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Secular Mornings

@secularmornings.bsky.social
872 followers 5K following 104 posts

Homilies from the secular canon, every morning, 7-days-a-week ☀️ secularmornings.substack.com

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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
Men go abroad to wonder at the height of mountains, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motions of the stars, and they pass by themselves without wondering. — Saint Augustine
secularmornings.substack.com
In Praise of the Long View Pt. 2
Wednesday, March 5th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 05/03/2025
What is the secret to a richer, longer life? It is the long view. secularmornings.substack.com/p/in-praise-...
secularmornings.substack.com
In Praise of the Long View Pt. 1
Tuesday, March 4
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 01/03/2025
The consequences of our actions are not measured simply by how they affect our lives, nor just the lives of those around us, but instead in how they impact the lives of all future generations, and whether they honor the effort of generations past. secularmornings.substack.com/p/the-white-...
secularmornings.substack.com
The White Horse
Saturday, March 1
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 25/02/2025
Greg Jackson expresses something I've felt but couldn't name: the unsettling emptiness when you finally turn off the noise. And not just silence, but the realization that you've been avoiding your own company. secularmornings.substack.com/p/news-cycles
secularmornings.substack.com
News Cycles
Tuesday, February 25th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 21/02/2025
secularmornings.substack.com/p/clippys-ad...
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 19/02/2025
They have taken with them to the grave their powers, their honours, and their errors; but they have left us their adoration. - John Ruskin secularmornings.substack.com/p/central-ga...
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 18/02/2025
There was someone I loved who grew old and ill One by one I watched the fires go out. There was nothing I could do except to remember that we receive then we give back. - Mary Oliver secularmornings.substack.com/p/river-clar...
secularmornings.substack.com
River Clarion
Tuesday, February 18th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
So be a good and proactive and even somewhat desperate patient on your own behalf — seek out the most efficacious anti-selfishness medicines, energetically, for the rest of your life. - George Saunders secularmornings.substack.com/p/kindness
secularmornings.substack.com
Kindness
Monday, February 17th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 17/02/2025
We’re just as culpable in neglecting our own duties to alleviate suffering, and even in our everyday habits of shying away from uncostly acts of kindness. secularmornings.substack.com/p/comission-...
secularmornings.substack.com
Comission and Omission
Sunday, February 16th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 15/02/2025
Change is risky, and passivity is easy. But change is a necessary component of making our lives particular and real. secularmornings.substack.com/p/particular...
secularmornings.substack.com
Particular and Real
Saturday, February 15th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 14/02/2025
There are natural laws — laws of causality, yes, but also mathematical laws that are true in their own right but manifest throughout the world. secularmornings.substack.com/p/higher-forms
secularmornings.substack.com
Higher Forms
Friday, February 14th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 13/02/2025
We don’t have to look others in the eyes, we’re often granted quasi-anonymity, and we’re constantly performing for everyone else. secularmornings.substack.com/p/internet-a...
secularmornings.substack.com
Internet & Identity
Thursday, February 13th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 12/02/2025
Most of all, I’m a product of the internet. secularmornings.substack.com/p/my-macintosh
secularmornings.substack.com
My Macintosh
Wednesday, February 12th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 11/02/2025
The patterns of human nature will emerge, however strange the world we create is, so long as we remain. secularmornings.substack.com/p/online-vil...
secularmornings.substack.com
Online Villages
Tuesday, February 11th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 09/02/2025
I guess the impulse to record is born out of thinking that I’m seeing something really special — and as such, I’d better record it, or else I’m losing it forever. But trying to run from that is futile. secularmornings.substack.com/p/the-stream
secularmornings.substack.com
The Stream
Sunday, February 9th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 08/02/2025
Our attitudes are less about who we are, and more about the environment around us. And our environments can change quickly. secularmornings.substack.com/p/on-optimis...
secularmornings.substack.com
Optimism and Despair
Saturday, February 8th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 07/02/2025
secularmornings.substack.com/p/half-monkey
secularmornings.substack.com
Half-monkey
Friday, February 7th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 06/02/2025
secularmornings.substack.com/p/5-or-10-ye...
