A R C H I V E

I recently posted a five-minute AI-generated audio summary of my weekly columns, urging us to look inward for the tools needed to confront our outer crises. I then invoked Joseph Campbell’s call to “joyfully participate in the sorrows of the world.”

A few members asked, “How can we enjoy life with wars raging in Ukraine and the Middle East, or take pride in America with Trump as president?”

One need not be a masochist to grasp the irony of the phrase “It hurts so good,” nor a Buddhist monk to understand that “the obstacle is the way.” To live is to struggle, and to struggle consciously is to live fully…

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In astrological terms, an Age lasts roughly 2,160 years—the time it takes the vernal equinox to drift through one sign of the zodiac. The Age of Aries was marked by conquest and command, the rise of patriarchal empires that exalted will and war. The Age of Pisces followed, embodying faith, sacrifice, and redemption through the great spiritual traditions of compassion and belief.

Now, as the Age of Aquarius dawns, the Water Bearer steps forward, pouring new knowledge upon a thirsty world. This is the age of networks and ideas, of technology that can both liberate and enslave, reminding us of what we forgot when we left the garden: that wisdom without love is ruin, and reason unguided by care becomes cruelty…

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I recently found myself reflecting on the mysterious connection between vision and manifestation; how what begins as a dream, spoken aloud with conviction, can take form and structure.

Nearly fifty years into it, the transformation of the abandoned Highland School into the enlightened City Club community feels like a dream realized. Once I learned to align vision with intention, it became natural to manifest the St. Julien Hotel across the street, launch the Highland Institute, help land the Sundance Film Festival, and envision a performing arts center on the grounds of the old library across 9th Street.

The next phase of the Highland Institute will build on the principle that thought, when aligned with language and action, can manifest reality…

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At the turn of this century, I caught the bug to build an institute. 

Having never belonged to one and with no clue how to begin, I studied the concept and concluded there are three possible paths. First, persuade a philanthropic billionaire to write a big check—the downside being that the donor dictates the philosophy. Second, launch one on the fly—the risk being that the new entity spends most of its time with its hand out, raising money. Third, build a self-sustaining organization capable of funding itself—the challenge being that it takes decades to achieve.

Inspired by Benjamin Franklin’s founding of the American Philosophical Society in 1743 to promote “useful knowledge,” we launched City Club in 2005 as a self-sustaining economic entity. With Highland as its home, we formally launched Highland Institute for the Advancement of Humanity in 2020, just weeks before the COVID-19 pandemic, with the intention “to make elite knowledge, common knowledge.”…

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The history of man in general, and that of the Middle East in particular, is marked by a series of constant wars. Since the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire’s 600-year reign, especially after World War II, the map of the Middle East has resembled a bloody Monopoly board.

Yet, two years after the October 7, 2023, massacre of 1,200 Israelis and the taking of 250 hostages by Hamas, a narrow door to peace appears to have opened. Israel and Hamas have begun indirect talks in Egypt on a U.S.-backed plan that links a ceasefire to a phased hostage–prisoner exchange, Hamas’s disarmament, and a new governance arrangement for Gaza. The plan is imperfect and fragile, yet real.

Fighting the longest war in its short history on seven fronts, Israel’s strategic picture has shifted. Hezbollah has suffered heavy losses and leadership decapitation, while Lebanon is haltingly bringing all arms under state control. Syria’s post-Assad transition has weakened Iran’s corridor to the Mediterranean. Peace in Gaza would further blunt Tehran’s “ring of fire” and strengthen Israel both militarily and economically…

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Fasting slows me down and connects me to my inner landscape of sadness and joy, gratitude and struggle. On Yom Kippur, I would rather walk outdoors in God’s garden than sit in a man-made synagogue, however beautiful. Yet I miss the cantor’s voice, so I turn instead to Leonard Cohen.

