendations:

The Beginning of Infinity by David Deutsch

The Perfectionists by Simon Winchester

The Scottish Enlightenment by Arthur Herman

https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-ezra-klein-show/id1548604447

Annie Dillard

Today is the birthday of Annie Dillard (books by this author), born in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania (1945). She began writing poetry in high school, and then studied English in college. After writing a master's thesis on Thoreau's Walden, she moved to a cabin in Virginia's Blue Ridge Mountains. There she wrote poetry and also kept a daily journal of her observations of nature and her thoughts about God and religion. She wrote in old notebooks and on four-by-six-inch index cards, and when she was ready to transform the journal into a book, she had 1,100 entries. "By the time I finished the book, I weighed about 98 pounds," Dillard said. "I never went to bed. I would write all night until the sun was almost coming up."

The result, Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, was published in 1974, and Annie Dillard received her first literary award the following year: the Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction. She was only 29 years old. She has published collections of essays and of poetry, as well as an autobiography… When it comes to writing, she says: "Appealing workplaces are to be avoided. One wants a room with no view, so imagination can meet memory in the dark."

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/the-writers-almanac-for-thursday-april-30-2026/

Feynman on walking

The Only Exercise Your Body Was Actually Designed For https://youtu.be/Uo8qxQY2T0U?si=HRvHWqMBFS7yWoHi

Trollope’s unalloyed habit

It’s the 211th birthday of Victorian novelist Anthony Trollope (books by this author), born in London in 1815. His father, Thomas, was a hot-tempered barrister who had trouble keeping a job, and the family frequently had money troubles as a result. Anthony went to a prestigious public school, but it was readily apparent that, unlike most of his classmates, he wasn’t rich, and he was bullied by students and teachers alike.

As a young man, he got a job as a postal clerk, but earned a reputation for insubordination and tardiness. He resolved to turn his life around when he was offered a transfer to Ireland in 1841, and his fortunes did indeed change: the cost of living was lower there, so he was able to enjoy a sense of prosperity, traveling more and taking up fox hunting, which he loved. His job took him all over the country, and he enjoyed the working-class Irish people, finding them more clever and hospitable than their English counterparts. And he began writing novels on his long train rides, occasionally raiding the “lost letter” box for ideas. In 1859, he transferred back to England, wanting to be within easy reach of London now that he was an established author. He remained with the Post Office for 33 years, rising to a fairly senior position, and he is credited with developing the pillar-style post box, which has since become a British classic.

He was most disciplined as a writer, getting up at 5:30 every day to write for three hours before he went to the office, and wrote in his autobiography: “Three hours a day will produce as much as a man ought to write. But he should so have trained himself that he shall be able to work continuously during those three hours — so have tutored his mind that it shall not be necessary for him to sit nibbling his pen and gazing at the wall before him, till he shall have found the words with which he wants to express his ideas.” Trollope wrote 47 novels, dozens of short stories, and a few travel books. He created the fictional county of Bartsetshire, and set several novels there. His most famous book, The Way We Live Now (1875), is a scathing 100-chapter satire of English greed. He was, and remains, one of England’s most popular authors.

He said: “The habit of reading is the only one I know in which there is no alloy. It lasts when all other pleasures fade. It will be there to support you when all other resources are gone. It will be present to you when the energies of your body have fallen away from you. It will make your hours pleasant to you as long as you live.”

https://www.garrisonkeillor.com/radio/the-writers-almanac-for-friday-april-24-2026/

Earth rise 1968

https://www.nytimes.com/video/opinion/100000010851813/in-1968-they-saw-earth-from-the-moon-for-the-first-time.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

The human-canine social contract

… Human beings have been looking affectionately at dogs for thousands of years — and dogs have been looking back with the same devotion. That’s the subject of a handsome work of scholarship by Thomas W. Laqueur called The Dog’s Gaze: A Visual History (forthcoming June 2, just before Father’s Day). In this lavishly illustrated book, filled with color reproductions of paintings and photographs, Laqueur explores how dogs sit, stay, and roll over in Western art — from paintings by Titian, Rembrandt, and Winslow Homer to images from the modern era. Of course, these animals are often symbols of loyalty or faithfulness, but further examination shows their iconography to be as rich and varied as the genealogy of a Schnoodle-Pomski-Chuggle-Malshipoo. “Dogs appear in art as part of a social contract,” Laqueur writes. “They see us, and we see them; and we engage with the world together.” … Ron Charles https://open.substack.com/pub/roncharles/p/what-dogs-see-what-we-see-in-them?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios

