Should athletes study Plato? New York Times columnist Mark Edmunson makes a quick case for encouraging our diamond and gridiron warriors to develop stronger backgrounds in ethics and other big ideas. It's a nifty notion. And as the sports pages fill with tales of sexual assault and murder, it's hard to argue that he isn't hinting at something more serious.
In the game of business, a new generation of entrepreneurs reared on the internet's connectivity and collaboration has the potential not just to soup up our gadgets with more bells and whistles, but to probe for solutions to the horrible cultural, environmental, and economic mess we're in. This may explain the current faddish popularity of centuries-old schools of thought such as stoicism and “mindfulness.”
Jacob Rubin, in a review of new pop-mindfulness books by Dan Harris and Arianna Huffington, gently gooses those writers for watering down Buddhist tradition to make it palatable for the hurried go-getters of the startup world. But, hey, he insists, it's a start. It's the first step toward a larger reimagining of one's worldview, far better than making do with the status quo. A patient Buddhist monk might approve.
In times of seemingly perpetual crisis and unease, the real innovators of the business sphere might need more than a meditation timer and a six-hour airplane read on stoic principles to start turning things around. But those are harbingers of opportunity for generalists who aren't afraid to combine disparate ideas and create something new and powerful.
If anything passes Larry Page's toothbrush test, it's the wisdom to live the sort of life that's its own reward.
