Another chapter from Charles Taylor’s The Ethics of Authenticity. The chapter is entitled The Slide To Subjectivism. He writes at length about the quest for a true self, when there is no horizon of meaning, (no divinely sanctioned king, or gods/God on high authorizing history as having a point, etc..) Perhaps you can get the…
Saturday begins on a mellow note. The coffee here at Starbucks is hot, astringent, a bracing effect – just as I like it. I know, I know that it’s an acquired taste. Only three of us now occupy the customer area. Each reads quietly. A coffee shop is a public space dedicated in part…
Wednesday, late afternoon, I am thinking about multiple realities. I mean the singular fact, – “the real” is co-dependent upon the mind! What reality do you prefer? There is no single univocal, granite-like “real” no matter how comforting this ancient intuition has been for us. What’s real – is a feature of the synthetic…
Saturday, May 23 of Memorial Day weekend. This weekend is prime time. It is a fold point when spring starts to feel like summer. Or not. The Midwest at this juncture in May, a day can be chilly enough to beg a winter’s coat, or edge close to 80 degrees Fahrenheit. I tell myself…
Friday feels like the lift-off to another Memorial Day weekend, – an interlude of graduation celebrations, of weddings, of cook-out gatherings, of ceremonies of patriotic posturing. We agree to pause, to call a time-out to the day to day routine for all of this… I plan to “lean in” to absorb the ebb and…
It is Monday, the first Monday in May. The time comes for considering the types and number of vegetable plants which I intend to place into the ground for the growing season. Tomatoes certainly and cucumbers. What vegetables will Finlea, our grand daughter happily enjoy? The thrust of my present, — is dedicated on…
Wednesday is midweek. Another day of magnificent light… Perhaps I will be able to transport what remains of my mulch pile to a proper location somewhere in the yard. Life is a matter of making small adjustments, is it not? Small adjustments accumulate. The big picture is effected, transformed, made otherwise than if we’d…
Wednesday morning is filled with light. Struggling with my laptop, seeming to have a mind of its own, (it doesn’t) multiple apps attempted to run, and the machine locked up. Shutting it down, sure enough, upon reboot the chaos of the prior session disappeared. Thus keyboard and screen behave in concert, and I view…
GOVERNMENT is founded on the formulations of laws which define various functions in society, specify social responsibility and ensure the fair investigations of all evidence before a decision is reached. The hundred offices are organized; commerce follows its regular course; the essential needs of clothing and food are prepared for; the cattle are fed…
Regarding BENEVOLENCE as the source of kindness, RIGHTEOUSNESS as the source of the distinction between right and wrong, PROPRIETY as the rule of conduct, MUSIC as the pattern of harmony, and merging SYMPATHY with FAIRNESS —these are the characteristics of the superior man/woman. Zhuangzi trans. by Hyun Höchsmann and Yang Guorong, Book 33 Under…
