Reflections of a Boston Lawyer

New Year's is a time to reflect on where we are and where we would like to go. Many of us make New Year's Resolutions, and many of us (myself included) fail to keep them for very long. While I could try again to do a better job with the usual suspects (eat less, exercise more, etc.), this year I'm going to try something different - I'm going to take some steps to change how I engage with the world of information. Perhaps it has happened too gradually for us to notice, but modern media has fundamentally changed the way many of us receive and respond to information. For some of us who use social media, every time we log in we are met with a barrage of often strongly worded viewpoints and angry screeds, which we sometimes are quick to republish for our friends and followers. For those of us who also have grown accustomed to the 24/7 world of cable news, we similarly are met with a constant flow of information and opinion, very often under the now-meaningless but still at

This is all you need to know. Truth is greater than falsehood. Love is greater than hate. Love is also greater than indifference. Peace is greater than war. Good prevails over evil. If not now, then later, and forever. And we are all in this crazy thing together.

Every day I see the products of human endeavor: buildings, roads, bridges, cars, trucks, planes, ships, among many other remarkable feats of engineering. Most mornings, I also have an opportunity to see the sunrise, many nights, the sunset, and every day, wonders like trees, grass, hills, ocean, river, birds and other animals. Sometimes these natural views are spectacular, and always they remind me of the majestic beauty of our planet and the cosmos. What has struck me recently is how much more I am inspired by nature than by anything built by human hands. I would much rather watch a sunrise than watch a plane take off or a cruise ship sail, amazing as those technical feats may be. And then I wonder why I don't spend more time in the outdoors - hiking, biking, going to the beach, or visiting national parks. I wonder, too, whether our tendency to invest more time and money in technology than in our environment (and often at the expense of our environment) reflects priorities that