My intention has been to learn more about Stoicism. Stoicism was (and is) a point of view as well as a practice located in history 4th century BC. Zeno of Citium facilitated a gathering on Stoa Poikile, the painted porch on the north side of the Athenian market place. This view that you are…
Today is St. Patrick’s Day. We celebrated Ireland, and the Irish people as a family yesterday. Ireland and its inhabitants have always been hard scrabble. Rural, village life is not easy-city-living. And then there’s England. The British have been Ireland’s overlords until recently, Dec. 6, 1921. Even then the British held onto Northern Island….
“To dare is to lose one’s footing momentarily. Not to dare is to lose oneself.” — Kierkegaard Well, which is it, what fate am I going to choose? To dare is to lose for the moment. Choose not, – and you lose yourself. Frankly I do not know if a “choice” at all is…
Human existence discovers itself as something unclear, even to itself, as to where it came from and where it is going. It is as if Dasein (existence) has been handed over to human beings, whose being is thereby revealed to be a burden with which they have been laden. Just why one has been…
A friend asked, “What are you going to write about today?” I had a vague idea which I vaguely described to him. The look back at forty years or so of establishing and operating a company, the challenges, some failures, and those successes -now come into focus. My life appears as the individualized version,…
These words come from Joan Westenberg’s newsletter. Contrary my natural inclination, I cannot but resonate with her point. It is this involuntary feeling – to preserve decorum is indirectly to “kiss the ring.” At the very least, to begin, – a push away from the starting block. You and I must find our voices. While…
Philosophy by its very nature is esoteric; for itself is neither made for the masses nor is susceptible of being cooked up for them. It is philosophy only because it goes exactly contrary to the understanding and thus even more so to “sound common sense,” the so-called healthy human understanding. Which actually means the…
Yesterday Laura and I discussed a Fox celebrity who as interviewed on NPR by Scott Simon. I listen to very little radio with the exception of several rock n’ roll music stations. I had not heard the interview. Nor was I familiar with Greg Gutfeld, one of the Fox entertainers. His show is late-night,…
I am more than midway the Nishitani book. It is a challenging read introducing me to literature that I have only heard others speak of. In this quoted passage the author comments upon Notes from the Underground by Fyodor Dostoyevsky. At this moment 9:09AM Starbucks is busy, almost crowded. I can hear the buzz…
In years past I read The Lord of the Rings trilogy by J. R. R. Tolkien. His work is literature that changed my life, with painterly scenes that I’ll never forget. Tolkien’s ideas and ideals are still warm within my psyche. Worth noting too, Peter Jackson captured the power of the Middle Earth saga in cinema…
