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The German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) once wrote that “the man who feels himself drawn to philosophy must himself seek out its immortal teachers in the quiet sanctuary of their works.” That’s easier said than done: philosophical classics have a terrible reputation outside ivory towers – as big, boring, difficult books, filled with obtuse theorizing about irrelevant problems, their covers featuring ghastly old men staring miserably out at the reader. Books about philosophy are hugely popular today, most of which repackage the thoughts of past thinkers for time-pressed readers – but I suspect not many people transition from these guides to the great works themselves, especially when AI can do all the hard reading for you.   But Schopenhauer was right: to

There’s a trend on YouTube at the moment for videos in which older people give advice. They speak directly to camera, frankly and without pretension. One can almost sense the care home staff hovering in the background, coaxing their barely extant charges into making one last testament of their time on Earth. The videos have titles such as “Things I’d tell my 30-year-old self,” “Harsh realities of being an 85-year-old woman.” “A girl and a woman talk about life,” “Lessons learned” and “How to deal with loneliness.”  The commenters below the videos respond, largely, with gratitude and a surprising lack of trollery. “I’m terrified of dying,” one commenter writes. “I fear many things, but nothing scares me

A Real Pain was one of my favorite films of recent years, a tragicomic exploration of family, history, place and identity featuring two Americans in Poland – specifically in Warsaw and Lublin. My wife was also quite smitten – with Lublin as much as the film – and on the back of this began planning a weekend in the eastern Polish city. I was a little wary of such an overtly fan-like step – this felt one notch down from trying to emulate an influencer, of all the awful modern things. But she’s very good at arranging interesting weekends overseas on a minuscule budget so on this question I relented. And so it was that I found myself recently arising at

In recent months, much has been made of “FAFO parenting.” Touted as the backlash to “gentle parenting,” the philosophy of “Fuck Around & Find Out” seems to be that children should learn the natural consequences of poor decision-making. While gentle parenting advocates empathy and respect, reasoning and explanation, FAFO parenting dictates that rather than going nine rounds with your small person to persuade him or her to go to the bathroom before going out / to put a raincoat on when it’s pouring / not to pull the cat’s tail, you should let them see what happens when they have the temerity to exercise their own free will.    Reading about how widely endorsed FAFO parenting apparently is on social media,

Did Mariah Carey mime or not when she headlined the opening ceremony of the Winter Olympics in Milan? That was the main takeaway from last month’s jamboree. Organizers have since suggested that the US singer did indeed lip-sync to Domenico Modugno’s “Nel Blu, dipinto di Blu” and the song that followed, her very own, “Nothing is Impossible.” “The technical, logistical and organizational complexities of an Olympic ceremony are not comparable to a live performance by a single artist,” said a spokesperson for the organizing committee.    Was there also a linguistic complexity in the decision? Perhaps Carey didn’t feel confident singing live in Italian in front of 75,000 spectators in the San Siro Stadium, plus the 9.2 million Italians watching the ceremony on television. Nevertheless, Maria Laura Iascone of the organizing committee called Carey’s performance “exceptional,” adding that