A “great” moment in Fantasyland

https://substack.com/@kurtbandersen/note/c-244368359?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

If only…

“Planet Earth: you are a crew.” https://www.threads.com/@amullen010/post/DXAZsdVCJ_I?xmt=AQF0hawIfoJLxxxeV1KEnbll8-U7XsbdVhVnOffS6gaPo2L1IuXgp4xP27mi58rj7Jdr2uE&slof=1

Artemis launch from the air

https://www.threads.com/@mollymagee011/post/DWq3H9QDnfo?xmt=AQF0a6zRiaPDaGgsNVLixGSo5Rq36d5B-xDxaocA6aocTSak8hdLWG6zOj_kAThQ8BldfNhS&slof=

Opening Day!

https://www.threads.com/@horns98/post/DWVUmaIk6ZG?xmt=AQF0xSem_VY0I5I5hyJvAgWdPiL-IeRtxVP4R5hBa6DPJHAE9BUq7zivgOxV68-FW12NCijM&slof=1

I Am An American Philosopher: Phil Oliver – Society for the Advancement of American Philosophy

https://american-philosophy.org/i-am-an-american-philosopher-interview-series/i-am-an-american-philosopher-phil-oliver/

Librarians on the front lines defending 1st amendment

RCLS library director refuses to comply with board's book restrictions; faces disciplinary action or termination on March 30

Rutherford County Library System (RCLS) director Luanne James emailed members of the RCLS board on Wednesday, March 18, stating her refusal to comply with the board's March 16 vote to restrict access to more than 100 children's books. A copy of that email was obtained through an open records request by the library advocacy group Rutherford County Library Alliance. It is included below as a PDF.

Luanne James's email to RCLS Board - 18 March 2026

417KB ∙ PDF file

Download

RCLS chair Cody York has scheduled a special board meeting for March 30 to discuss disciplinary action for Ms. James. The Daily News Journal reports that York said, "As chair, I believe this matter warrants serious disciplinary consideration, up to and including termination." The special-called meeting will take place at 5 p.m. at the Rutherford County Historic Courthouse. It will be open to the public.

https://open.substack.com/pub/indecentlibraries/p/rcls-library-director-refuses-to?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web

“don’t die of philosophy”

"What we can be certain of in science is not its metaphysical assumptions but its physical achievements; the steamship, the airplane, and public sanitation are a little more real than this effervescence of test tubes into philosophy. Take a night flight over New York, and feel the reckless courage and power of these machines called men; accept without apology the thrill of peril and speed; rejoice over the realities of science, and smile at its transcendental theories.

There is no knowable limit to what this trousered ape will do with his multiplying discoveries; doubtless he will some day throw his engines around the stars, and deport his criminals to Betelgeuse. If you insist upon dying, undertake tasks of some danger and use in adding to these discoveries; risk yourself in medical or mechanical experiment, and give some significance to your life and death. But whatever you do, don't die of philosophy."

— On the Meaning of Life by Will Durant (1931)
https://a.co/08F4flqL

(The author was writing to a man who'd threatened suicide after reading Herbert Spencer's " mechanical philosophy… a relic of his mid-Victorian simplicity")

Santayana’s joy

"It was Spring. The warm sunshine and soft breezes were trying to lure students away from their classes. Santayana was seated at his desk reading to his students. His listeners were sitting, or reclining, in various attitudes of inattention. Santayana's voice trailed off, his eyes traveled over his students, and fixed themselves on a tree which grew outside the window. Its leaves were small and tender, and of the green green of new leaves. Santayana closed the book. A short silence elapsed. He rose, and said: "Gentlemen, it is Spring!" He took his hat and never returned.

I hope this story is true. I hope he went away, got on his one track, and has been going along happily ever since. He is (I imagine) in his restlessness seeking something, something which will explain beauty and perfection. He derives his joy (I imagine) from the ceaseless activity which goes with the quest."

— On the Meaning of Life by Will Durant
https://a.co/07VcOEJq

Peripatetic in every sense of the word

"I love to travel. I love to see new places, to discover the history, the artefacts, the culture, the back story behind so much of our world. I've often said that my favourite place in the world is the departure lounge, because then I know I'm on my way somewhere. Although equally my favourite means of transport are still my own two feet or a bicycle." — Tony Wheeler

— The Meaning of Life: Answers to Life's Biggest Questions from the World's Most Extraordinary People by James Bailey
https://a.co/03PNWchh

“The Life of the Stars”-boldly going where Thornton Wilder’s “Our Town” has never gone before

