The Product Is Shopping Too Not long ago, I went on a date with a woman. We took a walk around a lake. She was in her early fifties and had ...

Throwing Snowballs at the World When I was living in Kenya, I read Ivo Andrić’s Bosnian Chronicle, and one of its characters stayed with me....

Replacing God With Followers Leo Braudy describes in *The Frenzy of Renown* something much older than Instagram. People want to be seen. Ale...

A Hierarchy of Seriousness There are things in life that deserve to be taken seriously. A child is ill. Someone you love is in danger. A fri...

Talk to Strangers! This may sound like a rather modest challenge. I decided to start talking to strangers. Not for dating. Not for netwo...

What Do I Know When the Machine Knows for Me? Montaigne asked one of philosophy’s smallest and most durable questions: Que sais-je? What do ...

The Chätsy Effect Mark Twain once wrote: “All you need in this life is ignorance and confidence; then success is sure.” That was in 1887. Tw...

On Using Tinder for Executive Research There are sentences that should be kept in museums. Not because they are especially wise. Because the...

Freedom Has No Reset Button I had another one of my weak moments and opened a tabloid. The great sensation of the day was that a mid-forti...

Multiculturalism Needs a “We” The best vision of a multicultural society is not one in which people erase their differences. It is one in wh...

Change the Context A few days ago, I bought a second-hand wetsuit for almost nothing. I want to swim in natural lakes more often this autumn...

 Moral Theatre There are professions in which you are asked what you can do. And there are professions in which you are asked who you are. S...

 I’m tinkering with a new project. Take a look at dots.report .

The Sleepwalkers Today, on a Sunday, I only wanted to buy a few yogurts. Instead, I found myself watching a small experiment in human nature...

Context Is the Real Product A few weeks ago, the first 24-hour Migros store in Switzerland opened in my town. It is a small supermarket wit...

The Courage to Intervene One of the first things I learned as a social worker was that techniques are overrated. Not because they are useles...

The Pilgrimage I have been listening to a lecture series by the historian Teofilo Ruiz. His own life is remarkable. As a young man in Cuba, ...

Oversteering Yesterday, while I was on holiday in Istria, Croatia, a man suddenly collapsed in the restaurant where we were having dinner. H...

Switzerland Should Not Exist  Years ago, while studying in Zurich, I wrote a paper about William Tell. At the time, I argued that Tell was o...

The Question Nobody Wants to Ask At some point, I realized that I am often preoccupied with a different question than most people. Not becau...

The Goal Is Not Obedience One of the first disappointments of childhood is discovering that your parents do not know nearly as much as you o...

The Dreamer There is a bakery near where I live. The pastries are good, the coffee is good, and the service is efficient. Yet if I am honest...

The Bible Shelf The other day I visited Aligro, a Swiss cash-and-carry supermarket. If you have never been to one, imagine a place where e...

Beyond Authenticity Authenticity is one of the great ideals of our time. We are told to find ourselves. To follow our inner voice. To discov...

Friendly Faces When I was a child, it was usually obvious who the authority figures were. The teacher was the authority. The police officer ...

Build Systems That Can Correct Themselves Many people spend their lives looking for the answer. The right philosophy. The right diet. Th...

The Difference Between "God Believed" and Faith One of the most provocative statements Werner Erhard reportedly made during est wa...

The Apocalypse Will Not Be Trending The apocalypse will not be trending. It will not arrive with sirens. It will not interrupt your programm...

Reducing the Gap Between Map and Territory One of the most important tasks in life is reducing the gap between our map and the territory. ...

The Unexpected Lesson of Marte Meo Many years ago, when my daughter was still very young, I came across the Dutch approach known as Marte Me...

The Olive Oil Problem Years ago, I met a man who was convinced that drinking large amounts of olive oil was good for his joints. Not olive l...

The Myth of Authenticity For a long time, I misunderstood authenticity. Like many people, I believed that being authentic meant showing up...

The Underrated Art of Boredom During my years as a social worker, I noticed something curious: many children seemed to have busier schedules...

Playing Yesterday's Game The Peter Principle is one of those ideas that is so simple and intuitive that people repeat it endlessly. Empl...

What They Are While reading about the early years of the Soviet Union, I came across an observation that stayed with me. The communists of...

A Thousand Small Choices A wasted life does not happen in a day. It does not arrive with sirens. Not with a thunderclap. Not with a dramatic...

Practical Phenomenology When most people hear the word "phenomenology," their eyes begin to glaze over. It sounds like something t...

The Strange Case of est During the 1970s, hundreds of thousands of people attended a controversial personal development program called est, ...

The Difference Between Phenomenology, Mindfulness, and Zen Spend enough time around philosophy, meditation, or personal development circles...

The Hidden Curriculum of Bad Days My twelve-year-old daughter had the day off school. The teachers had a conference, which meant that while ...

One Large Important Button I recently stumbled across a product called the Keychron Q0 Mini 8K Action Key. At first, I genuinely had no idea...

My Next-Door Neighbor My next-door neighbors are a large Swiss family. They have lived next to me for more than ten years. We greet each oth...

There Is No Donald Trump People still talk about Donald Trump as though he were a person standing inside politics. That already misses what ...

The Importance of the First Assumption Paul Watzlawick became famous for his work on communication, misunderstanding, and the realities peop...

The Quarter Millennium I rarely read newspapers the way I used to. Most days I skim headlines, glance at the first paragraph, and move on....

An Anthropological Visit to a Bakery There are two bakeries near where I live. The first one is deeply, profoundly Swiss. Not the products. ...

Understanding Is the Booby Prize One of the most famous lines to come out of est was this: "Understanding is the booby prize." The...

The Swedish Backpack This morning I had an argument with my daughter over a backpack. No family crisis. Just one of those ordinary domestic ...

We Already Know Modern society behaves as if human beings mainly suffer from lack of information. If people smoke, they need education. If c...