The Socrates Café discussion of this past evening was stimulating, open-ended, a probing exploration for a definition of freedom. Our quest to find or to fashion a definition of freedom came from a quotation from a book, “To Fight Against This Age” by Rob Rieman: “He who remains a slave to his desires, emotions,…
The final gathering for 2019 for our philosophy group took place last night at Taste of Paris in Mundelein. The surprise, unforeseen was that half again as many showed up than had sent me their RSVP of their intentions. A sign that the life of the mind, the tactile experience of exchanging ideas, is…
The emotionally intelligent person – knows that love is a skill, not a feeling, and will require trust, vulnerability, generosity, humor, sexual understanding, and selective resignation. The emotionally intelligent person – awards themselves the time to determine what gives their working life meaning and has the confidence and tenacity to try to find an…
How good is any story? Logic dictates that it would be impossible to assess while the story is being created. Only after the finish will someone else, in the telling of the story, know the quality of the tale. Whether something qualifies as a story or not depends upon the teller and the audience…
I did something that I cannot remember doing before. I saw the same movie twice, Ford vs Ferrari which features Matt Damon playing the role of Carroll Shelby and Christian Bale in the role of Ken Miles. The story is a exploration of human nature, the cost of achieving excellence, — an adventure involving…
There is nothing arrogant about mentioning ordinary people’s material concerns: the poor have the right to do it, and to talk about a readiness for great sacrifices, or suffering ‘whatever the price‘, is as a rule the ideology of the privileged, who are quite content to let the people suffer for them. So do…
We have to accept that we live on a ‘Spaceship Earth’ responsible and accountable for its conditions. Earth is no longer the impenetrable background/horizon of our productive activities. It emerges as another finite object that we can inadvertently destroy or transform to make it livable. This means that the very moment we become powerful…
I woke this morning to the chords of Bruce Springsteen’s anthem Born To Run. As you may know the song is a bitter-sweet salute to life-in-America. Also, I am basking in the afterglow of viewing the film Ford vs Ferrari for the second time. The cinematic story telling was superb, featuring Matt Damon as…
It is my turn. Having read and discussed a number of paragraphs submitted by readers of Philosophy Now Magazine my appreciation grows for the effort put forth by these readers to formulate their ideas on a philosophically interesting question. The variety of approaches is stimulating, a reminder of the suppleness of our minds. No…
Watched the last scene of Bohemian Rhapsody a movie about Freddie Mercury and the band Queen. Originally I saw the 2018 movie at a theater. The last few minutes were just as inspiring in the living room on a smaller screen. I was thrilled by Rami Malek’s depiction of Mercury belting out his now…
