People complain about pain and exhaustion like they’re bad, but I find them sometimes the best feelings I know. As you know, I’m registered for this year’s marathon. A couple months ago I hurt my ankle and couldn’t run for a while. Yesterday I decided to run four or five miles for the first time. I felt great. So great I decided to run along the Hudson River all the[…] Keep reading →

New York City is having the most mild summer I can remember. We’ve barely hit ninety degrees and that was at least a month ago. Since then we’ve had cool, spring-like weather most of the summer. The other evening walking with friends, I noticed how loud the sounds of window air conditioners were in the small streets of the West Village. The temperature and humidity outside couldn’t have been more[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written before about getting rid of stuff and the challenges of getting rid of things you once wanted to keep. You feel like if you once valued something and now don’t you’ll lose something important. Maybe you should examine your values and how they changed. Slow-going apartment renovations have led me to live with a lot of my stuff in storage following living in Shanghai without much stuff for[…] Keep reading →

Besides being the forty-fourth anniversary of someone stepping on the Moon, yesterday was the forty-second anniversary of me being born. Future historians will decide which was the more important event, but it went great. I write here about beliefs and practices people can use to improve things, but I like sometimes to share the great things they create, even if just as simple as appreciating a rainbow more than you[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] While writing yesterday’s post on accepting my friend Dave’s challenge to do one hundred burpees in thirty-seven minutes I ate a banana for energy and mentally[…] Keep reading →

[This post is part of a series on my daily exercise and starting and keeping challenging habits. If you don’t see a Table of Contents to the left, click here to view the series, where you’ll get more value than reading just this post.] Today’s post combines a few key things that result from and help create a great life. Having good friends who challenge you Sharing your passions Exercising[…] Keep reading →

At an outdoor concert July 4 I noticed something that, when I said it, sounded like a meaningful life lesson worth sharing here. The VIP section for some reason had fewer port-a-pods per person than the rest of the venue so they kept having long lines. Also, my friends and I were mostly staying in the tent area with the bar to stay out of the hot sun and walking[…] Keep reading →

Here’s a conversation I had with a friend. It shows the way my physics training gets me to think that I expect others will find interesting. Remember, physics to me means respecting and appreciating nature — not just something that happens in a laboratory, but how rainbows work, why the sky is blue, and why people are the way we are. My friend also said she found the result enlightening.[…] Keep reading →

Last month Columbia invited me to walk in its big commencement for the twentieth anniversary of graduating college there. I don’t often get to dress in my medieval-looking PhD cap and gown, so I accepted. If you’ve never seen a Columbia commencement, it’s a great, stately affair with tens of thousands of graduating students and their families, all the more so when you realize how few spaces like its campus[…] Keep reading →