secularmornings.substack.com
5 or 10 years
Thursday, February 6th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 05/02/2025
secularmornings.substack.com/p/humanitys-... One of the best things about humanity is that our capacities are made, not granted.
secularmornings.substack.com
Humanity's Wings
Wednesday, February 5th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 04/02/2025
secularmornings.substack.com/p/it-mostly-...
secularmornings.substack.com
It mostly works
Tuesday, February 4th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 03/02/2025
Something I’ve wanted forever from the internet, and which theoretically should exist but I haven’t yet found, is a space that feels like being lost deep in the stacks at my university library. secularmornings.substack.com/p/vellichor
secularmornings.substack.com
Vellichor
Monday, February 3
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
| secularmornings.substack.com/p/rain
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 02/02/2025
secularmornings.substack.com/p/my-crow
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 31/01/2025
To intellectualize the horrors of the world is to deny a part of my own humanity. secularmornings.substack.com/p/the-unimag...
secularmornings.substack.com
The Unimaginable
Friday, January 31
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 30/01/2025
The death of pets is, perhaps, one of the most regular (and visceral) reminders the world gives us of what it means to be mortal. secularmornings.substack.com/p/unlike-snow
secularmornings.substack.com
Unlike Snow
Thursday, January 30
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 29/01/2025
I’ll forever have affinities to “external brain” note-taking and life management systems. Humans simply aren’t adapted to the many responsibilities of modern life, but with the right tools, we can outsmart ourselves. secularmornings.substack.com/p/not-enough...
secularmornings.substack.com
Not Enough Socks
Wednesday, January 29
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 28/01/2025
The relationship between intelligence and the world is a two-way street. secularmornings.substack.com/p/data-exhaust
secularmornings.substack.com
Data Exhaust
Tuesday, January 28
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 27/01/2025
Trace the arc of your anger deep enough, and the bottom falls out. Your mind passes through “enemy” to body, neurons, genes, atoms, and on into some more naked and primordial source, where the fingers of blame falter and un-grip. - Joe Carlsmith secularmornings.substack.com/p/the-worlds...
secularmornings.substack.com
The World's Innocence
Monday, January 27
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 26/01/2025
To love another person, particularly to love a child, is to hate disease, to see it clearly as humanity's oldest enemy, to wake up and fall asleep determined to destroy it. - Kelsey Piper secularmornings.substack.com/p/on-pepfar
secularmornings.substack.com
On PEPFAR
Sunday, January 26th
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 25/01/2025
So, 7 hours for sewing, 72 for weaving, 500 for spinning, or 579 hours total to make one shirt. At minimum wage - $7.25 an hour - that shirt would cost $4,197.25 - Eve Fisher secularmornings.substack.com/p/one-shirt
secularmornings.substack.com
One Shirt
Saturday, January 25
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 23/01/2025
From the universe’s point of view, everything is natural — trees and computers, grass and concrete, humans and animals. secularmornings.substack.com/p/natural-ki...
secularmornings.substack.com
Natural Kinds
Wednesday, January 22
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 22/01/2025
For us to see the world that way again, sometimes it takes art that catches us off guard. Something that we can’t fit into learned patterns or neat interpretations. Art to be experienced, not explained. secularmornings.substack.com/p/off-guard
secularmornings.substack.com
Off Guard
January 22, 2024
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 21/01/2025
Oliver wrote this in 1986 so, clearly, some things don’t change: we’re not yet a mature society. secularmornings.substack.com/p/every-morn...
secularmornings.substack.com
Every Morning
Tuesday, January 21
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
One of the lessons best learned early is how sharply diminishing the returns to worrying are secularmornings.substack.com/p/i-worried
secularmornings.substack.com
I Worried
Monday, January 20
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 20/01/2025
A seemingly happy life maybe empty. A seemingly difficult life may be devoted to a great cause. We have purposes larger than ourselves. - Atul Gawande secularmornings.substack.com/p/being-mort...
