Why Are More Young People Getting Cancer?

Happy people stay fit, eat right, & avoid alcohol

"…the evidence linking obesity, alcohol use and poor diet to early-onset cancer is quite strong, Dr. Cao said. These are population-level trends that reflect our collective environment and exposures…"

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/01/well/cancer-young-people.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Audio review for Exam 1 (OCT 9), & how to prepare for an exam

Don't stress, don't pull an all-nighter, do listen to the audio review (but NOTE: our exam is on OCT 9), revisit the relevant texts, get some fresh air, get some rest. 
And relax: "If you want really to do your best in an examination, fling away the book the day before, say to yourself, “I won’t waste another minute on this miserable thing, and I don’t care an iota whether I succeed or not.” Say this sincerely, and feel it; and go out and play, or go to bed and sleep, and I am sure the results next day will encourage you to use the method permanently." William James, “Gospel of Relaxation"

Happy leaders are not hateful

 It's the birthday of President Jimmy Carter, who'd be 101 today.

He said he wanted to end what he called "the imperial presidency." He walked down Pennsylvania Avenue for his inauguration, often wore informal clothes at official appearances, and sold the presidential yacht. Jimmy Carter said, "A strong nation, like a strong person, can afford to be gentle, firm, thoughtful, and restrained. It can afford to extend a helping hand to others. It is a weak nation, like a weak person, that must behave with bluster and boasting and rashness and other signs of insecurity." WA

What a contrast with the present POTUS… and with Machiavelli.

"[Charlie Kirk] did not hate his opponents. He wanted the best for them. That's where I disagreed with Charlie. I hate my opponent and I don't want the best for them." DJT

 

A happy place I just visited this morning

York, Maine ...

https://www.threads.com/@ericstormphoto/post/DPQ6nCKAN4x?xmt=AQF0BXuMACfRAKVrhOWQGygg9RWmpX3F4ZUEgkXffod7XA&slof=1

Time to go?

On a recent episode of The Happiness Lab, I interviewed Dan Buettner (the researcher behind the Blue Zones) about how much our environments matter for happiness.

Dan shared findings showing that when people move from a lower-happiness country to a higher-happiness one, their well-being often rises to match their new neighbors within just a year. It's a powerful reminder that our surroundings — from walkability to community support — can shape our well-being.

https://www.threads.com/@lauriesantosofficial/post/DPOuf5AEVRX?xmt=AQF02LFcKS8koaQTpQmfOg745hW6Y_s1jJv3CT2IGTfnTA&slof=1

hedonic treadmill

Have you ever noticed how the things you thought would make you happy…only feel good for a little while?

There's a reason for that—it's called the hedonic treadmill. And most of us are stuck on it.

How do we break free from this endless loop?

By shifting focus. True happiness doesn't come from the next thing on your wishlist—it comes from appreciating what you already have, building meaningful connections, and finding joy in the process, not the outcome.

#MindsetShift #Gratitude #Happiness

https://www.threads.com/@the_gratitude_mind/post/DPOvPgMDpmh?xmt=AQF09LUlGyZTQU4JzMOoQQgYs8TSVTMaRCYbvL488KZK3A&slof=1

agree to attend

Over 100 years ago, William James wrote: "My experience is what I agree to attend to."

Today, neuroscience proves him right—your reality is built by what you notice.

Gratitude is how you train attention to create a better life.

#mindsetshift #Gratitude #Psychology

https://www.threads.com/@the_gratitude_mind/post/DPOdDJBkUGK?xmt=AQF03HSP1hG4U2t-gdmfrOvJy9G0RJBO3jubOdt7-3B0Fg&slof=1

MTSU hosts a visiting philosophy professor to talk about grief – MTSU Sidelines

"Basil Lozano, a philosophy major, met with Craig when she visited his class earlier in the week. Craig's philosophy of staying impacted Lozano the most, he said."

https://mtsusidelines.com/2025/09/28/mtsu-hosts-a-visiting-philosophy-professor-to-talk-about-grief/

