Tamsin Smith

I often marvel at how one slim volume of verse can contain so much of the world's grandeur. Book covers, no matter how well designed, barely hint at the epic enchantments that lie within. I savor the moment...

Human Nature, you say. Is it good or evil? Innate or mutable? Varied or universal? Metaphysically connected or scientifically determined? These debates populate the purgatory of Western political philosophy. And though I don't intend to journey back through the centuries, nodding at Aristotle, Rousseau, and Locke along the way, I...

I've just returned from China. There's much to say about impressions upon visiting the country of my ancestors. It's likely too much for just one blog post, but I'll start in the bone deep spots and leave politics for later. My maternal grandmother was...

It's National Poetry Month and I've been overindulging. Last night, to sober up, I dimmed the reading lamp, searched for a film to watch, and stumbled upon the documentary Rivers and Tides. Director Thomas Riedelsheimer's portrait of Andy Goldsworthy is a blissful thing.

I was familiar with...

It must be the onset of Spring Fever. Everyone around me appears to be in a muddle about love. It seems that aligning relationship stars is much harder than even Shakespeare suggests, for at least a play has a finite end....

This Sunday -- day of rest for the restless - I'm signed up to take a yoga class for writers. I love the idea of unleashing my imagination while aligning my spine. Time to get limber, physically and lyrically. Enter me, muse, through the sweat of my arm balance, the...

"Everything indicates - the smallest does, and the largest does..."

~ excerpts from Walt Whitman's Crossing Brooklyn Ferry

Ahoy! What a week I've had. Whitman provides the refrain for a string of days, rich in...

Walt Whitman is by turns comforting and disturbing me today. It's why I sought him out. I'm overdue for a good cage rattling. Time to tip myself sideways and reexamine the landscape.

So, I sent my soul out to loaf on the metaphorical grass with instructions to listen for...

Adolescent girls are standing up and stepping out across California this month to make their voices heard, declaring "it's not fair" that girls who share their dreams for the future don't have equal access to opportunities in countries like Ethiopia, Malawi, Guatemala, and Liberia. This is not simply about protest,...

Back at the start of (RED), I used to refer to our team, our partners, and our growing cadre of inspired consumers as "a crazy band of fearless warriors" for believing that simple items like t-shirts and iPods could help eliminate AIDS in Africa. (RED) has since raised roughly

Just another day and a half in Cape Town, then we move on to Zambia, in search of more products for OBene to bring to an American audience. Our mission is to delight you with desirable finds and give back 10 percent of the sales price for you...

What more perfect way to end our first day in Cape Town than a lovely dinner with New York-based fashion designer Tina Lutz. Like many other old friends and colleagues, Tina and her friend Barbara are here to help celebrate Desmond Tutu's 80th birthday.

Tina's been traveling the world...

It's Saturday, so I took a break from visiting design studios to marvel at the natural beauty of the Cape's coastline and dive into the ocean.

The waves at Muizenberg were fun -- hip high, speedy, and constant. What better place to christen our new venture with the blessing...

Global design consultancy IDEO has long been at the forefront of fostering innovation for brands, organizations, and even governments. Their core customer, however, is always people. Human wants, human needs, and human nature sit at the center of the firm's approach, as they look for fresh ways to...

What makes a good life? Artistotle put in a plug for happiness, though his is a much more disciplined and nuanced use of the phrase. "Happy" -- ubiquitous in today's overuse of the word -- has become a pale facsimile of its former self. For Aristotle, happiness can only be...

"Last night, I dreamed of new inventions -- what will power it all." Enter The Great Unknown, a Philly-based band that seems to find home in the groove that forms between people sharing the same moment. Yes, this is what music is meant to be about: the groove...

I just attended ACT II, a biannual gathering of entrepreneurial leaders from across the Aspen Institute's global network of fellows. The theme for this year was "Stepping Up" -- i.e. how to use our creativity, energy, and resources to make a big dent in the world. I was...

Birds are the ultimate soul (and body) surfers, quite literally. They drop in and ride in the wake of the one ahead, drafting off that energy to improve the efficiency of the group. Would that I could harness this aerodynamic effect to follow Kelly Slater through Endless Summers. Alas. But,...

My kids are on holiday with their father, so I'm doing what I do when I miss them: I'm thinking of all the funny, sweet, and surprising things they've done and said lately. I'm smiling now, at the memory of my son snuggling up to me the other morning to...

In terms of memorable opening lines, I'm not sure any author can top Vladimir Nabokov in Lolita for pure poetry and mind-bending eroticism, but Nabokov's masterful conjuring doesn't leave much to the imagination. He infiltrates the reader's consciousness, making clear from the get-go that the mad white heat of obsession...