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…
After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming. It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other: he came trotting along in…
I anticipate reading The Gay Science by Friedrich Nietzsche. The introduction is written by Walter Kaufmann, the translator. Kaufmann mentions that Nietzsche was greatly influenced by the writings of New England transcendentalist Ralph Waldo Emerson. Curious to understand the substrate of Nietzsche’s sense of himself and of his world I downloaded a segment of…
A gray rainy spring day… I do not remember turning off the alarm on the bedside radio, but who else could have managed? Thus, I rose one hour later than is my custom. How much of my life amounts to actions of which I have no memory? I am surprised by effects which seem…
There was a table set out under a tree in front of the house, and the March Hare and the Hatter were having tea at it: a Dormouse was sitting between them, fast asleep, and the other two were using it as a cushion, resting their elbows on it, and talking over its head….
Through morality the individual is instructed to be a function of the herd and only to attribute value to himself as a function. Freedom assumes, if not the individual, at least life is not necessary as a value. It assumes therefore that one place one’s life at stake (it is not necessary) at the…
