Once you have enough and you find yourself wanting more than enough, it is never going to make you happy. And then all that happens is, when more than enough is not enough, you think it is because you need more than more than enough. The treadmill never stops. The worst thing is, while you are putting all your effort into that, you don’t have time for the things that will actually make you happy. So how do you get off the ride?
On Feeling Fully Human
I have variously spent parts of my life chasing cash, prestige, experience. I have come up with ideas of what life is for, and clung to them, perhaps because it is to frightening to admit that I just don’t know. Why was I born? Why will I die? What am I for? Many times in my […]
No Impact Man Runs For Office
Please check out my article on the Atlantic Monthly’s website about my activist run for Congress and how citizen politics can help do something about climate and other problems: My unlikely course in activist politicking started with a May call from a member of the executive committee of the Green Party of New York State. The […]
Forget outer heroes; bring out your inner ones
I got a piece of fan mail from a young woman at Goldsmith College in London calling me her “idol.” I’m not so comfortable with being anyone’s idol and I actually don’t think it does us much good to worship outer idols. Instead we need to give our energy to bringing our inner idols out. […]
What to do if the world is scaring you
Here is a post I wrote after Hurricane Sandy hit NYC and made is all realize climate change was not a far-away thing. It is just as relevant every time a world event scares you as it was then… Dear friends, I don’t say this often but I am scared. Not scared to the point […]
My Speech At Green Party National Convention
Here is the speech I made at the Green Party National Convention on Saturday. It’s 20 minutes long so if you don’t want to watch it but you want to know the themes: 1. Democracy works on the principle that wisdom is collected from a group in order to make decisions that result in the […]
The problem of materialism and the solution in five minutes
A video written by my friend and colleague Tim Kasser. It presents a unifying theory of what’s wrong and what to do about it.
Ever wanted kids but decided not to have them?
I am curious about people who wanted to have a child or children but decided to have none or fewer because of concerns over population growth. I'm *not* interested in hearing from people who condemn the choice to have chidren but rather from people actually feel and understand the tug towards parenthood but have chosen […]