Some artists dare to go where most of us hesitate to deal with love, lust, betrayal, and death. Poet-musicians like Bob Dylan and Cohen lead us there with tenderness and unflinching honesty. I have long admired Cohen, knowing the demons he wrestled with. Yet, like a fine wine deepening with age, he ripened into something wiser, moving from youthful songs of longing to meditations on mortality.

At my age, Cohen’s last album, You Want It Darker, feels less like a farewell than a hymn for the living. Drawing from the story of Abraham, asked to sacrifice his son, Cohen lifts the words of the Kaddish, the Jewish prayer for the dead, and answers with sacred defiance: Hineni. Hineni. Hineni. Here I am. Here I stand…

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The transition from summer to fall carries a rhythm older than memory. For our farming ancestors, an abundant harvest meant the difference between survival and despair, and the season came to symbolize renewal.

The Jewish High Holidays draw from this cycle. Rosh Hashanah looks forward, celebrating life and possibility. Yom Kippur looks back and is pensive, asking us to take stock of our actions and to seek forgiveness while extending it to those who have wronged us.

Forgiveness sits at the center of every great tradition. On the cross, at what was likely a Yom Kippur meal just hours before, Jesus asked: “Father, forgive them, for they do not know what they are doing.” The Buddha offered the same wisdom in different words: “Holding on to anger is like grasping a hot coal with the intent of throwing it at someone else; you are the one who gets burned.”..

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On June 28, 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Bosnian Serb student, shot and killed Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife, Sophie. Called “a shot heard around the world,” that bullet sparked the First World War, leaving as many as 22 million dead.

On September 10, 2025, Tyler Robinson, a 22-year-old student, shot and killed Charlie Kirk, founder and CEO of Turning Point USA. That same week, Decarlos Brown Jr., a deranged homeless man, slaughtered Ukrainian refugee Iryna Zarutska on a train. With Ukraine in flames and Russian drones violating NATO airspace over Poland, Israel continued to prioritize a kinetic war over a PR one, assassinating a trove of Hamas leaders in Qatar, a U.S. “ally.”

Meanwhile, France, England, and Germany—troubled social states—teeter on the edge of civil war. In Britain, three million citizens marched against what they see as the foreign occupation of their homeland while politicians and police stood by…

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There’s an art to aging gracefully in good physical and mental health. My column last week on Sage’ing while Age’ing explored the slow unfolding of life from matter to spirit. Shakespeare paints a more eloquent picture of this arc.

In As You Like It, the melancholy Jaques delivers the famous “Seven Ages of Man” speech, casting life as theater: “All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players.”

The first age is infancy: helpless, crying, utterly dependent. The second is schoolboy: dragged reluctantly to class, “creeping like a snail,” resisting duty. Then comes the lover—sighing like a furnace, consumed by passion and clumsy verse…

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Just as every horse believes its own pack heaviest, every age imagines itself uniquely burdened. Despite wars, depressions, plagues, and upheavals recurring so regularly, they continue to surprise us. With Trump in office, France and England on the verge of civil war, and Iran, Russia, and China plotting against us, the present may feel apocalyptic, but it is simply our turn in the long cycle of disorder and renewal.

This recognition need not drive us to despair. Even as crises mount, we still eat, sleep, and laugh. We fall in love, raise children, and watch the seasons turn. Life persists with stubborn grace. The question is whether we meet these times awake, or, like a deer in headlights, stand frozen as history barrels forward.

The Stoics urged us to see adversity as an opportunity to learn and grow. Marcus Aurelius called this “the raw material for virtue.” Buddhists remind us that suffering is the very texture of existence, woven from our attachments and expectations. Both traditions reveal the same truth: the root of our suffering is striving to force the world to conform to our desires…

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To face the greatest question of all—“What is the meaning of life?”—we must begin where Socrates began: “Know Thyself.” Only then can we decide whether to chase wealth or fame, love or power, comfort or truth. To seek wisdom is to live as philosophers, wrestling with these questions and shaping our lives accordingly.

