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Narratives
I’ve been thinking, lately, about pictorial narratives, wondering how personal experience might affect interpretations if the imagery contains a bit of ambiguity. Since we all have different life...
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The Value of Opposition (Imagined or Otherwise)
Does one’s mental acuity require an antagonist or are there just some of us who don’t function well without an oppositional push? Having a foil against which I can expend my energies allows for...
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Michel de Montaigne’s Enlightened Views
In 16th Century Europe, Luther’s Reformation provided a popular alternative for a population aggrieved by the excessive taxation imposed by the Roman church. The schism produced opposing factions that...
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Traveling
I’ve been traveling lately to find warmer climes, to escape the cold of March in the north. To do this I spend long hours driving over a number of days through predominantly bland ecru nothingness,...
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What can be Known but not Spoken Of
I understand that neuro-scientists are going to great efforts these days to make sense of what exactly constitutes consciousness. A lot of their efforts are about correlating conscious experiences,...
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Mood Swings
I’m finding myself on an emotional roller-coaster lately, experiencing fluctuations in perspective I’m finding difficult to explain. I have experienced no traumatic events recently that can account...
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Accommodating the Uncomfortable
I’m anticipating, as summer approaches, extended social encounters I will likely find uncomfortable. The realization that my visitors live their lives within realities different than mine, that the...
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Exasperation
Following the public discourse online these days amounts to consumption of sensationalized soundbites that are anything but enlightening. I find it upsetting focusing, as the various media does, on...
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The Rest of the Story
I’ve been thinking lately about the story of Abraham and Isaac. Abraham, the father, is challenged by God to justify his faith by sacrificing his beloved son Isaac. The man and son make their way to...
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Mortality
Having recently experienced deaths of a number of people close to me, I can’t help thinking about mortality and what may come next. Humankind has, of course conceived existence of some sort after...
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When You Die You WILL Meet God
Driving down the highway the other day I saw a billboard that informed me that when I die, I will meet God. I got to thinking about just how that conversation might go. I suppose the gist of it would...
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Mental Changes
Experiencing, as I am, the mental changes of aging, I’m finding certain positives occurring. Although being unable to remember what I had for dinner two hours after eating can be annoying, the...
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Children
I’ve been thinking lately about what it means to produce children, why one would choose, in the first place, to assume the responsibility for creating one. I guess the animal instinct to procreate is...
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Is Professional Tennis a Healthy Endeavor?
Lately I’ve been viewing a series of programs about the lives of professional tennis players. The athletes that achieve elite status in the tennis world have usually been recognized as prodigies at an...
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Mosquito as Collective
A recent camping trip has me reconsidering the nature of Mosquito. It’s natural, I suppose, to see the insects as existing in swarms of creatures genetically engineered to pursue the blood needed to...
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An Impractical Dreamer
In the winter of his eighteenth year this young man fell madly in love (well, it was a serious crush anyway). The object of his unrequited affection was a demure sweet young lady who turned the young...
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Mythical Thinking
I’ve been trying to understand, lately, what exactly perpetuates the fairly widespread ideas of conspiracy theory surfacing these days in the political sphere. It occurs to me that perhaps many of us...
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The Uncommon Man
I’ve been reading, lately, about the common man, the 99% of the population that make up the social milieu and wondering what exactly common men have in common. I’m guessing these folks (well, us...
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My Maternal Grandparents
My maternal grandfather grew up in a large family of hardworking farmers who struggled to eke out a living from the rocky infertile soil of central Minnesota. Though never talked about, the tenuous...
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Embracing the Absurd
I’ve been thinking about the downside of logical analysis. At what point does reasoning, making decisions based on irrefutable fact become inadequate for certain kinds of understanding? Is the realm...
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