Students sit in silence for 90 seconds, then write every distraction that arose — a thought, an urge to check a phone, a noise. The list itself is the data. Instructor reads from William James: “The faculty of voluntarily bringing back a wandering attention, over and over again, is the very root of judgment, character, and will.” (Principles of Psychology, 1890).

The variable reward loop (Tristan Harris), the business model of social media, and Gloria Mark’s research showing it takes 23 minutes to regain deep focus after a single interruption. Students pull up their own Screen Time data live.

Students draw a map: at center, write “My Attention.” Around it, list every app, platform, habit, or environment that regularly pulls focus. Draw arrows and color-code: deliberate choice vs. designed capture. Share with a partner. This is the first artifact of the course portfolio.

If you recovered one hour per day, what would you do? Students write for three minutes, then share one word. The instructor aggregates — this word cloud becomes a recurring reference throughout the course.

Each student writes one specific, actionable change for the coming week. Not a rule — a hypothesis. They’ll report back next session.

Students sit without instruction. Afterward: “What happened?” Brief popcorn responses. The chaos of an unguided mind is the first lesson.

Sara Lazar’s Harvard research on cortical thickening in meditators; the default mode network and rumination (Killingsworth & Gilbert, 2010: mind-wandering predicts unhappiness); amygdala volume reduction after 8 weeks of MBSR.

Practice 1 (8 min) — Focused Attention: Rest awareness on the breath. When the mind wanders, return without self-criticism. This is the fundamental unit of all meditation.

Practice 2 (8 min) — Open Monitoring: No object of focus. Observe whatever arises without following any of it. The stance is witnessing, not engaging.

Practice 3 (8 min) — Loving-Kindness (Metta): Silently direct phrases (“May you be well. May you be happy. May you be at ease.”) to yourself, then someone you love, then someone neutral, then someone difficult. Based on Fredrickson et al. (2008). 2 min debrief between each.

Written reflection: which felt most natural? Most uncomfortable? Why? Students commit to one 10-minute daily practice for the week and keep a simple log: date, duration, type, one word for how they felt after.

Write the story of your life in two minutes. Then read it back: Where does it start? What gets skipped? Who is the protagonist? This surfaces narrative assumptions before the lecture names them.

Dan McAdams found that adults construct identity as a “personal myth.” His research identifies two key story types: contamination sequences (good → bad) and redemption sequences (bad → meaningful). People whose autobiographies contain more redemption sequences show significantly higher wellbeing, generativity, and resilience. This is narrative structure as psychological architecture.

Students divide their lives into 3–6 thematic chapters. Each gets a title, a one-sentence summary, and a label: contamination or redemption. Then: identify one turning point. Write one paragraph about it from your current perspective. Pairs share. Instructor asks: “What did that event make possible that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise?”

What would you title the chapter you’re currently living? One sentence: what do you hope happens in it? This becomes the opening page of the course portfolio.

Students close their eyes and move awareness slowly from feet to head. Then: “Where in your body do you feel something right now?” Students draw a body outline and mark location, color, and texture of what they notice. Grounded in Nummenmaa et al.’s body mapping research (2014).

Lisa Feldman Barrett’s How Emotions Are Made (2017): emotions are not hardwired reactions — the brain predicts and constructs them. Emotional granularity — distinguishing “anxious” from “apprehensive” from “dread” — is linked to better emotional regulation, physical health, and psychological flexibility.

Students receive a feelings inventory — 100+ emotion words. Working alone: circle every word felt this week. In pairs: describe a recent experience using only inventory words; partner reflects back with greater precision. Debrief: “Did you find words for things you’ve felt but never named?”

Antonio Damasio’s somatic marker hypothesis: the body encodes emotional memory as physical signals that guide decisions before conscious awareness. Closing: “Name one decision you’re currently facing. What does your body say about it?”

Five minutes writing: “What have you lost — a person, a place, a version of yourself, a future you imagined?” No sharing required. The instructor acknowledges: every person in this room is carrying something. That weight is not a problem to solve; it is the subject of this hour.