secularmornings.substack.com
Being Mortal Pt. 2
Sunday, January 19
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 18/01/2025
You can’t keep any of it; there’s nothing to hold back for; your life is always flowing outwards, through you and away from you, into the world; the only thing to do is to give it away on purpose, and the question is where and to what. - Joe Carlsmith secularmornings.substack.com/p/being-mortal
secularmornings.substack.com
Being Mortal
Saturday, January 18
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 17/01/2025
Who is to say that this isn’t the way we experience the world right now — not as a real body in a real, persistent world, but instead as a string of Boltzmann brain snapshots in a sea of noise, separated by vast, immeasurable gaps in time? secularmornings.substack.com/p/boltzmann-...
secularmornings.substack.com
Boltzmann Brains
Friday, January 17
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 16/01/2025
And so the world watches America—the only great power in history made up of people from every corner of the planet, comprising every race and faith and cultural practice—to see if our experiment in democracy can work. - Barack Obama secularmornings.substack.com/p/a-promised...
secularmornings.substack.com
A Promised Land
Thursday, January 16
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 15/01/2025
Tradeoffs are everywhere, and when things don’t work out, we ought to just calmly accept that — after all, it’s the price we pay for the many times things do work out. secularmornings.substack.com/p/no-take-on...
secularmornings.substack.com
No Take, Only Throw!
Tuesday, January 14
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 14/01/2025
So, if the Everettian multiverse is reality, we exist as continually branching selves like splitting amoeba, our ideas of morality are turned upside down, and there are compelling arguments for why there is no God overseeing it all. secularmornings.substack.com/p/self-defin...
secularmornings.substack.com
Self-definition
Tuesday, January 14
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 13/01/2025
Time is the substance I am made of. Time is a river which sweeps me along, but I am the river; it is a tiger which destroys me, but I am the tiger; it is a fire which consumes me, but I am the fire. - Jorge Luis Borges secularmornings.substack.com/p/time-rever...
secularmornings.substack.com
Time Reversibility Pt. 5
Monday, January 13
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 12/01/2025
Time moves, and it doesn’t stop. Moments aren’t ours to keep—they’re here and then they’re gone. This isn’t tragic; it’s just how things are. secularmornings.substack.com/p/time-rever...
secularmornings.substack.com
Time Reversibility Pt. 4
Sunday, January 12
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 11/01/2025
We’re fortunate to exist in a universe with so much order — and one which will remain that way for a while, even if the arrow of time is irreversible. secularmornings.substack.com/p/time-rever...
secularmornings.substack.com
Time Reversibility Pt. 3
Saturday, January 11
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
But of course, the world is garbage recycled again and again. We may as well not call it garbage, since it’s what makes up the circle of life, and in fact the entire universe. secularmornings.substack.com/p/stardust
secularmornings.substack.com
Stardust
Friday, January 10
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 10/01/2025
We’d be hard-pressed to understand the present without admitting the reality of the past, and hard-pressed to change it without admitting our distinction from the past. secularmornings.substack.com/p/time-rever...
secularmornings.substack.com
Time Reversibility Pt. 2
Thursday, January 9
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 08/01/2025
If you take the B-theory of time seriously, then however much goodness there is in the world, the first derivative of it is always zero. secularmornings.substack.com/p/time-rever...
secularmornings.substack.com
Time Reversibility
Wednesday, January 8
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 07/01/2025
Indeed, it is pretty wonderful how something growing by 1% a day is indistinguishable day-by-day, but radically different in the span of months. secularmornings.substack.com/p/step-by-step
secularmornings.substack.com
Step-by-Step
Tuesday, January 7
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
Yes, you could change the weather. You could make it do something different from what it would otherwise have done. But if you did, then you would never know what it would otherwise have done. It would be like giving an extra shuffle to an already well-shuffled pack of cards. - James Gleick
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 06/01/2025
The things that really change the world, according to Chaos theory, are the tiny things. A butterfly flaps its wings in the Amazonian jungle, and subsequently a storm ravages half of Europe. - Neil Gaiman secularmornings.substack.com/p/cluelessne...
secularmornings.substack.com
Cluelessness Pt. 2
Sunday, January 5
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Secular Mornings @secularmornings.bsky.social · 05/01/2025
secularmornings.substack.com/p/cluelessness
secularmornings.substack.com
Cluelessness
Saturday, January 4
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