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…
Evil- Examine the lives of the best and most fruitful people and peoples and ask yourselves: whether a tree that is supposed to grow to a proud height can dispense with bad weather and storms; whether misfortune and external resistance, some kinds of hatred, jealousy, stubbornness, mistrust, hardness, avarice, and violence do not belong…
Even the most harmful man may really be the most useful when it comes to the preservation of the species; for he nurtures either in himself or in others, through his effects, instincts without which humanity would long have become feeble or rotten. Hatred, the mischievous delight in the misfortunes of others, the lust…
57 Choosy Taste If it depended on my choice,I think it might be greatTo have a place in Paradise;Better yet-outside the gate. — excerpt The Gay Science. Prelude in Jokes, Cunning and Revenge by Friedrich Nietzsche, pub. 1887, trans. by Walter Kaufmann April 2nd. Yesterday was my birthday. I contemplated wax candles on the…
41 Heraclitean Only fighting yields Happiness on earth, And on battlefields Friendship has its birth. One in three are friends: Brothers in distress, Equals, facing foes, Free-when facing death! — excerpt The Gay Science. Prelude in Jokes, Cunning and Revenge by Friedrich Nietzsche, pub. 1887, trans. by Walter Kaufmann What? How counter intuitive! “Only…
Today at lunch with a friend, our conversation segued into religion. Religion is a topic many of us find uncomfortable. Some of us have a robust faith, and some take pains to be unaligned, (my term for the agnostic.) Putting labels to use to discuss religion is certain to over-simplify, to distort a more…
A wide ranging discussion ensued last night. On the agenda was the current politico-social conflict over unwanted pregnancy. You know, the dogma that the state is morally obliged to force a woman to carry a fetus to full term,.. It doesn’t end there. Is there ever an ending? Life is inexpressibly complex. One thing…
Out of sorts this morning, a disoriented feeling, and I hardly know how to begin writing. A dream played in my mind just before waking this morning. I was on the verge of being questioned, asked to give evidence about a stolen snowmobile. Did I have a role in the hijacking of the machine,…
The Dormouse had closed its eyes by this time, and was going off into a doze; but, on being pinched by the Hatter, it woke up again with a little shriek, and went on: ‘—that begins with an M, such as mouse–traps, and the moon, and memory, and muchness—you know you say things are…
The Greeks are not reflective, but perfect in their senses and in their health, with the finest physical organization in the world. Adults acted with the simplicity and grace of children. They made vases, tragedies, and statues, such as healthy senses should,—— that is, in good taste. Such things have continued to be made…