"Star Trek: Starfleet Academy's first season returns to excellent form with "The Life of the Stars," an emotionally complicated hour about healing and growth in many forms. A satisfyingly layered, creative installment that sees the return of a Star Trek: Discovery fan favorite and the creation of a unique new bond for the show's Star Trek: Voyager alum, it's a love letter to the power of community, found family, and, strangely enough, Thornton Wilder. Yes, this is an episode that's targeted like a laser at theater kids everywhere…"

https://www.denofgeek.com/tv/star-trek-starfleet-academy-episode-8-review-the-life-of-the-stars/

Alysa

Flow on ice

EB White’s writing room with a view

Central Park snowfall

https://www.threads.com/@colettekomm/post/DVF1t8_ld-L?xmt=AQF0ZIGQUVlUGSu7V1AykGi9tjhJAz6M3YCaDr2-KHmfrag8BRHzROvO3YjJSVVy9nAVWPhN&slof=1

Live your life

"People suffer from the effects of their own unlived life. They become bitter, critical, or rigid, not because the world is cruel to them, but because they have betrayed their own inner possibilities. The artist who never makes art becomes cynical about those who do. The lover who never risks loving mocks romance. The thinker who never commits to a philosophy sneers at belief. Deep down the life they mock is the life they were meant to live." —Carl Jung

Ramble on

https://www.bbc.com/audio/play/m002r4vt

Little Library thief

Baseball movie montage

https://www.threads.com/@baseballuct/post/DUQmd97kqy3?xmt=AQF0KPH5H8L8ezeg693EemHFKnAib8DcoQ29dy1JgvkYyaIjsg8wVuinsEV6H5D5bA3FxQBd&slof=1

Humanism and the Great Conversation

From David Brooks's farewell column:

...Trump is that rare creature, a philistine who understands the power of culture. He put professional wrestlers onstage at the last Republican convention for a reason: to lift up a certain masculine ideal. He's taken over the Kennedy Center for a reason: to tell a certain national narrative. Unfortunately, the culture he champions, because it is built upon domination, is a dehumanizing culture.

True humanism, by contrast, is the antidote to nihilism. Humanism is anything that upholds the dignity of each person. Antigone trying to bury her brother to preserve the family honor, Lincoln rebinding the nation in his second Inaugural Address, Martin Luther King Jr. writing that letter from the Birmingham jail — those are examples of humanism. Tracy Chapman and Luke Combs singing "Fast Car" at the Grammys — that's humanism. These are examples of people trying to inspire moral motivations, pursue justice and move people to become better versions of themselves.

Humanism comes in many flavors: secular humanism, Christian humanism, Jewish humanism and so on. It is any endeavor that deepens our understanding of the human heart, any effort to realize eternal spiritual values in our own time and circumstances, any gesture that makes other people feel seen, heard and respected. Sometimes it feels as if all of society is a vast battleground between the forces of dehumanization on the one side — rabid partisanship, social media, porn, bigotry — and the beleaguered forces of humanization on the other.

If you want to jump in on the side of humanization, join the Great Conversation. This is the tradition of debate that stretches back millenniums, encompassing theology, philosophy, psychology, history, literature, music, the study of global civilizations and the arts. This conversation is a collective attempt to find a workable balance amid the eternal dialectics of the human condition — the tension between autonomy and belonging, equality and achievement, freedom and order, diversity and cohesion, security and exploration, tenderness and strength, intellect and passion. The Great Conversation never ends, because there is no permanent solution to these tensions, just a temporary resting place that works in this or that circumstance. Within the conversation, each participant learns something about how to think, how to feel, what to love, how to live up to his or her social role.

 

One of the most exciting things in American life today is that a humanistic renaissance is already happening on university campuses. Trump has been terrible for the universities, but also perversely wonderful. Amid all the destruction, he's provoked university leaders into doing some rethinking. Maybe things have gotten too preprofessional; maybe colleges have become too monoculturally progressive; maybe universities have spent so much effort serving the private interests of students that they have unwittingly neglected the public good. I'm now seeing changes on campuses across America, from community colleges to state schools to the Ivies. The changes are coming in four buckets: First, a profusion of courses and programs that try to nurture character development and moral formation. Second, courses and programs on citizenship training and civic thought. Third, programs to help people learn to reason across difference. Fourth, courses that give students practical advice on how to lead a flourishing life...

 

nyt

Shaw’s splendid torch

 

Don't be a clod. Great reminder.