Questions OCT 2

1. In light of Emerson's epigram, how stingy should you be with your "gifts"?
2. How often do you pay attention to "small" physical experiences like the wind in your hair or the sun on your face (or the ice cream in your oatmeal)?
3. Does the idea of constantly (or frequently) thinking about your life in terms of a time budget of unknown quantity appeal to you? 118
4. When you look back on your life, what do you imagine you'll wish you'd done less/more of?
5. What does it mean to you to (as Edith says) put things into perspective?
6. COMMENT?: “How we spend our days is, of course, how we spend our lives. What we do with this hour, and that one, is what we are doing. A schedule defends from chaos and whim. It is a net for catching days. It is a scaffolding on which a worker can stand and labor with both hands at sections of time. A schedule is a mock-up of reason and order—willed, faked, and so brought into being; it is a peace and a haven set into the wreck of time; it is a lifeboat on which you find yourself, decades later, still living.”― Annie Dillard, The Writing Life
7. Do you agree that "time and attention are the essential materials of happiness"? 120 Do you think you manage your attention well? If not, how will you improve?
8. Does Leo's & Grace's 80s life together sound appealing to you? 125
9. Do you regulate your online behavior in the ways suggested on 130-131?
10. Can you relate to what Rachel says about her parents? 136
11. Can "focused attention" slow down your perception of the pace of time's passing? 139
12. What does Leonard Cohen's song lyric mean? 140
13. "What is your philosophy for getting over rough spots?"
14. How do you answer any/all of the questions on 142-143?
15. Do you agree with *Proverbs, Epictetus, and the Buddha? 148
16. Do you try to "fill in the blanks" like Bob? 153
17. Do you ever reflect on your response to a challenge by questioning yourself in the way suggested on 157-8?

“A happy heart is good medicine and a cheerful mind works healing, but a broken spirit dries up the bones. Proverbs 17:22”

Russell's secret
"The secret of happiness is this: let your interests be as wide as possible, and let your reactions to the things and persons that interest you be as far as possible friendly rather than hostile." Conquest of Happiness

--

“You wouldn’t worry so much about what others think of you if you realized how seldom they do.”

― Eleanor Roosevelt

More Eleanor...

Afterlife
What's the point?
https://www.instagram.com/p/CxxuA2uuIHV/?utm_source=ig_web_button_share_sheet&igshid=ZGUzMzM3NWJiOQ==

arthurcbrooks

There's a reason America's founding fathers did not guarantee the promise of happiness, but rather the pursuit of it.

How to pursue happiness, you might ask? Not by valuing happiness highly—that is too vague, and overvaluing happiness as a goal can even lead away from well-being, just as saying, “I want more money” not only won’t make you richer but will make you feel more acutely that you don’t have enough. Instead, the right approach is to make noticeable progress in the habits that add up to making you happier.

Maybe in Your Lifetime, People Will Live on the Moon and Then Mars

Will they be happy to be there?

"We're at a pivotal moment, and in some ways it feels like a dream sequence," said Niki Werkheiser, NASA's director of technology maturation [and native of Franklin, TN]. "In other ways, it feels like it was inevitable that we would get here." nyt

--

Wallace Stevens, peripatetic poet

He was one of WJ's students too.

It's the birthday of Wallace Stevens (books by this author), born in Reading, Pennsylvania (1879). He wanted to be a journalist, but after a couple years of writing for a New York paper, he decided that he would fulfill his father's desires and go to law school. After graduating, he took a job with the Hartford Accident and Indemnity Company, where he was in charge of inspecting surety claims. He would remain at the job for the rest of his life.

Each day, he walked the two miles between his office and upper-middle class home, where he lived with his wife and daughter, and during these walks to and from work, he composed poetry. He said, "It gives a man character as a poet to have this daily contact with a job." He would only let people walk with him if they didn't talk. He never ate lunch, except for once a week "to break up the monotony" — and on that day, he would always go to a place near his Hartford, Connecticut, office.

He claimed that "poetry and surety claims aren't as unlikely a combination as they may seem. There's nothing perfunctory about them for each case is different."

His first collection of poems, Harmonium, was published when he was 43 years old. Though the volume received only lukewarm praise at first, it later became considered a modernist classic. In 1955, just months before he died, he received both the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award for his volume Collected Poems.

In his book Opus Posthumous, Stevens writes, "After one has abandoned a belief in god, poetry is that essence which takes its place as life's redemption." And he wrote, "The whole race is a poet that writes down / The eccentric propositions of its fate.

https://www.writersalmanac.org/index.html%3Fp=10759.html

--Resting bliss face...
Blue Zones...

