The Second

Brilliant minds chew on the great human questions: how should we find meaning? How should we order our lives together? What are the essential and real qualities of being human, and what does that imply for what we do?   And, although answers vary, one dominant, modern idea informs most of the modern answers: Human beings emerged through time on a continuum with everything else, from non-life to life, from non-consciousness to consciousness, from practical survival behaviors to morality, from awareness to self-awareness, from awe to religion, from irrational to rational.   In short, to say that man evolved from the lower animals is to say something mundane, like saying the earth is round. This now commonplace theory of origins has found renewed energy in the teachings of Dr. Jordan B. Peterson, whose essential message is that of acquiring virtue.   Unlike traditional treatments—ancient wisdom, religious teaching and practice—Peterson’s is grounded in a remarkably broad...

At a dinner party I met a woman who described the good work environment she finds with her new employer.  Not only was it unexpected but far exceeded what she could have expected. Through one experience she herself was afforded an opportunity to get past the pain of facing another Christmas season with the memories of her daughter who died in an accident in a past December.  This lady had proposed that the company modify its Christmas gift exchange, making it instead a gift collection for the Adopt a Family program.  The company did.  Seeing the good will of the new workplace, in working the project through, and having the companies trust and support to lead it, this lady also found new desire for the joyful reminders of Christmas, seeing the joy more than the pain.  For the first time in years she experienced more joy than loss at Christmas time, still loving her lost daughter. When the lady reached the end of recounting this she said, “It was spiritual.”...