The laws of numbers assume there are identical things, but in fact, nothing is identical with anything else. -Human, All Too Human, “Of First and Last Things,” Section 19 Mathematics would certainly not have come into existence if one had known from the beginning that there was in nature no such thing as a…
Is it not the case that similar problems, analogous issues present themselves over and over, such as is suggested by Ralph Waldo Emerson’s famous essay, Circles? Emerson wrote in his unforgettable way that life is composed of concentric circles, intersecting matters of concern, of compelling interest. Fresh to my consciousness is an email…
Got off to a late start this morning… I arrived at Starbucks and found a place seated against the wall, the small table holding the computer and a book, The space in between where I am seated and the counter behind which the baristas work, has been a whirl of activity for the past…
Well here I am, again. I guess it comes down to luck, the grace of good fortune. Some would say “dumb luck,” a crude way of putting it. How much credit do I deserve? Little if any. Our anniversary was yesterday. How many years? 52 That is a long time by the standard of…
What if there is no why? That is, no purpose and no reason for the way things are….. What if everything could have been different, and thus markedly different in the present. There’s the endless pass time of counterfactual history. You know that game of speculation, a diversion of the imagination: What if the…
Rebel Yell By Billy Idol Last night a little dancer came dancin’ to my door Last night a little angel came pumping on the floor She said “Come on baby I got a license for love And if it expires pray help from above” Because In the midnight hour she cried – “more, more,…
The story of the individual is embedded in a larger set of stories. We play our part in an ensemble cast. How do we imagine a successful strategy for addressing the tension between the needs of the individual and the problems of satisfying those needs within the social, economic and natural environment? We must…
Real animals and plants separated from their spiritual truth slowly rejoin the empty objectivity of tools, the mortal body is gradually assimilated to the mass of things. Insofar as it is spirit, the human reality is holy, but it is profane insofar as it is real. Animals, plants, tools, and other controllable things form…
Speaker no. 1 – Won’t you just cut it out!? Speaker no. 2 – I can’t. I cannot help myself. At every moment, at every opportunity the truth comes to light, the truth of life and death, of my solitude and my bond with the world, of my freedom and my servitude, of the…
…the contradictionof a style of living whichcultivates sincerityand is at the same timea fraud.There is truth only in an existencewhich feels its acts asirrevocably necessary. There exists today no politician who feelsthe inevitableness of his policy,the more extreme his attitudes, the more frivolous,the less inspired by destiny they are. The only life with its…
