When I disputed one of the core tenets of physics, he didn’t respond with the kind of implied put-down I was used to: “How could a high school student know better than the great minds of the ages?” Instead, he started out from the assumption that I may be right, and engaged me in a debate. The second law of thermodynamics did not fall that day, but I did come to a better understanding by being allowed to question it....
On stage—50 years into his career—Mason, who says, “Rock and roll is not an age, it’s an attitude,” is still a hard-driving rocker. In person, he’s a warm, direct, personable guy. He’s also a guy with a cause. Mason is concerned about soldiers who come back from war, having given some of their best years to their country, only to fall into a life of disappointment, despair, underemployment, and unemployment. “These men and women are highly disciplined, well-trained, hard-working committed people,” he told me at the party....
Interested candidates should be prepared for extended periods away from home. MMFT is offered at military installations around the country, and a standard training cycle runs three months. There will be limited opportunities to travel home during this training. For additional criteria and information on how to apply, click here. The creator of the MMFT program, Elizabeth Stanley, was recently a speaker at the Creating a Mindful Society conference in New York....
But that ethos isn’t just for microhomes. Whether you’re moving into a phone booth or converting your townhouse into a duplex, the tiny house movement is ripe with lessons on paring down that everyone can glean some wisdom from. Here are six tips for living large in a small space, from the tiny house movement:
What I can’t forget, however, is the trauma of the workday morning. I went to bed wrapped in the quiet solitude of my personal life; I woke up to find my bed down the corridor from my office. It was a long corridor, and it took a lot of effort to drag myself down it—splashing my face with water, donning work clothes, and swilling coffee as I went. I would have given anything to make that hallway much, much shorter....
