All Gaul is divided into three parts, one of which the Belgae inhabit, the Aquitani another, those who in their own language are called “Celts,” in our language “Gauls,” the third. All these differ from each other in language, customs and laws. – excerpt The Gallic War by Julius Caesar (written in 53 BCE),…
It [laughter] burns as it comes into contact with death; from the symbols of the emptiness of death it draws a heightened consciousness of being. …It brings us out, for a time, from the impasse in which life is enclosed by those whose only concern is to preserve it. …those arts which sustain anguish…
Egoism is like trying to swim without relying on the water, endeavoring to keep afloat by tugging at your own legs; your whole body becomes tense, and you sink like a stone. -Alan Watts Egoism… There are many untethered egos about these days. I think that capitalism as a way-of-life, breeds this illusion of…
It is not so much a matter of what you do as of how you do it, not so much the content as the style of action adopted. -Alan Watts I heard more than once from a conservative-minded friend that former President Trump accomplished some good things. Perhaps. Even to concede my friend’s point,…
At every moment we are crushed by the idea and the sensation of time. There are only two ways of escaping from this nightmare, of forgetting it: pleasure and work. Pleasure exhausts us. Work strengthens us. Let us choose. In every man, at every time, there are two simultaneous tendencies -one towards God, the…
Broken Brix is a winery & cidery in St. Charles. The two of us stopped in for a few minutes of conversation, to relax in the comfortable atmosphere, the bar displaying hints of the infinite possibilities of taste inherent in the art of brewing. Almost always Steve, the owner warmly greets us from behind…
…the world is immense, truly, and the way we’re doing things in this world is only one of the many ways we might be doing them. Once you know this, then you know that we’re not just alive, we’re the bearers of life. Anything can change. -excerpt Shadow Dancing in the USA, by Michael…
I had a few minutes at the end of my evening, I decided out of curiosity to watch a few minutes of an episode of The Walking Dead. I have not followed the show. I didn’t care which segment was available on the TV. A friend recommended the series as an exploration of human…
It is the moment that first imposes a chronological sequence and order upon the stimulations operating on an organism, and, in turn, through the sub-noticable joining together of successive units of this smallest time-span, time originates. In the moment, the world stands still. A series of moments in which, respectively, time stands still, leads…
The crisis of ’29, which was a real catastrophe, cannot happen again today. It has been supplanted by a perpetual simulation of crisis. Unlike a society’s heroic or intrinsic values, the simulated, synthetic values (see Reagan) that have taken their place no longer threaten to collapse. Their own weight no long threatens to result…
