Magazine
A true optimist has passed – A tribute to Colin Wilson
At the end of last year the self–proclaimed “first optimistic philosopher in European history,” Colin Wilson passed on. The next issue of The Intelligent Optimist has a feature written about Wilson and the impact he had on our magazine, lives, and outlook on life. Below is a tribute to Read More...
Time to innovate? Get rid of the experts!
Solutions sometimes come from unexpected sources, as an American potato chip maker that wanted to launch a low-calorie chip knows. The problem was that the chips had a high fat content due to the way they were baked… but chips baked without oil taste like cardboard. The makers had to find a way Read More...
Dreaming of de-extinction
As a young boy, Michael Archer from Australia had nightmares about the trilobite, an arthropod that succumbed to extinction 200 million years ago (fossil shown above). He was fascinated by the animal, once the most abundant resident of our oceans, and in his dreams he found a living trilobite. Only Read More...
A fertile future
How does he do it? Pieter Hoff at Groasis is growing trees in the desert. In a first test in the parched Moroccan Sahara, 90 percent of the trees planted with the company’s waterboxx were still alive several months later. In comparison, 90 percent of the trees planted without a waterboxx and Read More...
7 Strategies of successful patients
1. Do not take “no” for an answer Most of the people whose experiences I have related heard discouraging words from health professionals, especially from medical doctors who told them there was no hope, nothing more to be done and no possibility of getting better. They did not buy it. Instead Read More...
Feet on the ground
Clint Ober still vividly remembers the telling-off a friend got from his mom one day after the boys walked over to the friend’s Indian reservation: “Quick! Take your shoes off or you’ll get sick!” To her, shoes were strange. Native Americans have gone barefoot since time immemorial, or worn Read More...
Food for life
If you believe the menu, the most famous dish at The Sunflower Center, the café and community center run by Lydia’s Organics in Petaluma, California, is the soup—the Famous Raw Green Soup, a cold, refreshing blend of cucumber, kale, avocado, celery, dulse seaweed and about five different Read More...
Tower of power
Martin Lindsay, a London-based businessman, parked his Jaguar in the wrong spot. He left it for several hours beneath a concave skyscraper at 20 Fenchurch Street, and came back to find that the sun, reflected off the building, had melted his car. We have much to gain from Lindsay’s misfortune. A Read More...
A key to light
If it weren’t for the sun—that is, light—we wouldn’t exist. Light is the essence of life. We eat it, in converted form; plants absorb light and use it to produce fruit. Indian Ayurvedic medicine centers on prana—life energy—which, the tradition holds, consists primarily of light. The Read More...
A man with balls
On a sultry night in October of 2011, two young men sit on the edge of a fountain in the city center of Damascus. It’s near midnight and a threatening silence hangs over the old Arab city with its narrow, mysterious streets and numerous bazaars and coffeehouses. The men speak softly with each Read More...