What do Pope Leo XIV, the movie Sheep Detectives and a 15 year-old boy in Vermont who started Luke’s Military Museum in a trailer have in common?
Within the last week, all have been described as earnest.
There are several definitions of the word, but the meaning applied in each of these cases was “sincerity with seriousness or purpose.”
I hope seeing these seemingly unrelated examples is a signal that earnestness is becoming more in fashion as a trait we value.…
In class this week, I asked fifteen college students to write down the names of three people in the world they admired but that they didn’t know personally. Two things struck me. One, almost everyone struggled to come up with three names. Two, no person was mentioned twice.
This inquiry was spurred on from a conversation I had the previous night with a friend. We similarly struggled to find what would be today’s equivalent of Gandhi, Mandela, RBG, Mother Theresa, Eisenhower, Churchill, MLK, and Rosa Parks.…
Like many families, every year we create a calendar. Around December, I begin by looking through all the pictures our family has taken over the last year. We then select somewhere between three and twelve to put with each month. In total that means around fifty to sixty photos end up representing our year at a glance. A small number curated from almost a thousand.
While I’m sure the family members who receive this gift appreciate it; the act of creating provides me with the greatest present.…
In an interview with Conan O’Brien, Ed Sheeran described his work process. Every weekday, he goes to his studio to write and produce songs from 10:00am-5:00pm. By his own admission, most of what he produces is rubbish – but his goal is to only get one good song finished each month. By the end of the year, this means he’ll have twelve songs – enough for an album.…
