Category: culture
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A Personal Mission of Agency
Each year-end I look back and reflect. I look at all areas of my life: family, professional, personal, spiritual, physical, financial. Across all of the major areas of my life, this has been a pivotal year of conceptual progress for me. I developed great clarity on my personal mission. And three ideas that began to…
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Three Problems of Modern Life
Public life is beset by three problems. Each is an extreme expression of a fundamentally human trait, exacerbated and amplified by some aspect of modernity. Anonymous Atomization. It is a normal aspect of the human condition that we struggle to really take others into account as anything more than actors in our own dramas. Our…
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Memoir by Andrea Jarrell: I'm the One Who Got Away
As many of my friends know, my wife, Andrea Jarrell, has completed a new memoir, published on September 5, 2017 by She Writes Press. Early reviews of the book, titled, I’m the One Who Got Away, have been hugely positive.
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Timeline Of A Frictionless Life
Today I came across a relatively new (month-old) feature in Facebook Messenger: you can hail an Uber from within the app. Both Facebook and Uber act as (and have aspirations to be) interesting “front door” or “gateway” apps. For instance, for more and more people Facebook is not a page on the World Wide Web: it…
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Outlines of True Faith
This morning, I wrote this in my journal, my letter to whatever the force is that drives the universe: What would it mean to lead a life of true faith? I would trust absolutely – trust that all I need would be provided, that no trial would be greater than I could bear. I would also…
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Why I Want To Be A Boomerang Household
I want to be a countervailing force. I want my house to be, and remain, an intergenerational beacon.
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Robin Williams and Ordinary Tragedy [UPDATED]
What to say about the death of Robin Williams. It is tragic and like so many I feel a deep sense of loss. It’s funny how you feel like you come to know certain celebrities solely by the cues you pick up from their roles and interviews and what is written about them. As if…
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I Don't Mind If You Shop On Thanksgiving Day
Our Thanksgiving tradition is specifically rooted in consumption. I’m not going to overdo it, but at the same time I’m not going to pretend that Thanksgiving is meant to be a day of abstention. It’s a feast.
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Movie Marketing and the Tragedy of the Commons
A friend of my daughter has become one of my favorite Twitter accounts, as he will occasionally go on a bit of a rant about some aspect of the entertainment industry. “Rant” is probably not the right word, as what he really does is mount thoughtful arguments. His latest fragmental piece outlines the unintended consequences…
Brad Rourke 