“Nathan… stop chasing perfection. The world, life—they’re chaotic. Don’t look for order where there is none. Find the melody, the rhythm that drives chaos. Listen to some jazz, not just Bach.” That’s how Guglielmo da Baskerville said goodbye this morning as I left Montecassino. His real name is Dom Benedetto,…

When I started training for my first marathon, I kept hearing about the infamous 32 km wall. At first, I thought it was just a metaphor. Then I hit it. It’s real. The wall is that moment—usually around kilometer 32—when your body’s glycogen stores are nearly gone. Your muscles start…

“Throughout the history of our species, we humans have always imagined other, better futures for ourselves, intangible worlds that we expect to be more fulfilling and experientially rich than our daily lives. Our ability to visualize and believe in these futures is itself a cultural technology, one that we use…