Yesterday a friend sent me a link to a collection of photos taken on Lake Baikal in Siberia. Baikal is the world’s deepest fresh water lake. The ice formations, sculpted by the effect of wind and temperature fluctuation were starkly beautiful. I would happily travel there any time of year to experience this faraway…
An exchange of emails between three of us, friends, each with a different history and a different viewpoint. That is even more complicated than a simple face-value understanding of those words suggest. Are not friends of the same mind? They are not of the same mind, if they dare to speak truthfully with one…
For many years I’ve been present at a ceremony to remember and honor the war dead. Given a story told yesterday I found it hard to sleep last night. The stories do not fill me with admiration for the dead. After some reflection I tremble inside, shiver with revulsion at the thought of five…
A Voice From the Wreck By Chad Abushanab I’m an accident on the south side of the town, on the outskirts, where the desert holds its ground against the streetlights’ last defenses. I’m the fire leaping from the Chevy’s frame to smite the sky and drain the cool out of the night. I’m the…
…[to] recognize chance as destiny once more and see the ruins of my being as fragments of the divine. My soul breathed once more. My eyes were opened. There were moments when I felt with a glow that I had only to snatch up my scattered images and raise my life as Harry Haller…
In the German spirit the matriarchal link with nature rules in the form of the hegemony of music to an extent unknown in any other people. We intellectuals, instead of fighting against this tendency like men, and rendering obedience to the spirit, the Logos, the Word, and gaining a hearing for it, are all…
I’ve listened to this song over and over. It’s included on a greatest hits CD by The Band. There are several tunes that I like on the disc. This one is like a gift from the god’s in its sad beauty. I’ve never personally experienced anything like unrequited love, but I can imagine how…
“Do you know that we are both children of the devil?” Yes, that is what we are. The devil is the spirit, and we are his unhappy children. We have fallen out of nature and hang suspended in space. —Steppenwolf by Hermann Hesse p. 126 Suspended in space. That’s how I usually feel these…
Our evening of discussion on the legacy of Stoicism was engaging. How satisfying to spend time with friends, discussing according to our ability an ancient tradition that is deemed yet valuable. A consensus of the group was that living according to the nature of things, acceding to what is beyond our control, in order…
Who am I? I am unsure, because I find myself accepting points of view that upon reflection are short sighted, mean-spirited, and often closed-minded. This has been my plight since I was overtaken by interest in philosophy in my mid twenties. I am still unsure of myself, unsure that there is a single, unitary-self…
