a daily blog on well-being and how to feel better by Mark Barger Elliott…

“Love is a climate             small things find safe             to grow in.” I recently came across Amy Clampitt’s poetry. Remarkably, she published her first collection of poems at the age of sixty-two. The poem The Kingfisher, in particular, captured the attention of literary critics and she became one…

We were able to view a fascinating exhibit by the painter Ed Ruscha yesterday who wrote this in 1966, “I like the idea of a word becoming a picture. Almost leaving its body, then coming back and becoming a word again.”  That idea got me to thinking how powerful one word can be. If you…

The future is already here,” observed science fiction writer William Gibson, “it’s just unevenly distributed.” Gibson’s point was what is to emerge in the world, and in our lives, already surrounds us and is in fact visible, we just need to pay attention and to look for the signs. What future do you see around…

“I believe most of us tell a story about our lives and then come to live within that story,” wrote New York Times columnist David Brooks yesterday. “You can’t know who you are unless you know how to tell a coherent story about yourself. You can know what to do next only if you know what story…

Last night I had the good fortune to interview Peter Singer, who is considered one of the world’s most influential philosophers. I began the evening by asking him about a moment in his life that he describes in his wonderful book, Ethics in the Real World. “At Byron Bay, Australia’s easternmost point,” writes Singer, “I…

The basketball player Kobe Bryant was known for the intensity he brought to the game of basketball, but in particular to how he practiced. Kobe enjoyed passing along insights he had learned in his successful career, where he won five NBA championships. One of his sayings that has always stuck with me was, “outwork your…