Sunday at six thirty AM looking east the sky was pale yellow, and the sun a blinding, fiery ball. The yellow is the smoke from distant fires. I read late yesterday that the Caldor fire near Lake Tahoe is being contained. In the Midwest we do not have to remain indoors day after day…
Today is Friday. Sometimes I am disoriented, unsure if today is Saturday or… Retirement sometimes has a confusing texture as the structure of the workweek is removed. I am considering, speculating upon what I would desire if it were possible to be young again, to begin higher education under ideal circumstances. In hindsight, what…
Today promises to be hot, with the possibility of thunderstorms. The rain will be welcome, as the usual pattern of sunny days interspersed with rain are a memory. The summers are hotter and more dry. Illinois is under a mask mandate announced by the governor today. This measure is to prevent the depletion of…
Imagine, by way of experiment, two young men [Wittgenstein and Heidegger] strolling together through the city – and suddenly one says to the other: “How strange that everything exists [“das es überhaupt etwas gibt”]! How miraculous: There! And there! Do you see it, too?” And the other man nods and says “Yes I see…
I took a nap on a summers afternoon, warm, bright with sunlight. I awakened noting that my blood sugar was high. A diabetic pays attention to such things. I decided to take a bike ride into town. The afternoon was quiet. A short ride would serve to address the high blood sugar. Riding for…
ON PHILOSOPHERS Of a life of luxury the fruit is luxury, whether in agriculture, or commerce, or literature, or art. There are nowadays professors of philosophy, but not philosophers. Yet it is admirable to profess because it was once admirable to live. To be a philosopher is not merely to have subtle thoughts, nor…
Yesterday I walked in the woods. My last attempt to enter Braeburn Marsh I was met with a phalanx of mosquitoes. Outnumbered my determination crumbled, I hastily returned to the house. This summer day I walked along the edge of the marsh paying attention, quietly absorbing the late summer wild flowers. Many things that…
We return home from Minnesota today. Our visit with family was a satisfying relief from the restriction on travel which has prevented contact and face to face conversation for the past year and a half. It is a delight to witness children playing and growing, maturing in interests, and capabilities. I was intellectually stimulated…
I moved. Today at breakfast I moved as far as possible from the droning of Good Morning America television, a mindless going on about how the quiz show Jeopardy. The show now will have two hosts… Who in his/her right mind should care? Clearly inhabitants of our media culture do care. The world is burning! …
Organisms soldier on unwittingly. The difference between how things seem and how things really are is just as fatal a gap for them as it can be for us, but they are largely oblivious to it. The recognition of the difference between appearance and reality is a human discovery. False belief = getting it…
