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Ahimsa
The eastern religious principle of Ahimsa proposes that one ‘do no harm’: to achieve enlightened insight one must come to the realization that all things human and animal, animate and inanimate have...
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Mortification of the Flesh
As I anticipate the oncoming winter, the discomfort of cold winds and ice-covered streets, the extended darkness of shorter days and the ugliness of dirt covered snowdrifts, it’s clear to me a certain...
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Animal Nature
Numerous paintings have been done over the centuries of peasant celebrations, often in wooded settings, where revelry is apparent, debauchery implied. The imagery captures times, sometimes after...
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The Other
Fall season celebrations remind me of the deeply ingrained inclinations of people to hold onto ideas of the supernatural. I’ve been wondering if, beyond the dogmas of organized religions, do all...
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A Theme Park for the Disenfranchised
The disenchantment with and removal, these days, of monuments to past figures of note whose behaviors, in retrospect, are being found wanting has me in mind of a recent trip I took to eastern Europe....
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Dream World
I’ve been revisiting the ideas of the dream/reality conundrum as depicted in the Matrix scifi stories. The dream state the films present is so intensely real, there are no give aways, no...
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A Perspective Altering Experience
I’ve been thinking about the winter storm that occurred here recently. It was particularly devastating, heavy wet snow bending and snapping off 50-year-old trees and creating nearly impossible...
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Time
I suppose it doesn’t take much imagination to understand time as a social construct, a means of keeping society organized. Counting the hours keeps us showing up on time so progress can happen, so...
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Gnomon
I’ve been reading scifi lately. I know when I pick up a book of this genre there will be concepts, ideas that will stretch, challenge my understanding of how things can be. A gnomon, the reading...
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A Double Plus
I’ve been reading about the impending disaster awaiting us if climate warming isn’t actively addressed. Along with renewable energy sources more and better batteries would appear to provide a pathway...
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Another Me
I’ve been reading scifi again. In this reading reality as we wish to know it is upset by some sort of spatial distortion that causes the same transcontinental flight to land twice three months apart....
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Mental Drift
On occasion, as my mind drifts from thought to thought, it occurs to me something is missing. I harbor a vague feeling that I’m forgetting something of importance, that has slipped my memory and...
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New Technology
I’ve been reading about a new technology: a computer chip inserted into one’s pointer finger along with a screen capable of projection implanted into the palm of one’s hand. A truly personal computer...
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Deteriorating Language
I’m finding that my language is deteriorating since I left the workforce. ‘ing’s’ have become ‘in’s’ or worse, ’em’s’, requested acknowledgements have devolved into ‘init’s’, assents into...
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The Look of Love
I read in the paper the other day that Burt Bacharach died. News items sprinkled with his biggest hits reminded me, and I’m sure many others who grew up in the ’60’s, of our post-high school days....
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A Mysterious Past
I’ve been wondering how to think about what has been. No longer existent, one’s past can only be imagined. Unlike the present or future, the past would seem to be ‘written in stone’ but for the...
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A Whole Fear Quick
I’ve been reading the stories of Flannery O’Connor lately. The secluded culture of rural Mississippi in the 1940’s along with her inventive brilliance led to the creation of phrases that capture...
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Moral Truth
I’ve been reading about the conflicting philosophical thinking occurring among the dons of Oxford in the early 20th century. Conventional exegesis centered on issues of morality, how to think about...
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Chatbots
I’ve been reading about a new on-line application for students to resource that will complete written assignments for them. Given subject and context, ChatGPT will not only produce an essay or term...
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Dichotomies
I’ve been thinking about how language so often simplifies things, reduces complexities to opposites; consider definitions of race (black, white) or political perspectives, just to name two....
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