Personal

How can we live longer? How can we live a flourishing and rewarding life? First, one has to want to live long and well. One needs to have a supporting, life-loving philosophy, which is Objectivism. Second, I believe one needs a psychological outlook that involves strong purposes and values, and the intention to live a…

I’ve always believed in getting second medical opinions, but I had no idea how important they were. I just read the following: A study finds that 88% of people who go for a second opinion after seeing a doctor wind up receiving a refined or new diagnosis. Researchers at the Mayo Clinic examined 286 patient…

“In a study of more than 2,800 participants, those who slept less than five hours per night were twice as likely to develop dementia—and twice as likely to die—compared to those who slept six to eight hours per night.” (Emphasis added) From an article: Dementia Prevention in Clinical Practice, sourced to Robbins R. Qan SF,…

Ayn Rand famously wrote: “Throughout the centuries there were men who took first steps down new roads armed with nothing but their own vision.” Such visionary men were often entrepreneurs who created massive wealth and benefits that we all enjoy. The mission of XPRIZE is to bring about “radical breakthroughs for the benefit of humanity”…

Pursuing pleasure is a lot of fun. 😊 Listening to music, reading novels, spending time with friends, romance, walking in the woods, playing with children, sports, hobbies, etc. Pursuing pleasure is what it’s all about, at least according to Aristippus (c. 435‒c.356 BCE) of Athens. He developed a whole school of philosophy called Hedonism, which…

Agreement is good. It’s reassuring. It’s harmonious; it feels good. Disagreement, on the other hand, can be irritating, annoying, unsettling, and can be upsetting.However, rational disagreement can lead to deeper understanding and result in objectivity.Disagreement done correctly can lead to more effective ideas and solutions. To paraphrase General George S. Patton: If everyone is agreeing,…

The Wall Street Journal reports that “Over 24,000 bills were passed by state lawmakers in the U.S. in 2022.” This is freedom vs. more laws. If one considers that most laws written in today’s world curtailfreedom, what can we learn from such a stunning statistic? Carl B. BarneyJanuary 9, 2023

We all have a way of facing life, the world, and other people. We develop a “sense” or a “feel,” a sort of continuing emotion that corresponds to our overall view of life—“it’s a wonderful world” on the one hand, or “life’s a bitch, and then you die” on the other. Ayn Rand called this…

Work is a life-sustaining activity—literally life-sustaining. We work to acquire food, to earn money to pay for shelter, and to produce all the values upon which our lives depend. Work is the lifeblood of not only our physical health, but also our psychological/spiritual health. Purposeful work is one of man’s noblest values and virtues. That’s…

I’ve learned some important lessons about generosity and its emotional offspring, gratitude. From Generosity to Gratitude Magnanimous, “great-souled men,” as Aristotle called them, are generous. But generosity is about more than material gifts. It’s about expressing care, admiration, and love, and sharing knowledge, wisdom, and—if we have some to spare—money and possessions, too. My friends’…