An Index of my Medium Articles — I’ve indexed my posts by topic below so you can dive into my writing without endlessly scrolling on my profile page. You can also read my most substantial posts on The Sophist, my Medium publication. If you are not yet a member, you can support my work by joining Medium…

It sounds cruel, but I don’t care anymore. Let me explain that feeling. — Pay attention to the world, and it will teach you its mysteries. The Hellenistic philosophies have a key concept in common, that is ataraxia, or a state of “unperterbedness”. It’s a state of mind that isn’t positively defined like “happy”, it’s a negation best translated as “not-disturbed”. …

It takes a crisis of the magnitude of the Ukraine war to see who’s really on the side of democracy. On the hard left, we have whataboutism; on the hard right, appeasement. Hard left and right really are cut from the same cloth. What makes these political positions ultimately similar…

At a young age, she asked herself, “Why bother?” Her answer turns our assumptions about freedom, rights, kindness and violence on their heads. — We have thoughts, feelings, hopes and desires. We also can be treated as statistics, objects or obstacles. The tension between these facts about us is at the heart of Simone De Beauvoir’s lifelong philosophical project. This tension was described by Beauvoir as “ambiguity”.

A disappearing act for enlightenment — When you look at the philosophies of the world, from Buddhism of the ancient East to Existentialism in the modern West, there’s a fundamental idea that they all have in common. That idea is that there really is no “I”. We live out a fantasy of selfhood. It goes something…

Surround yourself with sycophants and cronies. Intimidate your rivals, distance yourself from critical friends. Your boardroom becomes an echo chamber, your doctrine becomes group-think. Paranoia hangs around you like a poisonous fog as respect evaporates. Your capacity for empathy and critical thinking will wither and die as your chest is…

It was on a hot day that I met Patrick. I was sitting at an outdoor table in the park beside the London museum where I worked. He sat opposite me, setting down his bag as if to rest for a moment. He faced away, gazing nowhere in particular. It…

The Stoic Understanding of Choice, Control and Freedom — Throughout your time you’ll come across people who are ungrateful, people who lack basic manners, people who don’t seem able to say simple words like “please” or “thank you”, people who won’t return a smile. There’s worse. There’s people who are outright meddling and treacherous, people who’d take the clothes…