How happiness varies by age

What's my age again? The best years of your life might not be when you think they are. A new study came to a surprising finding: life gets more satisfying as we age. Researchers looked at hundreds of data samples from studies involving a total of 460,902 participants. They found that life satisfaction decreases between the ages of 9 and 16, but then gradually increases until the age of 70. From there, it dips – likely because of issues with health and social life – but picks back up again after age 96. In addition to life satisfaction, the researchers also looked at positive and negative emotional states. "Overall, the study indicated a positive trend over a wide period of life, if we look at life satisfaction and negative emotional states," co-author Susanne Bücker said in a press release. As other researchers have pointed out: there's a good chance that the best years of your life are still awaiting you...https://news.hiddenbrain.org/p/how-happiness-varies-by-age?r=35ogp&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web

Adeline Lennon presentation

---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Adeline Lennon <aml2cf@mtmail.mtsu.edu>
Date: Mon, Sep 29, 2025 at 7:54 PM
Subject: Presentation Link
To: Phil Oliver <Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu>

https://docs.google.com/presentation/d/17TU0D_4fbS9S_084OJFgLubFC3b2Isu8VkbNsK67cbE/edit?usp=sharing

Can College Students Stand to Ditch Their Phones for an Hour or So?

Nearly every student clutches a phone in one hand as they traverse the University of Central Florida campus, even while walking in groups. Laptops and tablets are lunchtime companions, and earbuds and headphones are routine accessories. While waiting for class to start, many students sit in silence, drawn into their devices…

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/29/well/mind/phone-screen-social-media-college-club-reconnect.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

9 life lessons from down under

Irreverent, funny, wise, and probably better than the commencement address you'll hear in the Murphy Center. (At my daughter's graduation in '21 the commencement speaker, then the Basic and Applied Sciences Dean) advised: "Eat more fiber.")

https://www.threads.com/@fitandhealthylifestyleee/post/DPJR5JSDwGw?xmt=AQF0mETNmQKPU-3W_fwJBK_k4aVUCPY0n_A3EXBHdvijrg&slof=1

A.I. in School: What It Can and Can’t Do

Do you agree with this college student?:

To the Editor:

Re "Parents, Your Job Has Changed in the A.I. Era," by Jenny Anderson and Rebecca Winthrop (Opinion guest essay, Sept. 12):

Originality is rare, and creativity is scarce, particularly in academic settings. Where has all the ingenuity gone these days? It is certainly no longer at the forefront of some students' minds. Our ability to think critically and independently and form well-reasoned opinions is in jeopardy, and the main culprit behind this is artificial intelligence.

Without adequate regulation and oversight from our education system, A.I. will be the downfall of many students, if it hasn't been already. As a college student, I understand and share similar concerns as parents regarding the use of A.I.

Critical thinking was already on the decline before the emergence of A.I. tools, but their arrival has accelerated this existing trend. A.I. is a helpful grammar tool at best, but it should be used sparingly.

Overreliance on this technology for decision-making will reduce trust and confidence in one's judgment, potentially limiting younger students' capacity to think creatively, critically and independently.

—Alexa Rose Pocillo, U of Maine

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/28/opinion/ai-school.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Zest

"One of my friends has a remarkable power to make the people around him happy. There's one personality characteristic of his that I find especially winning: his enthusiasm. He is excited about his work and fascinated by mine. He speaks ebulliently about his family but also about the economy and politics. He has, as the 19th-century philosopher William James put it, "zest [for] the common objects of life."

What the science says

Some people are just naturally more zestful and enthusiastic than others, of course. Indeed, this is related to personality, a large part of which is genetic. In 1949, the psychologist Donald Fiske expanded on that work when he identified five major personality factors. Later research further refined the features of these traits and named them openness, conscientiousness, extroversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Two traits out of these Big Five seem to be especially important for happiness: In 2018, psychologists writing in the Journal of Personality confirmed that high extroversion and low neuroticism seemed to be the recipe for well-being. More specifically, the correlations hinged on one aspect of extroversion and one aspect of neuroticism—enthusiasm and withdrawal, respectively.

