I'm currently home in Singapore, and will be for all of May. Pace of life at home is a lot slower - getting out one blog post a day has been truly difficult!

Without any form of quality control, it really isn't that difficult to keep writing. There is a precedent for encouraging writing regardless of quality - Nanowrimo. Nanowrimo is an activity held every November, which aims to, for whatever reason, encourage the writing of 50,000 words within the month. I will continue work on my weak derivative of this activity - one blog post a day.

I've been reading Terry Pratchett and enjoying it very much. So far I've finished three books from the watch series, set in discworld.
The series so far is very much centered on the actions of three principled actors, Vetinari the pragmatic non-interventionist dictator, Carrot the charismatic idealist, and Vimes, who is the protagonist. This setup reminds me of Stephen Fry's commentary on star trek, where the pragmatic Spok and the idealist McCoy compete to influence Captain Kirk's decisions.
The overall idealistic bent is somewhat libertarian, in my view, which probably accounts for why I am enjoying it so much.

This is a recycled post from a mailing list. Apologies to salon-chaos!

http://bigthink.com/ideas/42337

Freedom is an extremely relative concept. Relatedly, purpose is also extremely context-driven. The search for purpose, for realizing what you are, is termed eudaimonism. In this article, Wilkinson judges the concept to lack integrity.

Excerpts:

The eudaimonist says that eudamonia is the aim of life and the ultimate end of practical reason. Eudaimonia is often translated as "happiness," but it's better understood as flourishing or functioning excellently as the kind of thing one is. Acting in accordance with certain virtues is thought to be both instrumental to and constitutive of flourishing or excellent functioning. Both Long and Vallier accept a version of the unity of the virtues thesis, according to which the content the virtues can be fixed only by reference to the content of the others.

...

Relatedly, there is no non-stupid natural fact of the matter about what it would mean for you to realize or fulfill your potential, or to function most excellently as the kind of thing you are. Our potentialities are relative not only to individual biological make-up, but to culture and technology as well. Potential for mathematical or hockey greatness is meaningless in a world without mathematical notation or hockey. It may be that the world in which you have the greatest chance for really meaningful achievement and fulfillment, given your particular endowments, is one that does not yet exist. Bummer. What is means to function excellently in the here and now depends on the possibilities for functioning given the current cultural, economic, and technological dispensation.