Late to Starbucks today. Began my day by coming “out of retirement” to assist my son with a new client. I was reminded of the way of life, the day to day routine that was my normal for many years. Is anything ever truly behind us? I do not think so. We are marked…
What, if some day or night a demon were to steal after you into your loneliest loneliness and say to you: “This life as you now live it and have lived it, you will have to live once more and innumerable times more; and there will be nothing new in it, but every pain…
I admire the courage and wisdom of Socrates in everything he did, said, — and did not say. This mocking and enamored monster and pied piper of Athens, who made the most overweening youths tremble and sob, was not only the wisest chatterer of all time: he was equally great in silence. I wish…
Met with some friends via Zoom to discuss the function of “intention” in relation to moral judgments. We agreed that intent is slippery, an ambiguous aspect of deciding right action… The intent of another’s action is notoriously difficult to ascertain. Moreover introspection of one’s own intention reveals a complex, anything but pure motivation for…
Formerly, one wished to acquire fame and be spoken of. Now that is no longer enough because the market has grown too large; nothing less than screaming will do. As a consequence, even good voices scream till they are hoarse, and the best goods are offered by cracked voices. Without the screaming of those…
We live in the age of cybernetics, of next-day Amazon delivery, of iphone instant communication anywhere in the world. The American way of life is idealized as the apex of 21st century freedom and affluence by many. Nietzsche, living in the late 19th century, as the industrial age broke like a wave transforming Europe,…
There is as much wisdom in pain as there is in pleasure… In pain I hear the captain’s command: “Take in the sails!… The bold seafarer “man” must have mastered the art of doing a thousand things with his sails; otherwise he would be done for in no time, — the ocean would swallow…
Let us stop thinking so much about punishing, reproaching, and improving others! We rarely change an individual, and if we should succeed for once, something may also have been accomplished, unnoticed: we may have been changed by him. Let us rather see to it that our own influence on all that is yet to…
July 4th, Memorial Day 2023. And feelings that well up? Emotions are involuntary… Patriotism? Love-of-country? Perhaps I should just fix a standard American flag to the front of the garage door, a flag purchased from Amazon, or from the local Menards, –let that action suffice… Should I join the apathy, that bland, happy indifference…
Perhaps you’ve reflected upon the course of your life marveling at the path you have taken? I cannot describe the person that I’ve become by comparison to who I was as a young adult in my early 20s. In that day I did my best to be an “enthusiast for Christ.” Jesus-is-the-answer might have…
