Gail Blanke sent out a Monday Morning Motivator email this week that stood out. She’s always good, but this one struck home with me. It was a celebration of our flawed state, in comparison with “boring perfection.” Any golfer, who can laugh off the frustrations, knows how much truth there is to this: if you…Read More

Last Christmas, Maureen Down printed a guest column for her at the New York Times, from a close friend, Father Kevin, a priest who seems to work wonders with the dying and the suffering—even though he’s honest about his own human reluctance to enter into the suffering of others. She said that once Father Kevin…Read More


As a follow-up to a previous post about The Hero Report, I did a brief interview with Ari Kohen and Matt Langdon, about their study of and advocacy for heroism. When I came across their work that examines and promotes heroism in ordinary lives, it seemed both unusual but also one of those instances when…Read More


At the Sundance this year, my wife and I were fascinated by many of the new films on view, but one of the ones that impressed me, and many others, the most was Blood Brother. It was filmed by Steve Hoover, and it’s about one of his best friends, Rocky Braat. Rocky had a rough…Read More


There’s a growing body of opinion in science that evolution, at least at the cultural level, has been driven, in part, by empathy and qualities normally associated with altruism. Down through history, when hunter-gatherer societies and tribes achieved a certain level of density and population, cooperative behavior became more than a competitive advantage. It became…Read More