Zesty and non-zest, you might say…"

Arthur Brooks

https://www.arthurbrooks.com/

Why is Finland so happy?

https://youtu.be/t3GqY2i58hw?si=PUi-4Y2w90rQ0I-I

An unhappy New Yorker in Finland-
My Miserable Week in the ‘Happiest Country on Earth’
For eight years running, Finland has topped the World Happiness Report — but what exactly does it measure?

“Coming to Helsinki in February is an objectively weird choice,” said a man named Mikko Tirronen. “During this time, we don’t have …” he paused. “… colors.”

I was sitting in a coffee shop with Tirronen, a web developer and writer, after flying to Helsinki to think about happiness. For eight years running, Finland has been rated the happiest country in the world by a peculiar United Nations-backed project called the World Happiness Report, started in 2012. Soon after Finland shot to the top of the list, its government set up a “happiness tourism” initiative, which now offers itineraries highlighting the cultural elements that ostensibly contribute to its status: foraging, fresh air, trees, lakes, sustainably produced meals and, perhaps above all else, saunas... Molly Young, continues

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/11/podcasts/the-daily/finland-happinest-country.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Finland winning the debate on climate change-

An interview with the PM of Finland

In recent years, Finland has done something unusual: It has managed to cut down on carbon emissions while growing its economy. Of course, it helps that the Finnish public is wildly supportive of government action on climate. Still, Finland is notable for having one of the most aggressive climate targets in the world, with a commitment to being carbon neutral by 2035. The country has made major investments in wind energy, nuclear power, hydropower and biofuels, which account for nearly all of Finland’s electricity. But going green is not easy in every sector. Finland is still reliant on oil beause of the slow uptake of clean alternatives for shipping fuel. When we spoke in July, Prime Minister Petteri Orpo described a nation being transformed by rising temperatures. The Arctic, including Finland, is warming nearly four times as fast as the global average, he said. Arable land is moving north as remote regions thaw. Summers are hotter. (Before Orpo arrived for our interview, a spokeswoman for Finland’s U.N. mission told me that people in her hometown had begun putting bedsheets in the freezer.) Despite these challenges, Orpo wants to show that radical action is possible... (continues)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2025/09/19/magazine/petteri-orpo-finland-climate-interview.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

The extra-ordinary 95%

"The miracle is not to walk on water. The miracle is to walk on the green earth."

https://www.threads.com/@the_gratitude_mind/post/DPHj0cTjH9i?xmt=AQF0-uv1RZgsSNEca6YAGy01Dp8EgvHU8GVwHlGZp8Oxkw&slof=1

Questions SEP 30

Coming soon (Busy weekend: Lyceum, wedding... So go ahead and suggest your own questions in the comments space below).

UPDATE, late Monday: Still waiting for your questions...

