Erik Brown

Oct 21, 2024 | thetaoist.online | Erik Brown

How being useful fends off apathy and restores our free will “So many people talk about feeling irrelevant, or invisible, or hopeless….incidents of suicide and rates of addiction are on the rise….There are groups out there — entire institutions and industries, if you’re being honest about it — that are taking advantage of people’s misery, selling them nonsense, and making them angrier, feeding them lies, and inflaming their grievances — all for profit and political gain…the tools of...

Jul 11, 2024 | thetaoist.online | Erik Brown

Old Wisdom And New Science Can Tame Anxiety Of A Quickly Changing World I have a yearly ritual where I read Viktor Frankl's iconic book Man's Search For Meaning. Every time, something sticks out to me. He talks about our society and how it's having a crisis of meaning because so many of our usual anchors are gone. Frankl, a clinical psychologist and Holocaust survivor, called the crisis the "existential vacuum," saying it was a belief that life has no point.

Jul 6, 2024 | thetaoist.online | Erik Brown

Before We Die, Many Hospice Workers Report Familiar Faces Come To Visit And Collect Us - Created By Author In DALL-E3 Death is a conversation you save for later. Or at least I did. As my mom got older, she'd randomly bring up in discussions what she wanted to happen with property or possessions when she died. I'd listen, but not listen. Sometimes I'd even blow it off, and tell her we could talk about it later. After all, why would you want to imagine never seeing a loved one again? It's morbid.

Jun 11, 2024 | thetaoist.online | Erik Brown

By Erik Brown Two great philosophers help us fit our ideals and reality into the same space Left: Niccolò Machiavelli With His Epic Work "The Prince" - Created By Author In DALL·E 3 / Right: Marcus Aurelius With His Diary "Meditations" - Created By Author In Starryai I want you to try a simple exercise. Find a tile floor and look down at its entire length, from wall to wall. You'll notice that over most of the floor, the tile squares fit uniformly together, making a pattern. But it...

May 15, 2024 | thetaoist.online | Erik Brown

By Erik Brown What Marcus Aurelius and T.E. Lawrence taught me about viewing the world and valuing ourselves Left: T.E. Lawrence (Lawrence Of Arabia) - Created By Author In DALL-E 3 / Right: Marcus Aurelius - Created By Author In Starryai There's something special about old literature. It has a way of reminding you how informal our world has become and how it can move too fast. These old texts are beautiful in their way.