Harrison’s Spoken Essay on Gardens

I just wanted to share this with you. Grab a scotch, as Harrison does, and listen to poetry, myth, philosophy and other beautiful things.

Care (good work) seems to be innately human (though, in some sense, I would argue that animals share this). If there is to be any meaningful fulfillment, it has to be done through care. Put at its worst, there is no joy without hard, often painful, work.

I wonder. What of those moments where work itself seems to be meaningless and where there seems to be nothing worth doing? All is Vanity. Where would this fit in to this essay?

Robert Pogue Harrison on Epicureanism, Stoicism, and Christianity

In a recent conversation I referenced a passage from Robert Pogue Harrison’s Dominion of the Dead, one of the most insightful books I have ever read. The passage contrasts Stoic and Christian ethics, claiming that Stoic ethics roots itself in a dispassionate alignment with the impassive logic of the earth, while Christian ethics roots itself in a celebration of the promises and delights that that the earth offers to us.