The weekend is a wonderful time to relax, to let the triumphs and failures of the week fade into the ether, and to be nowhere but right here, right now. Here's a few articles to help you sink into now:

• In Philosophy - What's the Use?, Gary Gutting disputes the pervasive notion that philosophical reflection is useless.


• On Why We Reason: Julian Baggini recently gave a TED talk likening the self to a waterfall. It's an apt metaphor, but the struggle to understand ourselves is still in its infancy.


• In a review of Clay Johnsons's A Healthy Information Diet: The Case for Conscious Consumption, Maria Popova explains that to blame the abundance of information for information overload is akin to blaming the abundance of food for our obesity.


• Jeff Atwood quite succinctly describes what it means to be a parent- the euphoria and the pitfalls- in On Parenthood.


• Philip Kitcher explains why religion is not needed to form a sustainable set of foundational ethics in Ethics Without Religion.


• In Thrifty Brains, Better Minds, Andy Clark tells explains that our brains lie to us more often than not- and that's probably a good thing.


• In Search of Serendipity is an exploration of how the definition of serendipitous has devolved, and what the internet needs to do about it.


• Design is something that's recently dear to my heart, and Cameron Koczon explains why designers need to take on a more foundational role to move the web (and the world) forward on A List Apart 


• Gregory Judanis explains why literature is vital to the progression of our morality in Literature and the End of Violence.