Sunday. I awakened, my mind seeming to have skipped a day. It felt like Monday. The New York Times in the blue plastic wrapper lying at the end of the driveway was a clue. Today is Sunday. There’s a fine rain falling. At Starbucks I chose a table. Coffee in hand I considered the…
Saturday morning, following a few days of warm weather trees in Geneva are flowering. After the austere gray and brown season of winter cold the effect is enchanting. Life is. I do not understand life. The binary operations of my mind suited to simple problem solving makes visible only one side of life’s equation. …
Once decay has reached its climax along with the infighting of all sorts of tyrants, the Caesar always appears, the final tyrant who puts an end to the weary struggle for sole rule-by putting weariness to work for himself… In these ages bribery and treason reach their peak, for the love of the newly…
Once again I visited the old Joliet penitentiary. The abandoned, decrepit site draws me. I wanted to have another opportunity to feel the place, a scarce relic of the past. The prison was constructed in 1860 out of limestone, built by convicts brought from the prison at Alton. Alton was shuttered in part due…
Evil- Examine the lives of the best and most fruitful people and peoples and ask yourselves: whether a tree that is supposed to grow to a proud height can dispense with bad weather and storms; whether misfortune and external resistance, some kinds of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, mistrust, hardness, avarice, and violence do not belong…
Acquaintances make lighthearted comment concerning my fascination with Nietzsche. Do they feel pity that I appear “stuck” on the writings of a 19th century writer, — a prototype of we psychologically troubled children of Enlightenment reason, of Christianity with all of it’s anti-reason? I’ll never know clearly what they think about my lifelong deep-dive…
…if one considers, finally that to the lover himself the whole rest of the world appears indifferent, pale. and worthless, and he is prepared to make any sacrifice, to disturb any order, to subordinate all other interests-then one comes to feel genuine amazement that this wild avarice and injustice of sexual love has been…
Easter morning and the first duty of the day is finished. Fifty four plastic eggs were hidden under a fallen oak leaf, or nested in the fork of a sapling. Frost chilled my fingers as I worked. I, the Easter bunny fulfilled my role in the ritual of resurrection. Three children will come later…
Saturday before Easter Sunday: The buttercups are up! A glorious resurrection all around. No one is excluded, nothing incredulous, no tall tale that beggars common sense… This splendid denouement, shades of yellow in every yard, along the roadside… We’re all born again! Centerfield by the great John Fogerty is perfect for today. Put me…
Easter. Images of Pope Francis performing the “foot washing” ritual, – a reminder of Easter as a religious commemoration… That was yesterday, Maundy Thursday. The image reminds me that Christianity promotes servility. Is there any evolutionary advantage to servility? Are the survival odds of one’s fellowman improved? I think, offering to others the self-that-I-am…
