Balance – Peter Saint-Andre, Philosopher-Coach

Information is Overrated

It’s said that we live in the Information Age. Yet what is the purpose of information? I see at least three possibilities… First, information can make our decision more effective, especially regarding threats and opportunities. Is that sound in the forest a predator from which I should flee? Is this fruit edible? Does this potentialContinue reading “Information is Overrated”

Political Moderation

Here in America we’ve survived another national election (yet again the most momentous in our history!), so following up on my post last week about moderation it seems timely to offer a few reflections on political and ideological moderation. Having been a dogmatic libertarian earlier in my life, I well understand the allure of politicalContinue reading “Political Moderation”

Have a Beautiful Life

Last week I explored how we might apply Aristotle’s ideas about ethical beauty to the “micro level” of specific virtues and particular situations. This week I’d like to see how we might apply the same basic insights to the “macro level” of living a beautiful life. Here again I’ll consider Aristotle’s six criteria: Coherence (τάξις)Continue reading “Have a Beautiful Life”

Beautifully Right

I seem to have fallen into a natural rhythm of alternating my posts between lighter and heavier topics; last week I talked about substitutions, so this week I figured I’d delve into something I touched on last year: what Aristotle means by acting for the sake of what is beautifully right. It’s fascinating that AristotleContinue reading “Beautifully Right”

Substitutions

Almost ten years ago I wrote a blog post about my “to-don’t list“: the things that I deliberately don’t do, such as watch TV, follow the news, go shopping for fun, or spend time on social media. In my experience sometimes it’s relatively easy to cease such activities, but other times I need to substituteContinue reading “Substitutions”

Likeability

I seem to be getting into a rhythm of posting new thoughts on Thursdays – given my usual subject matter, we could think of this as “Thriving Thursday”… Anyway, because human beings are social animals, a particularly meaningful interpersonal affordance for us is likeability. Few people are such curmudgeons that they actively want to beContinue reading “Likeability”

Social Affordances and Self-Conceptions

As I mentioned a few months ago in my post “Idealism and Identity“, personal identity is, paradoxically, often a social construct. Here I’d like to dig more deeply into why that’s the case, but without straying too far into theoretical matters because I like to provide practical insights in my blog posts. For many yearsContinue reading “Social Affordances and Self-Conceptions”