Category: Thursday Thinker
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Day 458 of 1000: Inspiration, Perspiration, and Desperation
In his writing guide and memoir Plot Twist, author Harlan Coben says that a writer needs inspiration, perspiration, and a desperation to create.
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Day 451 of 1000: Art that Inspires the Creation of Art
Lewis Hyde writes as art as an agent of transformation. How art makes more artists.
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Day 444 of 1000: Who Is Art Made For?
My grandmother made art for herself, and for her family. I do the same.
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Day 437 of 1000: Stoking the Creative Fire
Jessica Dore writes that our creative lives inspire and tells us that we are alive. Isn’t that enough?
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Day 430 of 1000: Why Do Philosophy, and How
To do philosophy is to transform yourself through philosophical practice. Doing it in community and also atopically.
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Day 423 of 1000: Betrayal and Kitsch in Unbearable Lightness of Being
Sabina’s betrayals and her refusal of kitsch in Unbearable Lightness of Being. Kitsch in other areas of life: politics, adultery.
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Day 416 of 1000: Kundera on the Heaviness of Life
Milan Kundera opens his celebrated novel The Unbearable Lightness of Being with an introduction to Nietzschen eternal recurrence. On choosing heaviness.
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Day 409 of 1000: S&P 500 Implied Correlation Falls
S&P 500 index stocks are not moving together. Semiconductors were doing better than hyperscalers recently, echoing a pattern seen right before the dotcom crash.
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Day 395 of 1000: Job and the Tragicomic Life
James Hollis on the story of Job, with commentary from Jessica Dore and Christopher Fry. Life is tragic and comic at the same time.
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Day 388 of 1000: Nietzsche and the Artistic Model of Life
Nietzsche thought that aesthetic values were as important as moral in crafting a life. Where I’m going next in crafting my own life.
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Day 381 of 1000: Suffering and the Quest for Personal Progress
Ideas from Arthur W. Frank’s The Wounded Storyteller, applied to the Amazon Prime television series Patriot, and to my life.
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Day 374 of 1000: Arendt on Labor, Work, and Action
Arendt promoted the vita activa over the vita contemplativa and distinguished between labor, work, and action. The activa can support the contemplativa.
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Day 367 of 1000: A Case for Persistent Inflation from the Energy Shock
Sharing ideas and research findings from economist Gianluca Benigno, who argues that large supply shocks can lead to disproportionately outsized inflation.
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Day 360 of 1000: Nietzsche’s Perspectivism and a Postmodern Presidency
Exploring how Nietzsche’s perspectivism relates to postmodernism, especially that practiced by the American right.
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Day 353 of 1000: Experiencing Suffering and Freedom from Suffering
Thoughts from dharma teacher Ines Freedman on being somebody and nobody. Meeting the sadness and joy of everyday life without a defended ego.
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Day 339 of 1000: Aspirational and Non-Aspirational Transformation
Some transformations involve Callard-style aspirational proleptic reasoning, and some just unfold.
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Day 332 of 1000: Liquid Modernity and Consumerism
Bauman said that after modernity comes liquid modernity, in which we build our identities via consuming not producing. What to do instead.
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Day 325 of 1000: Vision Quest
Applying Frank’s ideas from The Wounded Storyteller to my new visual disability. The quest narrative and suffering as life itself.
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Day 318 of 1000: Overexcitability, in cooking and in investing
Dabrowski proposed that intellectual, emotional, and other overexcitabilities can provide fuel for personal development. Applying it to cooking and investing.
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Day 304 of 1000: Why the U.S. Needs NATO, but Trump Does Not
Michael McFaul of Stanford and the Hoover Institution says the U.S. still needs NATO. Unfortunately, the current U.S. President does not.
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DAy 297 of 1000: The U.S. is Not Immune to the Effects of the Strait of Hormuz Closure
The United States is not immune to the closure of the Strait of Hormuz just because we are net energy exporters. Consider plastics and food.
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Day 290 of 1000: The Theory of the Four Turnings
Howe and Strauss’ theory of the four turnings suggests we are in a crisis phase. What role will the U.S. play in the new world order?
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Day 283 of 1000: Is the Market Too Complacent?