==

1. Can you tell us the life issues that have faced you before age 50 (or 25) that may not seem so important when you are older? How will you try to master these issues?
2. Do you know anyone whose childhood resembled Wes's (violently abusive & philandering alcoholic dad who abandoned the family)? 55 How'd they cope? Did they also have difficulty making plans and envisioning a positive future?
3. How much unhappiness do you imagine is due to the feeling of being alone, of suffering unique adversity not shared by others? How much to the false perception of being "an unchanging rock" etc.? 56
4. Do you regularly reflect on (and appreciate) what you have? Does that help clarify what you want from life? 57
5. Have you looked at a photo of yourself at a much earlier age? "What were you thinking about back then" etc.? "What do you regret?"  --Okay, me first this time.*
6. What (st)age of life are you presently occupying (whether in Shakespeare's terminology or your own)? Do you look forward to the coming stages? 59  
7.  Have you begun to establish a sense of generativity and concern for the next generation(s)? Must it await "midlife"? 60, 75
8. Are you (will you be, when the time comes) ready to become a parent? 61  Or are you an anti-natalist?
9. How much should you try to be like somebody you respect? 63
10. Have you learned Mark Twain's lesson about your parents yet? 64
11. Do you know anyone who joined the military as a way out of adolescence or into friendships? 66 Did it work? 66
12. How long do you think it should take to figure out who you are? Or to make a solid commitment to another person? 70
13. Do you see the beauty in the possibilities, the time, and the choices ahead of you? Or are you just stressed about them? 68
14. Have you pursued different activities just to see if they interest you? Have you found friends and a community that way? 70
15. Do you know any NiNi's, NEETs, or hihikimoris? 71 Or InCels? Should we be concerned about so many young people "failing to launch" up into their 30s?
16. Is any specific time of life the "prime of life"? 74  Do the questions in the last paragraph of this page remind you (as they do me) of that Talking Heads song...? 
17. How will you avoid having the regrets enumerated on p.76?
18. Do you think much about the future (yours on humanity's)? 78  Do you agree with WJ about our  "really vital question: what is this world going to become, what is life going to make of itself?"
19. Shouldn't we all cultivate a sense of limited time at every age? 80
20. Do you welcome chaos and its demand for improvisation in your life? 83
21. On that 1-7 scale, how would you rate your relationship with your parents and siblings? 
22. How often do you feel lonely?84  How often do you experience a pleasant solitude? Was Blaise Pascal right (“All of humanity's problems stem from man's inability to sit quietly in a room alone.”)? Are you surprised at the toll loneliness takes on mortality? 93
23. Why do so many men in our society have "a hard time expressing [their] feelings"? 86
24. Do you "make a conscious effort to move"? 88  Does "social fitness" require the same kind of intent?
25. Is it wrong to "use optimism to push away" fear? 91
26. If we've evolved to be social and in need of love, connection, and belonging, might social media paradoxically produce a counter-evolutionary push towards social isolation? 94
27. How do you feel about the prospect of spending decades of your life interacting with media? 96
28. COMMENT on the "powerful yet simple message" about interpersonal contact. 97
29. How many of your significant relationships would you describe as energizing and depleting, respectively? Why do you persist in the latter? 100
30. Do you know anyone who makes you feel the way teenage Sterling made his sister feel? 103
31. How do you answer any of the questions on 104-107?
32. Is Behavioral Science a reputable field? 108 (see yesterday's NYT story...)
33. Is the Dalai Lama right about wise selfishness and generosity? 110
34. Are you curious about others' experience? 113

*

 

Proud big brother, thinking I was happy not to be an "only child" anymore...

 

L: Probably looking for my next hit of baby formula... Bewildered, trying not to displease the adults...

 

About to be an ex-bachelor... happy but also (still) bewildered...

==

Alternate questions (forgot I'd already posted some... so these are bonus):

1. Wes had a hard time with what? 55 Do you?
2. What do people find startling about photos of themselves at a younger age? Do you? Pull out an old pic and answer some of the questions on 58.
3. What stage of life do you think you are in? 59 What was Shakespeare saying about old(er) age?
4. Have you answered the "central" question on p. 63 to your own satisfaction, at least tentatively? Care to share?
5. Is youth wasted on the young? Are young people over-stressed and under-appreciative of their possibilities? 68
6. What are the NiNi's and hikiko-mori? 71 Do they have an analogue in US culture?
7. What's your perception/expectation of "the middle years"? What's the most important task of midlife?  74-5 (But why wait?)
8. What's a "very basic truth about aging"? 78 What do we have to learn to balance? 80
9. What are your answers to the questions on 84?
10. Do you prioritize your physical and social fitness? 88 How?
11. Have you encountered or experienced the loneliness epidemic? 93 How do you think it can best be addressed? How often do you think you need to see your friends, to alleviate loneliness? 96
12. Do you have energizing and depleting relationships? 100 In what ratio?
13. What's your answer to any of the questions on pp.104-7?
14. Are you "genuinely interested in other people"? 115  Why or why not?

Dr. Megan Craig, Stony Brook University, at MTSU’s Applied Philosophy Ly...

Full lecture: https://jcbmtsu.hosted.panopto.com/Panopto/Pages/Viewer.aspx?id=f4a600a0-37e1-405f-a5e8-b35a012181b6&start=660

Joined in progress (from closer range): https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZhTSYE66Jg0&feature=shared

Stay human

Excellent Lyceum address from Megan Craig, on staying human(e) and present in the face of mortality. #mtsu #AppliedPhilosophyLyceum

https://bsky.app/profile/wjsociety.bsky.social/post/3lzsqwmzue22v

“negative visualization”

Ever taken something that you love for granted?

Our minds are constantly adapting to the wonderful things in our lives until they eventually feel, well, just… normal.

But taking a moment to imagine losing what you love in life— a practice known as *negative visualization* in Stoic philosophy— can help keep your joy from fading.