The five-stage model was developed from interviews with dying patients — Kübler-Ross later expressed regret at its rigid application. George Bonanno’s Columbia research shows most people are resilient — grief does not follow a universal sequence. Continuing bonds theory reframes healthy grief not as “letting go” but as transforming the relationship with what was lost. The Japanese concept of mono no aware offers a cultural alternative to Western grief pathology.

Students are introduced to the elegy — a piece that mourns and honors a loss. Instructor reads a brief model. Students write their own for 15 minutes: not necessarily about death, but about any significant loss. Then those who wish share one sentence. The instructor receives each with a simple “Thank you.” No analysis. No feedback. Just witness.

Students write one sentence: “What I carry forward from [name of loss] is…” Not letting go — transforming. This goes in the portfolio.

Students rate 10 statements on a 1–5 scale (adapted from the UCLA Loneliness Scale): “I feel part of a group of friends.” “There is someone I can call at 2am.” Results are kept private. The inventory is a mirror, not a diagnosis.

The 2023 US Surgeon General advisory: loneliness has health impacts equivalent to smoking 15 cigarettes a day. Social pain activates the same neural regions as physical pain (Eisenberger et al., 2003). The Harvard Study of Adult Development (80+ years): the single strongest predictor of health and happiness in old age is the quality of close relationships.

Three concentric circles: inner (crisis contacts, typically 1–5), middle (regular positive relationships), outer (weak ties). Using Putnam’s framework from Bowling Alone, label bonds as “bonding” vs. “bridging.” Students identify one dormant tie — someone they’ve drifted from — and consider what it would mean to reach out.

Belonging is a practice — not a state. Students write: “The relationship I want to invest in more is _____, and what’s stopped me is _____.”

Three minutes writing: describe the last time you did something for someone else without expectation of return. What prompted it? How did you feel afterward? Share in pairs. The instructor listens for the range of motivations — guilt, habit, genuine care, social pressure — without judging any of them.

Giving activates the mesolimbic reward pathway. Moll et al.’s fMRI research (2006): giving to charity activated reward centers more strongly than equivalent personal gain. Dunn, Aknin & Norton (2008): spending on others produces more happiness than spending on oneself — across income levels and cultures. Self-Determination Theory: intrinsically motivated helping sustains wellbeing; guilt-driven service depletes it.

Part 1 (10 min): Students rate service acts on a spectrum from “I had to” to “I wanted to” to “It is who I am.” This surfaces the distinction between compliance, choice, and identity-level contribution.

Part 2 (15 min): Each student designs a “micro-contribution” — a specific act of service for the next 48 hours. Must be concrete, personally meaningful, and small enough to actually happen. Share in small groups and refine.

What would it mean to serve not to build a profile but to become someone? Students write: “I want to be known as someone who ___.” This goes in the portfolio.

Three minutes writing: describe the last time something genuinely stopped you — not “nice” but stopped. Share two or three. The instructor names what these experiences have in common: the sudden smallness of the self, the expansion of awareness, the sense of something larger. That is the operational definition of awe.

Dacher Keltner’s Awe: The New Science of Everyday Wonder (2023): awe reduces default mode network activity, increases prosocial behavior, decreases inflammatory cytokines, and strengthens sense of meaning. Crucially, awe is accessible — triggered by nature, music, moral beauty, collective ritual, and even mathematics. Japanese concepts of wabi-sabi (beauty in imperfection) and yūgen (mysterious depth) offer culturally distinct frameworks.

Part 1 — Slow Looking (12 min): The instructor plays a piece of music or describes a work of art in detail. Students observe in complete silence for 10 minutes, then write for 2 minutes: what did you notice? What shifted? Adapted from Visual Thinking Strategies (VTS).

Part 2 — Awe Inventory (10 min): List 10 things that have produced genuine awe across categories: nature, music, people, ideas, places, experiences. Share one in small groups. This becomes a personal resource — a map of where to go when meaning feels thin.

How often do you deliberately seek the experiences on your awe inventory? Students write one commitment: one awe-inducing experience to seek in the next two weeks. Not a bucket list item — something genuinely accessible.

