"For millenia, philosophers have been warning against overeating and indiscriminate promiscuity because, they say, the pleasures that they offer are dangerously potent. But that’s not it at all! We should avoid these things not because the pleasure they provide is so intensely strong, but because the happiness they offer, even in the short term, isn’t potent enough."

Last year, College of Modern Anxiety hosted a discussion about what, if anything, it means to “be a man.” In this series, I offer guidelines for how to meaningfully talk about manhood as a meaningful social phenomenon without asserting any essential categories.

Snippets from a talk about happiness, and why it’s super weird that the philosophers and religious teachers that talk about happiness the most are the most down on doing the stuff that makes you happy.