Lori Santos
https://www.threads.com/@lauriesantosofficial/post/DPBq7iGgPum?xmt=AQF0m2RwqoISeOfOqzc6GdTDUxCpZAovIIb_t41wqYmfcg&slof=1

More procrastination

“intimacy and sensible contact with the world”

James, alongside Bergson, recognized the value of non-intellectual sense, urging us to reanimate our capacity for greater intimacy and sensible contact with the world… James encouraged us to access "our earliest, most instinctive, least developed, kind of consciousness." Megan Craig

https://substack.com/@philoliver/note/c-160106283?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Digital sabbath, daily disconnect

"Reconnect with the real, actual world"-as Megan Craig was saying…

https://www.threads.com/@focusedmind.co/post/DPDzzPskeGz?xmt=AQF0eX81h7BaaIR9lRAtbGZYu4B4HJJVCgi3PThCxns2AA&slof=1

Where I started my morning

https://bsky.app/profile/huggybearglass.bsky.social/post/3lzqcbixkrc2y

A guest in class today!

Confirmed: Professor Craig will join us this afternoon. Check out the conversation with her below, see if you have any questions or comments for her.

James Phil Oliver

Associate Professor,

Department of Philosophy

Middle Tennessee State University (MTSU)*

President, William James Society 2025-6

*1301 East Main Street, Murfreesboro, TN 37132-0001

300 James Union Building
(615) 898-2050, 898-2907

Campus Mail Box 73
=========================

Phil.Oliver@mtsu.edu

poliver.mtsu@gmail.com

president@wjsociety.org

http://jposopher.blogspot.com/ (Up@dawn blog)

https://philoliver.substack.com (Up@Dawn@substack)

@osopher on Bluesky

 Solvitur ambulando, Sapere aude 

Save or savor? "I arise in the morning torn between a desire to improve (or save) the world and a desire to enjoy (or savor) the world. This makes it hard to plan the day." ― E. B. White

The rainbow connection

Be kind.

"Men's lives are short
The hard man and his cruelties will be
Cursed behind his back and mocked in death.
But one whose heart and ways are kind - of him
strangers will bear report to the whole wide world,
and distant men will praise him."

From Robert Fitzgerald's translation of
THE ODYSSEY

Jim Henson would've been 89 today. What a legacy of joy and love. 💙

https://www.threads.com/@pamelaandedward/post/DPASrdYjWZy?xmt=AQF0ClNv2M2YeJYyHvhm-w7vUtlW18DEXCmK4GkF-VS34g&slof=1

Procrastination

"Wanna fly to Mars?

https://www.threads.com/@stephanpastis/post/DO_kFi1iRaK?xmt=AQF0sfR8kbfmbfZZe_REVFb-Mh7HqF9SeHfQe2WNjjtEHg&slof=1

Thursday: The Good Life, Moral Ambition, Professor Craig

Let's go ahead and commence Robert Waldinger's The Good Life Thursday, as scheduled. And since one of our reports will be on Moral Ambition, here's that author's website "The School for Moral Ambition"...

Also, there is a possibility that our Friday Lyceum guest Professor Craig might join us. Take a look at my conversation with her below, and see if there's anything you'd like to ask her.

Cousin Mary knew how to take a moral holiday

https://substack.com/@thehumanitieslibrary/note/c-159344057?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

Philosophy professor Megan Craig to speak at MTSU’s fall lyceum Sept. 26 – MTSU News

https://mtsunews.com/philosophy-lyceum-2025-megan-craig/

A conversation with Megan Craig

BREAKING: There's a possibility Professor Craig might join us in class Thursday. So check out this conversation and see if there's anything you might wish to follow up on with her.

Megan Craig (Stony Brook University) is MTSU's upcoming Applied Philosophy Lyceum speaker...

RELATION AND RUPTURE

AT THE END OF LIFE

Friday, September 26, 2025 • 5 p.m.

College of Education, Room 164

Megan Craig’s talk considers three kinds of relations that come into focus at or after the end of life:
being-there-alongside, waiting, and staying. The first relation is explored in light of Heidegger’s and Levinas’ contrasting accounts of responsibility, the second in terms of Bergson’s notion of hesitation, and the third in relation to Winnicott’s description of a “holding environment.” Her work serves as a plea for spaces and practices that support more generous, open-ended, and nuanced relations among those who are dying and those who attend to and survive them. This event is free and open to the public. A reception will follow.