Students write for 5 minutes: “Describe a moment you felt most alive.” Then the instructor reads an AI-generated response to the same prompt. Students compare: What is different? What is missing? The goal is to notice what is present in the human version that is absent in the machine’s: specificity of sensation, stakes, embodied memory, the weight of consequence.

A philosophical, not technical, lecture. AI does not have embodied experience, moral weight (actual stakes), genuine surprise, the feeling of time passing, love, or the fear of death. Drawing on Searle’s Chinese Room argument: as automation increases, which human capacities become more valuable, not less?

Part 1 (10 min): “If AI can do most cognitive tasks better and faster than I can — what am I for?” Write without editing. Share one line.

Part 2 (10 min): Students spend 5 minutes in conversation with an AI tool about something they care about deeply, then reflect: What did it feel like? What did you want that you didn’t get?

OSL framing: technology is an extension of human intention. The question is not “is AI dangerous?” but “who am I becoming in relation to these tools?” Students write: “I want to use technology to _____ — and I refuse to let it _____.” Personal technology manifesto, portfolio page.

Students stand and move however the body wants to move right now — no performance, no right answer — for three minutes. After: “What did you notice? What did your body want to do that you didn’t let it?” The discomfort of this exercise in an academic setting is itself data.

Bessel van der Kolk’s The Body Keeps the Score (2014): trauma and emotional experience are encoded somatically. Stuart Brown’s research on play: physical play in adults correlates with creativity, resilience, and relational health. How much of your life do you live above the neck?

Part 1 — Structured Improv (15 min): Two exercises from Keith Johnstone’s Impro: (1) mirror exercise in pairs; (2) group walk — adjust to each other’s pace without coordination. Debrief: what did it feel like to sync without words?

Part 2 — Movement Autobiography (10 min): Write a brief autobiography of your physical life: first memory of your body, a practice that shaped you, a time movement saved you, a time you abandoned it.

Commit to one new physical practice for the week — not exercise as discipline but movement as exploration.

Jeff Bezos’s regret minimization framework: imagine yourself at 80 looking back at your life right now. Five minutes writing from that perspective. Not about achievement — about presence and priority.

The Stoic practice of memento mori was clarifying, not morbid. Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations return to death as a reminder to live deliberately. Ernest Becker’s The Denial of Death (Pulitzer Prize, 1973): much of civilization is a response to the terror of mortality. Terror Management Theory (Greenberg, Pyszczynski & Solomon): mortality awareness, when faced rather than suppressed, produces more authentic and generous behavior.

Write your own eulogy — not as an achievement list, but as a compass. Write as if you lived the life you most want to live. Who is speaking? What do they say about who you were? 20 minutes uninterrupted. Then circle one sentence that surprises you — something that reveals a value you hadn’t fully acknowledged. Small group share: read only that sentence. The room receives it in silence.

David Brooks’s distinction from The Road to Character: “resume virtues” (what you achieve) vs. “eulogy virtues” (who you are). Students write: “The gap between who I am right now and who I want to be remembered as is ___.”

The instructor reads the prompt from Lecture 1: “What would you do with the time back?” Students look at their original answer. Do they still believe it? Has anything changed? 90 seconds of silence.

Students review all artifacts: distraction map, sit log, chapter title, emotion vocabulary project, elegy, belonging map, micro-contribution reflection, awe inventory, “What am I for?” answer, movement autobiography, eulogy sentence, gap sentence. Working alone for 15 minutes: (1) one idea that genuinely changed how you see something; (2) one practice you intend to keep; (3) one question you’re still sitting with.

Write — in any form — a brief personal philosophy of flourishing. Not a self-improvement plan. A set of honest, currently-true beliefs about what makes a life worth living. Must include: one changed belief, one open question you intend to keep asking, and one sentence to your 80-year-old self.

Every student shares one sentence: the most honest thing they currently believe about what makes a life worth living. The instructor goes last. No comments, no feedback, no applause. Each sentence is received in silence. When the last is spoken, the instructor reads Mary Oliver’s The Summer Day in its entirety. That is the close.