Author: seanv2
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Experimenting With Substack
Hey folks, I’m experimenting with moving my writing to Substack for a bit, you can find me over there at miloandthecalf.substack.com There you’ll find more book reviews and essays as well as a weekly round up of what I’ve been reading, listening to and watching. I expect I’ll return to this website at some point,…
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Chabad Lubavitch
Chabad Lubavitch is one of the largest Hasidic movement in the world. Its leader Rebbe Menachem Mendel Schneerson, who died in 1994, called for members of Chabad to bring secular Jews closer to Judaism by asking them to do mitzvahs (good deeds). Chabad has been immensely successful in its outreach and outposts of the organization…
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In Praise of the Treadmill (Especially for the Very Out of Shape Like Me)
Ahh the dreadmill, the subject of ridicule and scorn across the running community, how I love you. Let me count the ways. You’re no excuses easy. I am the very busy father of two young kids and anything that creates friction between me and a workout is a potential barrier. In my circumstances, with a…
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The Attia Rule – Some Tests of Strength for Longevity
This site’s mostly archives now. I’m writing fresh things over at Substack — come say hi: www.miloandthecalf.substack.com Awhile back longevity expert Peter Attia, and my personal go-to for all things health and wellness, was on the Huberman podcast and he said something along the lines of “I wish it was a rule that you could…
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I Got Into the 2023 New York City Marathon.
Ok. It came at midday yesterday, the confirmation that I am in for the 2023 New York City Marathon. Honestly, I’d forgotten it was even a possibility. But here we are, and I have a decision to make. I’m (almost!) 48 years old. I have two young kids, a demanding job, a wife with an…
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Your Occasional Stoic (3.5) If to your benefit as a rational being, adopt it; if to your benefit as an animal, reject it.
But if there is nothing better than the very god that is seated in you, which has brought all your own impulses under its control, which scrutinizes your thoughts, which has withdrawn itself, as Socrates used to say, from all inducements of the senses, which has subordinated itself to the gods and takes care for…
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Your Occasional Stoic (3.4) A Radical Empathy
3.4 He remembers the kinship of all rational beings, and that caring for all men is in accordance with man’s nature. Nevertheless, he should not hold to the opinions of all, but only of those who live their lives in agreement with nature. He will constantly remind himself what sort of people they are who…
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Your Occasional Stoic (3.3) Unsullied by Pleasures; Unscathed by Pain
3.3 A man such as this [meaning a man focused on that which he can control], if he does not postpone his attempt to place himself among the best, is in some way, a priest and minister of the gods. He can respond to the divinity within him rendering him a man unsullied by pleasures,…
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How I’m Reading in 2023 and Why It’s Different
For as long as I can remember, my reading habits have had three main pillars – I choose what I am going to read next randomly, I read one book at a time, and I finish everything I start. This year, I am going to experiment with doing things a bit differently. Here’s how. From…
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2022 My Year In Books
Another year, another 52 books. I spent nearly half of 2022 living in other people’s homes, which was weird and kind of unsettling, but I also read some absolute bangers. If you actually read this whole thing, you’ll probably notice some themes. More books about nature, less poetry, more trashy fiction, less literary fiction. As…
Milo and the Calf 