JPO. Professor Craig, we're excited to welcome you to MTSU as our Fall Applied Philosophy Lyceum speaker. That word applied might puzzle some, if they (reasonably) assume that all philosophy must surely aim always to be applicable and relevant to how we live. That was indeed the likely original conception of philosophy, amongst many or most of its earliest practitioners. And you've produced applied philosophy in the public forum, contributing several essays to the New York Times philosophy series The Stone. But not all of our peers are equally committed to pursuing philosophy in an applied and public-facing spirit. What is your own stance on the appropriate role of the philosopher in relation to the broader extra-academic public?

MC. Hi! I’m so happy to join you, and I’m looking forward to my visit at MTSU. I think I have
always thought that philosophy should communicate with a wide audience. Perhaps that is rooted in my own upbringing and the fact that I didn’t grow up in an academic family. My parents were high school teachers, and for a long stretch of my childhood, my dad was a farmer. When I went to college and started to study philosophy, I was struck by how difficult it was to read some of the texts. In writing my own papers, I always wondered if they would be comprehensible to my own family members. I think
philosophy is the most effective when it connects with lived experience, and I think philosophical writing is most effective when it keeps its audience in mind. Sometimes this is a highly specialized audience, but other times, as when I write something for the NY Times, it is incredibly broad and diverse. Writing in that mode forces me to explain things as I would in the classroom and to keep the material engaging and moving. I have learned so much about writing and teaching by diversifying the places where I publish things. I guess I think that if philosophy doesn’t have a public face, then we are
like the philosophers in Plato’s Allegory of the Cave who grope their way up to a blinding light and then forget that the harder and more essential task is to descend back down into the cave and talk with each other.

JPO.Who are some of the philosophers and what are some of the ideas you've found most insightfully wise in your vocation as a professional teacher and seeker of wisdom? I presume, based on your book Levinas and James, that those two have influenced your thinking? And what in general do you see as the value of philosophy?

MC. This is a huge question, and I’m afraid I can only give a partial answer. You are right that Levinas and James are two of my favorite philosophers. For reasons I don’t quite understand, when I started reading Levinas for the first time as an undergraduate, I felt a strong connection to his writing and to his ideas. Perhaps this is partly rooted in the fact that I spoke French as a child (living in Belgium from the time I was 2 until I was 7), and something about the rhythm his prose resonated with me. But his texts are also notoriously dense (“gluey” is what Bataille said), and so I turned to James, in part, in order to remind myself of what clear prose sounds like. I still use both of them as counterweights to each other when I’m having trouble writing. I love Levinas’s focus on the Other, the way his life experiences inform his thinking, his response to Heidegger, and his stress on ordinary ethical actions like holding the door. I love James’s imagery and the living, exciting quality of his prose. I love his stress on attention, his discussion of consciousness, and the ways that he entreats his audiences to picture things and to
be changed by their own imaginative and practical efforts. Other figures I love include bell hooks, Maria Lugones, Julia Kristeva, Gilles Deleuze, and Gadamer. I think the value of philosophy lies in training us to think, read, interpret, and discuss difficult topics without rushing toward conclusions. It's training in being able to question and to live in the often-awkward space of ambiguity.
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JPO. In your new book Thinking In Transit: Explorations of Life in Motion (co-authored with Professor Casey) you write of your hour-and-a-half ferry commute to school that "thinking within the confines of a prescribed time gives me the sense that I am under a bit of pressure. I don't have all day." (I'm envious: my hour-long auto-commute on I-24 from Nashville doesn't afford time to think about much other than avoiding catastrophic collision with reckless co-commuters.) This reminds me of an old New Yorker cartoon in which an author at his keyboard addresses the Grim Reaper at his door: "Thank goodness you're here. I can't get anything done without a deadline." 

And of course your Lyceum topic, on hospice and end-of-life care, is concerned with time's (and life's) brevity. Can you say a bit about how the philosophers and the ideas you favor help you, or might help any of us, meet the pressure of trying to live well in the shadow of mortality?

