Today I am in Niles, Michigan. The Niles area is rural. Niles is a small town by comparison to towns in the Chicago suburbs. I am situated in Starbucks within a Martin Food store, that is large, offering a wide variety of foodstuffs and services. The mom standing in front of me waiting to…
Well today is Good Friday. Do we not each celebrate this day in his/her own way? Even, to not commemorate at all! I am well acquainted with the meaning of the Passion story as held by Christians. To be a human being, a Homo Sapien, is to belong to a species that assigns a…
Today is Wednesday. It is called “hump day” the mid-point of the work week. Though retired, by force of habit Wednesday yet feels like a halfway to Friday to me. I look around the room at Starbucks, I see the mix of patrons, genders, generations from infants perhaps only weeks old, to seniors like…
The wandering sage observes that humans create tribal units by a process of valuing, by labeling as good or as evil – behaviors, practices, forms of life, etc., etc.. Much that passed for good with one peoplewas regarded with scorn and contempt by another:thus I found it. Much found I here called bad,which was…
Today is Monday. It is tempting to characterize this passage: The Poison Fly Soliloquy. Thousands of business owners in Europe, Asia, and in America are weary, and wary as one becomes when forced to swat away swarms of stinging gnats. The “on again”, “paused again” (for 90 days) tariffs become positively maddening for anyone…
This is by no means the first occasion when a head of state claimed that in his person, resided the state, beyond question and certainly any criticism. “L’état, c’est moi” (“I am the state”) said Louis XIV, the king of France. He supposedly declared this before the Parlament of Paris in 1655, signifying his…
It is Saturday. Nature, sunrise with the warming of spring, – proceeds impassively. The bedrock of reality is cause and effect as far as I can tell. I find comfort in that. There, in Nature is my refuge from being whipsawed by revulsion, or by terror, or by avarice, by hope, or by _____….
This Friday begins with magnificent sunlight. Nature is our mother, the beginning and the ending of my/our individual stories. This story penned by Nietzsche requires two movements. Tomorrow I will offer part 2. As you’ve noticed it’s a conversation between a young adult (male or female) and Zarathustra. “Zarathustra,” Nietzsche’s mouthpiece, is a mysterious…
Days become weeks, weeks months and perhaps years too, rare if ever does the conversation arise. I mean a direct, heads-up discussion about what we mean when we use the term God. What qualifies as experience of a divine presence for me? I could never hazard to answer on your behalf. Sometimes after pondering…
Ought I to be surprised that Nietzsche’s understanding of crime parallels that of the ancient Stoics? This disciplined way of life aimed at moderating the passions, harmonizing emotion according to reason was developed from 400 to 500 year span of time from Athens to Rome. Stoics recognized that feeling, impulse, bodily sensation is emotion…
