Only As Creators! …what things are called is incomparably more important than what they are. The reputation, name, and appearance, the usual measure and weight of a thing, what it counts for — originally almost always wrong and arbitrary, thrown over things like a dress and altogether foreign to their nature and even to…
A group, five of us discussed the principles of Buddhist philosophy, the world view that rises from noticing the fluidity of “things.” We are surrounded by a kaleidoscope should we pause, slow down sufficiently to notice. What is real? I am not sure. Moreover I too am kaleidoscopic… I cannot assume a god-like vantage…
The ultimate noblemindedness.- What makes a person “noble”? …the passion that attacks those who are noble is peculiar, and they fail to realize this. It involves the use of a rare and singular standard and almost a madness: the feeling of heat in things that feel cold to everybody else; the discovery of values…
Truthfulness— I favor any skepsis to which I may reply: “Let us try it!” But I no longer wish to hear anything of all those things and questions that do not permit any experiment. This is the limit of my “truthfulness”; for there courage has lost its right. –excerpt The Gay Science, Book 1,…
The end, it’s moving toward us. His future’s set in an unreadable script. — excerpt Lullaby by John James Saturday, early spring is overcast. I am excited. The photo shoot is “on” at the old Joliet prison. A collection of photo’s depicting the dissonance between our actions, our practices, ways-of-life all contributing to climate…
I have an old friend, an individual who expresses his disdain for “socialism.” He speaks of “force collectivism” with condescension. His point, policies to help the majority, those under-employed, individuals and families unable to “help themselves” are contemptible. I and others, react to his aversion to public funding of services targeted to persons, who…
Owing to three errors. — During the last centuries science has been promoted, partly because it was by means of science that one hoped to understand God’s goodness and wisdom best- this was the main motive of the great Englishmen (like Newton); partly because one believed in the absolute utility of knowledge, and especially…
Saturday morning, following a few days of warm weather trees in Geneva are flowering. After the austere gray and brown season of winter cold the effect is enchanting. Life is. I do not understand life. The binary operations of my mind suited to simple problem solving makes visible only one side of life’s equation. …
Once decay has reached its climax along with the infighting of all sorts of tyrants, the Caesar always appears, the final tyrant who puts an end to the weary struggle for sole rule-by putting weariness to work for himself… In these ages bribery and treason reach their peak, for the love of the newly…
Once again I visited the old Joliet penitentiary. The abandoned, decrepit site draws me. I wanted to have another opportunity to feel the place, a scarce relic of the past. The prison was constructed in 1860 out of limestone, built by convicts brought from the prison at Alton. Alton was shuttered in part due…
