Friday brings a sultry summer morning. Perhaps this will be the beginning of an idyllic day, such as I remember, or believe that I remember from my childhood. Those were endless summers. My only responsibility was to return to the house by dark. Otherwise the day was entirely mine for play and for exploration. …
The question comes in due time to everyone who is aware, caring about the condition of society, about the well being of one’s fellows. No doubt that the question of concern is self-interested. What if anything ought I to do about climate warming, or the pandemic, or the political issues which divide us as…
Another day dawns. A light rain is falling for which I am thankful. I do not live in L.A. There it is a dry time. The city is certain to face water rationing, when Lake Mead falls lower. The man-made lake is now at 36% of full capacity. Four million people in one place,…
Last night I participated in a wide ranging discussion about language. How language, words and a manner of speaking, those informal “rules” that channel our conversations in predictable ways — make up our minds. When I look at the assertion which I just wrote I feel an inner disquiet, dismay. It appears that language,…
It is Monday morning, a gray overcast sky. I do not want to write about politics, about the resurgence of the covid virus, or about the heatwave scorching the West. Can I write a few lines about a song, about music that communicates more than the composers, the performers intended, or could know? Rock…
How could I not offer this song? “By chance,” perhaps the phrase is nonsense. From another angle of view “chance” is a place holder for ignorance, the cause and effect chain that I did not take into account. There’s much that I do not take into account. Anyway, by chance I heard this one…
I am revisiting the Tao Te Ching, written by Lao Tsu, a contemporary of Confucius. It is old by the standard of my short lifetime. And it is not so old in terms of our Earth, estimated at 4.5 billion years. Thus the text of the Tao Te Ching is both old and not…
The rumination about freedom vs determinism, the conundrum presented by cause and effect runs its course. It is time to move on to another stop on our journey. After all, change in scenery, variety is what we are looking for. Life is more than one topic, a single discussion. I took a short walk…
How much should I care? Is care involuntary? Can I choose to care or not to care? Or what to care about? It appears that all of life, that is all that I am aware of, is involuntary… The organism, you and I are no exception, is a concatenated layered system of bio-chemical cause…
Why do I return to the old songs, the ballads that search the landscape of love and loss, of faithfulness and betrayal? Homer’s great tale, The Iliad, is such a story put into verse. I awakened at 4:30 AM this morning, with the chorus to this song, echoing in my waking consciousness. Laughing, is…
