Master Zhuangzi and Master Hui were walking on the dam over the Hâo, when the former said, ‘These thryssas come out and play about at their ease; – that is the enjoyment of fishes.’ The other said, ‘You are not a fish; how do you know what constitutes the enjoyment of fishes?’ Master Zhuangzi…
Myth, a fabulous story of a single individual of destiny, that inscrutable intersection of circumstance has placed on the pivot point of choice! Is it to be “life”, or will it be “death”, capitulation to maintain things as they are, to remain asleep? What will you do with your life? The great wager, a…
A group of us attempted to better understand what is meant by culture. Isn’t culture tacitly agreed upon habits of behavior, norms of a common life, a form-of-life shared? Expectations are built up gradually by observation and practice. So much becomes “as if” instinct, imprinted habit. I simply know how to act, and how…
At the Paramount Theater in Aurora we were present for the Happy Together Tour concert. Songs written in our youth, over fifty years ago were performed by The Turtles, Little Anthony, Gary Puckett, The Vogues, The Classics IV and The Cowsills. Arriving early we waited for the doors to open just outside the auditorium. …
It is Friday. I’ve got almost nothing to write. What does it mean “to be” here, to exist, to be located in Starbucks at 7:15 AM on a Friday morning? What links my being, to my physical position in space and time, here-now? The room is quite full, humming with voices and movement. I…
What I do or do not do now is as important for everything that is yet to come as is the greatest event of the past: in this tremendous perspective of effectiveness all actions appear equally great and small. –excerpt The Gay Science, Book 3, Section 233 by Friedrich Nietzsche I shared these lines with…
The debt ceiling crisis is over. The idea that our nation could refuse to make good on debts already incurred is surreal, the creation of an insane world. In effect this would destroy the credit of the nation by a single political impasse. Embedded in my mind is image of President Biden and Speaker…
Do we pray anymore? Piety is obsolete in a secular society. Not entirely of course. Always there are remote places that have yet to hear the news. News takes time. “God is dead,” Nietzsche proclaimed as in the “Gay Science” published 1882. A way of life predicated upon reliance upon the technology of the…
At the racetrack on a Saturday afternoon, I feel gratitude for yet another experience of earthly paradise. I am able to be with others, fellow citizens that I know only slightly. That fragment of common ground is enough: the passion for quarter mile competition unites us. Paradise, an ideal condition of experience is always…
“Sin” is a word seldom mentioned, rarely heard now-a-days. The emotion of shame though is all too prevalent. Is it universal to have hidden anxiety that one fails to be “good enough?” No matter the surface appearance due to education, social status, etc., it’s not unusual to wonder if one is a failure. Why…