MC. Ha! That’s a genius cartoon! Some of the work I’ve done on palliative care emerged from my own experience of watching my 4 grandparents die in relatively quick succession in radically different ways. I became curious about what first year medical students in the US were learning about death and dying, and I spent a year attending first year lectures in various schools in and around Connecticut to find out. What I discovered was that there was usually only 1 session of a given course devoted to death and dying, and these were usually centered on case studies. There was not much, if any, discussion of what death and dying mean, or how they have been conceived and written about historically. I think that Levinas and Derrida are 2 thinkers who provide an interesting and different lens on death – moving us away from an individualistic, heroic idea of death as a singular accomplishment, end, or turning point and toward a more communal and open-ended conception of dying as something that takes time. Levinas, in particular, argues that it is not the facing up to or expectation of my own death that teaches me about dying, it’s the death of the other. The fact that dying enlists a whole community (even if one dies alone) and takes time (even when death is sudden) suggests serious problems with the modern, medicalized ways in which we (in the US) usually talk about and treat not only death but also illness and grief. These are things that don’t have any distinct timeline and that typically upend our sense of what time is and how it feels. These are things that are at odds with the “fast time” of medical schools and hospitals. In this context, I think other important figures/texts are Gadamer’s talks to medical students in The Enigma of Health, Bessel van Der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score, Audre Lorde’s cancer journals, and Susan Sontag’s Illness as Metaphor. In my talk for the Lyceum, I’m also going to talk a bit about Henri Bergson and Winnicott.

JPO. Aristotle's Lyceum was known for its Peripatetic school of thought, which legend suggests was itself in part a philosophy of motion (committed to the notion that philosophy is best when it moves). Do you think philosophers and academics are generally too sedentary? Do many of its traditional problems--mind/body, for instance-- arise from a literal posture of stillness and detachment from the natural world? Would philosophy benefit from a revival of the peripatetic tradition? (I've experimented a bit with that myself, taking classes outside to perambulate the grounds of our campus.)

MC. Yes! We’re all too sedentary, and I worry that we are becoming more so under the pressures of digital media, which seems engineered to keep us inert. But it is a real problem in schools, not only in universities. The norm now is that students sit still at their desks. Chromebooks and other devices help discipline them into these horribly sedentary postures. In universities, we have traditionally kept our students in lecture halls and seminar rooms sitting still, and then we send them off to write papers where
they sometimes sit for hours at a time by themselves in small cubicles. I think it’s crucial that we experiment with new pedagogies and that philosophy, in particular, remembers the body. It’s not just movement outside in the fresh air that we need, but forms of attention and encouraging habits of self-care (eating well, sleeping, resting, taking breaks, making friends), so that we might stop perpetuating the model of the slightly ill, socially isolated, but genius academic.

JPO. Do you think philosophy has anything useful to say to parents, about how to raise thoughtful and caring children? Was Hannah Arendt right to say that natality, as the flipside of mortality, deserves a great deal more attention from philosophers than it traditionally has received?

MC. Yes, Hannah Arendt was right. I taught preschool and Kindergarten for many years, beginning when I was in college and extending to after I graduated. I have always felt that babies and children are the wisest beings, and I think philosophy has long neglected children and natality to its own peril. William James was deeply influenced by Annie Payson Call’s Power Through Repose, in which she writes about the importance of spending time with babies to learn about alternative physical postures, creativity,
attention, and non-verbal communication. One of my favorite thinkers is the author Cate di Camillo – who write children’s books and young adult fiction. My daughters and I have had such great philosophical conversations care of her writing. I see her books as important philosophy texts, as I do with A Wrinkle in Time and a host of others.
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JPO. Does philosophy have anything helpful to say about how to live well in especially challenging times?

MC. I’m going to send you a short piece I wrote for the Times* that did not end up being published. It was written just after the outbreak of the invasion of Ukraine, but I think it expresses something that I am still feeling. There are crucial resources in philosophy for helping us think through “dark times,” and we keep needing them, as recent and ongoing events attest. Every traumatic event is unimaginable before it transpires, and it can have the effect of sending us back to a place we may have thought we had
surmounted (as if we had at last grown up or “toughened up”). There is not one text or idea or solution that will insulate us from tragedy or prevent bad things from happening, but it is helpful to collect touchstones (books, poems, art, music, films, etc.) that can be there at the ready for when you will need them. Philosophy is, I think, part of the arsenal of hope we never stop needing...

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* "You Might Have Some Existential Questions"-the Times should have published it. jpo