Yet advice is always easier to offer than to embody. Like the honeybee, which gathers nectar from countless blossoms to make its honey, I studied many philosophies and six religions to craft my own simple path through life, learning that at the physical level, we are both ancient and new. The reptilian brain, nearly three billion years old, keeps us alive with its instincts for survival, safety, and desire. The mammalian brain, 500 million years old, stirs memory, emotion, and longing. The neocortex, only 70,000 years old, gives us language, reason, and imagination…

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Humanity lurches forward in cycles of order, collapse, and renewal. According to Peter Turchin’s The Fourth Turning, America is nearing the end of an eighty-year cycle, marked by the emergence of two massive technological breakthroughs— artificial intelligence and quantum computing— and three major conflicts: the Iran-Israel war, the Russia-Ukraine war, and the looming possibility of a China-Taiwan war.

These battles are part of a war that will determine the fate of Western democracies and America’s position as the dominant superpower. 

Iran’s 46-year dream of destroying Israel by encircling it in a “Ring of Fire” turned into a nightmare when Israel decisively defeated Hezbollah and Hamas, orchestrated the downfall of the Syrian regime, and won its 12-day war with Iran. President Trump’s decision to send B-2 bombers to strike Iran’s nuclear facilities delivered the final, decisive blow, allowing ninety million frustrated and thirsty Iranians to orchestrate the final downfall of the much-hated regime…

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Whether you are a physicist who believes in quantum entanglement or a spiritualist who believes in synchronicity, you believe in what Jesus, Rumi, and the movie Matrix tried to convey: we are all One, and reality is a projection of our perception of this Oneness.

With the rise of Democratic-Socialists Zohran Mamdani and Omar Fateh as front-runners for the mayors of New York and Minneapolis, I decided to read A Gentleman in Moscow to recall what happens when Socialists and Communists take over. In one particularly vivid scene, the authorities order the Metropol Hotel’s sommelier to strip the labels from ten thousand bottles of fine wine, forcing guests to choose only between red or white, all at a single price, in the name of equality.

Authoritarians have long relied on projection to succeed, accusing their critics of the very crimes they commit. The Bolsheviks branded political opponents as “counterrevolutionaries” and “enemies of the people,” even as they dismantled democratic institutions, censored the press, and ruled through terror…

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The only constant is change. A recent tour through Rome’s 2,600-year history reminded me that cities are either being born or dying, growing or falling apart.

In its brief 150-year history, Boulder has been a miner’s base camp, a university town, a county seat, a scientific mecca, and a cultural hub. Today, Boulder faces familiar challenges: budget cuts, declining sales tax revenue, rising homelessness, and a 32% office vacancy rate, not including subleases and ghost spaces.

Since its founding, Boulder has strived to cast itself as the “Athens of the West,” a stage for cutting-edge art, science, sport, spirituality, and technology. Think University of Colorado, Chautauqua, 32 national labs, IBM, Pearl Street Mall—and, now, Sundance…

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Trust is the foundation of every functioning relationship—family, work, community, and nation. Its erosion sits at the root of many personal and societal ills.

From presidents who lie about their mental acuity to those who enrich themselves at our expense, from pedophile priests and Boy Scout leaders to corrupt CEOs and financial advisors, it often feels as though we remain trapped in the law of the jungle.

In 1964, 77% of Americans trusted the government to do the right thing; today, that number is just 22%. In 1970, more than 70% of Americans trusted the media; today, only 31% do…

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We think of our community as a Black Sheep Club. The centerpiece of our art collection is a large diptych by local artist Frank Sampson titled Celebration—a whimsical portrayal of humans, animals, and mythic hybrids gathered around a dining table. The painting reflects a simple truth: what appears strange at first often reveals itself as familiar once we share a few meals and stories.