Big things

Boldly going w/humanism

"Star Trek was explicitly crafted by its creator, Roddenberry, into a humanist manifesto; the stories Trek told were humanist parables, putting forth the core philosophies to which he was devoted: equality, reason, integrity, fairness, opportunity, community. I was soaking them up before I even really understood what they were. I didn't know it way back in 1972, but Star Trek had already made a humanist of me. It just took me a while to discover that there was a word for it."

— Star Trek and Humanism: Living by the Star Trek Ethos in a Troubled World by Scott Robinson
https://a.co/jkRipSG

An adjustment

Jon Stewart on the disconnect between Trump excusing J6 protesters and MAGA condemning Renee Good

https://www.threads.com/@thedailyshow/post/DTb9uOFjOqi?xmt=AQF0dAOP0i-RK7kR_pXKkuF92PH33yIoBnz5NRfvYrrwRk38SjrCaFo8oE-LhH0Dg2TziGVC&slof=1

never less alone

"One of the pleasantest things in the world is going a journey; but I like to do it myself. I can enjoy society in a room; but out of doors, nature is company enough for me. I am then never less alone than when alone."
~ William Hazlitt, 'On Going A Journey'

19 pieces of teaching advice

From Paul Bloom... Some good suggestions here, but #17 doesn't work in the chatgpt era.

https://open.substack.com/pub/paulbloom/p/19-pieces-of-teaching-advice-0e9?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=post%20viewer

A meliorist at the bar

Can American Children Point to America on a Map?

"…One of the peculiarities of the American educational system, compared with those in other democracies, is that most public school districts prefer hiring graduates with degrees in education rather than in specific academic subjects like history and physics. This leads to a greater focus on the methods of teaching, expressed in jargon phrases like "inquiry-based learning," than on acquiring particular knowledge. Traub found a real allergy among public school educators to memorization of vocabulary, chronology and narrative — the elemental material out of which reality-based opinions and arguments can be formed.

In some places, fear of running afoul of politicized parents seems to have made some teachers gun shy about raising certain subjects. In Ron DeSantis's Florida, Traub reports, parents at one Miami school received a notice that their first graders would need a signed permission slip to "participate and listen to a book written by an African American."

In other states, too many teachers just seem to have abdicated their responsibilities out of despair, convinced that their students are no longer capable of reading whole books or remembering what they read. "History has been pushed to the side within social studies because there's too much reading and writing," as one frustrated teacher in Illinois puts it, on the verge of tears. "That creates too much stress, and it makes the kids feel bad about themselves…"

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/10/books/review/the-cradle-of-citizenship-james-traub.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

Dogs Build Their Vocabularies Like Toddlers

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/08/science/dogs-research-vocabulary-toys.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share

On the road to peace

Save the book

…Literacy rates are the highest in the history of the world. Still, the world that Huxley imagined, and Postman prophesied, is upon us. That's because people consume Facebook updates, Instagram captions, and X posts throughout the day. Rarely do they pick up a book. A recent Atlantic story, citing the Survey of Public Participation in the Arts, said that just 48 percent of Americans had read a single book in 2022, a 6 percent decline from a decade earlier. According to a study released in August, over the past two decades the number of Americans who read for pleasure daily has fallen from 28 percent to 16 percent. The slide among young people is even more pronounced. 

Turns out, reading a book is a lost art—and the demise of book reading might have dire consequences. "Perhaps this plague of illiteracy has played a role in the disappearance of truth and, with it, liberal democracy," George Packer wrote in The Atlantic this fall.

By that account, I suppose I shouldn't feel too bad about my early morning in Rome. The least insidious manifestation of a postliterate age is wasting time scrolling through Instagram; the worst is the most powerful country in the world being led by a cadre of egomaniacal, antidemocratic morons...'

https://www.esquire.com/entertainment/books/a69920140/lost-art-of-reading-a-book/?link_source=ta_thread_link&taid=696029224bc2970001396128&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_medium=social&utm_source=threads

Orenda

Orenda is when we look at how things are and decide how we want them to be.

https://substack.com/@philosophyminis/note/c-192409784?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Don’t fall into the gap

And what's the word for hanging onto your dreams, no matter how daunting the present actuality?

Not that there's anything wrong with short people, but

Hope in a Time of Cynicism... At a moment when Americans are distrusting and fearful...

While optimism is the belief that the future will be better, hope is the belief “that we have the power to make it so,” said Chan Hellman, the director of The Hope Research Center at the University of Oklahoma. It is “one of the strongest predictors of well-being,” he said. It helps improve the immune system and aids recovery from illness. More hopeful people may actually grow taller than less hopeful people...

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/01/01/briefing/hope-in-a-time-of-cynicism.html?smid=em-share