The oil tycoon J. Paul Getty was rumoured to have said that his three rules for how to become rich were: Rise early. Work hard. Strike oil. It's one of those eminently quotable remarks because it captures something we all know to be true, that luck and chance have as much to do with success as anything else. Yet we don't value people for their luck.
Akarna Dhanurasana is a pose of focused attention. "Karna" means the ear and the prefix "a" means near or toward. Since "dhanu" means bow, the image is of an archer pulling back a bowstring. Besides flexibility in the hip joints and vertebral column, the pose demands good balance. Beginning and intermediate students can both benefit from Akarna Dhanurasana. It can relieve back fatigue after vigorous asanas, stretch the hamstrings (back thigh muscles) of the straight leg, and open the hip joint of the bent leg.
In 1517, Martin Luther nailed his 95 theses to a church door to protest the sale of salvation. The Catholic Church had turned faith into a transaction: Pay for indulgences, reduce your time in purgatory. Luther's message was plain: You could be saved through faith alone, you didn't need the church to interpret scripture for you, and every believer could approach God directly.
Hazrat Mirza Ghulam Ahmad, also known as the Promised Messiah and the Imam Mahdi, wrote a 1905 poem describing massive earthquakes and destruction across the world, which some have now interpreted as a warning of World War III. In the poem, published around the time of his death in 1908, Ahmad predicted streams of blood flowing from widespread death, entire regions being wiped out, a massive earthquake, and even strange sky events beyond scientific explanation.
Throughout the week, keep an eye out for all the habits that keep you on edge - like waking up super late, putting off projects, leaving texts on read, driving around on E - and make it your mission to stop. Get the gas, answer your friend, set the alarm. Even if you just change one thing, it could relieve some pressure, and add some much-needed structure into your schedule.
Our actions may be impeded by [others], but there can be no impeding our intentions or our dispositions. Because we can accommodate and adapt. The mind adapts and converts to its own purposes the obstacle to our acting. The impediment to action advances action. What stands in the way becomes the way. Ryan Holiday's bestselling The Obstacle Is the Way brought
For most of my life, I thought of myself as a fixed entity: This is me. These are my traits. This is who I am. I assumed I was essentially that same person who loved sugary cereal at age 8, fried chicken at 12, and tequila at 21, and who still loves those things now, even if my stomach disagrees. But this is an illusion. Neuroscience, physics, and Buddhism all agree: There is nothing fixed about us-not even close.
Sophie Grace Chappell is Professor of Philosophy at the Open University, UK. She has been Executive Editor of The Philosophical Quarterly since 2021, and serves as a member of the APA's LGBTQ representation committee. Her books include Reading Plato's Theaetetus (Hackett 2004), Knowing What To Do (OUP 2014), Epiphanies (OUP 2022), Trans Figured (Polity Press 2024), and A Philosopher Looks At Friendship (CUP 2024).
A sprawling tale of two Singapores, the short documentary Sandcastles draws connections between Singapore, Michigan - a 19th-century ghost town swallowed by sand following widespread deforestation - and the island country of Singapore, where rapid development and land reclamation has, for decades, been enabled by the importation of sand. More poetic exploration than call to action, the work surveys waterways, cycles of development and the transient nature of sand - deceptively sturdy over short timescales but, over decades, quite volatile.
In §46, Kant defines genius as "the inborn predisposition of the mind through which nature gives the rule to art" (5:307). Because beautiful art cannot be created according to fixed rules, the artistic genius is a kind of channel for the way beauty appears spontaneously in nature. (My slideshow includes Angelus Silesius's "Die Rose" on this point: "The rose is without why.") For Kant, genius has a talent that cannot be learned or taught, and it cannot give an account of itself.
Consistent with the general trend of incorporating artificial intelligence into nearly every field, researchers and politicians are increasingly using AI models trained on scientific data to infer answers to scientific questions. But can AI ultimately replace scientists? The Trump administration signed an executive order on Nov. 24, 2025, that announced the Genesis Mission, an initiative to build and train a series of AI agents on federal scientific datasets "to test new hypotheses, automate research workflows, and accelerate scientific breakthroughs."
During one session, the male partner rushed into my office and handed me a printout of his exchange with ChatGPT. I shared a knowing glance with his wife before skimming it over. The transcript included his version of an argument they'd had alongside ChatGPT's commentary. ChatGPT reinforced his view, labeling his wife's communication as "highly problematic," "abusive," and even suggesting traits of "narcissistic personality disorder."
This short captures Tim Bovard, the staff taxidermist for the Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, as he reflects on over five decades spent perfecting his craft. Sparked by a childhood fascination with the museum's dioramas that never faded, Bovard has devoted his career to shaping what he calls the 'illusion of life' - a process that requires both scientific precision and imaginative interpretation.
Left-leaning regions of the United States and elsewhere in the world among the richest? When Japan and South Korea sought to become economic powerhouses in the later 20th century, they adopted Leftist policies such as strong public education, universal healthcare and increased gender equality - if countries seeking to compete in capitalist arenas adopt broadly Leftist policies, then how do we explain why Leftists are always talking about overthrowing capitalism?
My dad (PhD, Edinburgh) was teaching Bible, theology, and church history courses in a small Christian college that needed a philosophy teacher. They drafted him to fill the gap, so he took some summer courses at GWU and UC-Boulder to get up to speed. The family accompanied him on these trips, and I began to pick up on intriguing references to "dialectical materialism," "John Dewey," etc. I admired my dad,
The Russian meteorologist Alexei Vangengheim, who was once a respected government official and loyal member of the Communist Party, fell victim to a Stalinist purge in 1934. Named a 'traitor to the motherland', Vangengheim was sent to a gulag on the Solovetsky Islands and executed three years later in 1937, before being posthumously 'rehabilitated' by the Soviet Union in 1956.
Visually striking and intricately crafted, the traditional armour and weaponry of the Kiribati islands in the Pacific Ocean were built from coconut fibre, human hair, sharks' teeth and porcupine fish. Yet, fearsome and lethal as these objects were, the people of this remote archipelago weren't especially warlike, as British colonists had long assumed, but were instead part of a ritualised style of combat intended to keep violence between clashing groups to a minimum.
My prediction is based on only two assumptions. First, our visitors from space can die; they are not immortal. Second, they care about each other. When one of their own dies, they mourn them, just as humans do. These assumptions, I think, will have led these aliens to invent gods and a belief in the afterlife. Belief in the afterlife, where we defeat death and are reunited with loved ones who have died, is the basis of all past and current religions.
Why not A? A is usually the default for most people. The thing you're already doing. The path of least resistance. It doesn't need your help. What you need are alternatives. Then comes the second step, and this is where most people stop thinking too soon. Now, for each path, think through: First-order effects Second-order outcomes And third-order consequences And then, and this matters, choose the path with the most meaningful but least life-changing consequences.