City Club embraces this truth, rejecting the fantasy of human perfection as an aspiration fit only for gods. Instead, we strive to attract members willing to do the more complex work of self-reflection—those brave enough to confront their shadow sides, rather than those who presume themselves to be evolved.

This paradox lives most vividly in our leaders. Consider the sexual transgressions of Kennedy, Clinton, and Martin Luther King Jr.; Jefferson’s slave ownership; or Churchill’s lifelong dependence on alcohol. Even Donald Trump’s unchecked appetites remain a mirror we must reckon with. Reducing people to their worst traits is lazy. Wrestling with their contradictions—our contradictions—is what it means to be fully human…

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The United States Surgeon General has declared loneliness the number one epidemic in America. Loneliness and social isolation profoundly affect both mental and physical health, raising the risk of heart disease, stroke, dementia, depression, and premature death.

I speak from experience, having suffered two heart attacks and carrying five stents in my heart, which I largely attribute to my first eight lonely and difficult years in America, and later, a divorce. Picture a geeky, foreign teenage engineering student struggling with language, culture, and a lack of friends—a stranger in a strange land.

Recognizing the magnitude of the problem, modern-day snake-oil salesmen peddle “community” alongside whatever else they’re selling. Starbucks calls itself “The Third Place,” yet removes seating from its 38,000 locations and locks its bathrooms. Step into a modern office or co-working space, and you’ll find folks wearing earbuds to signal, “Don’t bug me.”…

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The arc of human freedom reaches back to the enslaved Hebrews in Egypt who yearned for liberty. Cyrus the Great and Greek philosophers gave us democracy. Jesus taught us to love our neighbor. The Magna Carta in England, followed by the Renaissance in Florence, cleared the path to signing the Declaration of Independence in Philadelphia.

In the 250 years since, America has strived to be the shining city on a hill. Compare that with the five thousand years it took to bring about the Agricultural Revolution, and the more than two centuries required for the Industrial Revolution. Now, we stand amid the AI Revolution. How long will it take, and what shape will its blessings and perils assume? The Declaration of Independence was a revolt against a tyrannical king. Today, we need a modern declaration to challenge the status quo.

In 2020, we launched the Highland Institute for the Advancement of Humanity to imagine—and help build—a brave new world of AI, quantum computing, cryptocurrencies, personalized medicine, and whatever else lies on the horizon. Five years in, we’re finally making solid progress on multiple fronts. For example, next week we’re hosting a nine-part series, Technology & Statecraft, to explore topics such as:..

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The only constant is change, and change moves in cycles. From Capital to Labor, Conservative to Liberal, political Left to Right, economic boom to bust, we’re perpetually caught in the rhythm of these swings.

The American Civil War was fought over freedom versus slavery. Today, America is simmering over immigration, abortion, gender, and social and economic justice. 

The liberal and hippie revolutions of the '60s and '70s ushered in conservative figures like Ronald Reagan as President and Rudy Giuliani as Mayor of New York. Now, the pendulum has swung so far left that New Yorkers are considering electing Zohran Mamdani, a Muslim immigrant and self-described Democratic Socialist…

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The Query family—Dave, Dana, Matt, and Sonya—has long been a cornerstone of Boulder and the City Club communities. So, when Dave told me, “You should meet John Cullen,” I listened.

Many individuals worked hard to bring the Sundance Film Festival to Boulder, but I consider John Cullen and Governor Jared Polis the primary catalysts behind Boulder’s successful bid.

John Cullen has been the owner and CEO of Grand Heritage Holdings since 1989. This global hotel and resort company has operated 51 properties across 17 countries, including the historic Stanley Hotel in Estes Park.

John is a force of nature: brilliant and bold, impulsive and unpredictable—equal parts Oscar Wilde and Tim Cook. He’s a bit hard to follow, not because of his British accent, but because his thoughts race faster than his words. A dealaholic by nature, John is either buying or selling, so unless you have a deal in mind, he doesn’t have time to deal with you!..

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