“Widespread risk tolerance… is the greatest harbinger of subsequent market declines,” says Howard Marks. Are investors too comfortable with risk right now?
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Day 270 of 1000: Problems vs Mysteries
French playwright and philosopher Gabriel Marcel distinguished between problems and mysteries. The problem of war deaths, vs the mystery.
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Day 263 of 1000: Hope, Truth, and Art
Adorno and Han on the relationship between reality, hope, truth, and art. Art as an autonomous sphere that provides an alternative to bad reality.
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Day 256 of 1000: Hans Hofmann | How an Artist Creates Magic
Hans Hofmann on how an artist can overcome the physical reality of her materials to create surreality, magic, a spiritual experience.
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Day 249 of 1000: Is There an Oil Glut?
In a recent podcast interview, oil analyst Dr. Anas Alhajji says there’s not an oil glut but don’t expect higher oil prices in the near future.
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Day 242 of 1000: Equity Valuations Fall Slowly When There’s Inflation
A lesson from financial strategist Russell Napier. Equity valuations fall slowly when there’s inflation. Are we facing a period of structurally high inflation?
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Day 228 of 1000: 4D Spacetime and Taking the Long View
Musings on four-dimensional spacetime and what it might have to offer as advice for taking the long view.
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Day 221 of 1000: Robert Ryman on Painting
American abstract painter Robert Ryman on how process is fundamental to his paintings, but is not the subject of his paintings.
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Day 215 of 1000: Jung’s enantiodromia and the persona
Jung borrowed the term enantiodromia from the pre-Socratic philosoph Heraclitus, to describe what happens when a conscious attitude is taken too far. On enantiodromia and the persona.
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Day 208 of 1000: Seeking boredom in 2026
Walter Benjamin’s “dream bird” of boredom which “hatches the egg of experience.” What that means and how Byung-Chul Han reformulated the idea.
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Day 201 of 1000: Seeking the unself
The need to overcome the ego: ideas from Iris Murdoch and Byung-Chul Han.
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Day 194 of 1000: To create is to risk
Rollo May’s existentialist philosophy of creativity, applied to my Christmas gift pet portrait project.
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Day 187 of 1000: Living life forwards
Unpacking Kierkegaard’s famous maxim, “Life can only be understood backwards but it must be lived forwards.”
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Day 180 of 1000: Resignation or faith at midlife?
Kierkegaard’s concept of the Knight of Resignation vs the Knight of Faith. Resignation and faith at midlife.
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Day 173 of 1000: Inwardness on Thanksgiving day 2025
Starting from Kierkegaard’s idea of inwardness, reviewing Nietzsche and Jung with similar ideas, and then onto my matriarchal role.
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Day 166 of 1000: Crispation in midlife dating
French philosopher Gabriel marcel coined the term crispation to refer to when people solve existential problems with technology and functional thinking. How midlife daters do this.
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Day 159 of 1000: Will artificial intelligence make investors rich?
A review and summary of former venture capitalist Jerry Neumann’s article AI Will Not Make You Rich.
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Day 152 of 1000: Being without wanting, having, and knowing
The concept of “releasement” from Meister Eckhart and Martin Heidegger. Reading the Five of Pentacles card as a card of releasement.
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Day 145 of 1000: Iris Murdoch on imagination vs. fantasy in love
What Iris Murdoch might say about the modern dating advice “don’t settle.” On fantasy vs imagination in love.
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Day 139 of 1000: Skiing the slopes of existentialism
I’m undertaking a 1000-day reinvention project, blogging here daily to track my progress. In Thursday Thinker, I share a smart idea or theory. Earlier this week I was thinking about the self-help authors I’ve enjoyed in the past, because I wanted to do some copywork to help me figure out how to write advice that is approachable…
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DAy 125 of 1000: Sartre vs Sapolsky, with some Hegel too
Two perspectives on freedom, from an existentialist and a neurobiologist, and what Hegel said about consciousness.
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Day 118 of 1000: Nietzsche’s rejection of stoicism
Nietzsche’s rejection of Stoicism and his version of amor fati vs the Stoics: eternal recurrence.
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Day 111 of 1000: Existentialism, bad faith, and love
Choosing a societally-approved partner vs one you authentically want is “bad faith” in existentialist vernacular. What does authentic love look like?