Saturday morning dawns, sunny and temperate — a perfect mid-summer day for the Midwest. There’s no possible summation of the state of things, — no matter the iphone news feed. The extremes attract our attention as the fight or flight trigger is deep, encoded, that instinct for survival yet necessary, even if I cannot…
All life, and consequently the life of history, is made up of simple moments, each of them relatively undetermined in respect to the previous one, so that in it reality hesitates, walks up and down, and is uncertain whether to decide for one or other of various possibilities. …this metaphysical hesitancy which gives to…
…the individual finds himself already with a stock of ideas. He decides to content himself with them and to consider himself intellectually complete. As he feels the lack of nothing outside himself, he settles down definitely amid his mental furniture. Such is the mechanism of self-obliteration. The mass-man regards himself as perfect. …it never…
Sunshine! Much needed rain is followed by a morning of sunlight. Often I take Nature for granted. Somehow it doesn’t come to mind that the most basic needs and pleasures of my life directly depends on the soil, upon moisture and light in proper measure. No application of technology can possibly counter the inexorable…
Several days ago I offered a short quote from Baudrillard in an email to several friends. The objection was made that I had not given a context to ease understanding of the admittedly obscure lines. Once again here is an excerpt from Baudrillard’s essay Radical Thought. Added context would not make his words more…
A received a loan of three books from a friend yesterday. The books were from her library, offered because she wished me to look them over. I am a book lover. One important axis of my life are books which I choose to read, usually purchased from Amazon. I read to live and live…
Some days ago in conversation with a friend here at Starbucks, Alex insisted that knowledge was possible without the symbolic representation of reason. I thought to myself, “What a radical thought.” I think of “knowledge” as what can be diagrammed, presented in the form 2+2=4, or encoded with words and grammar. On the other…
It was an orange 2022 Corvette. That’s me waving from the drivers side, ready for three laps around the race track. The C8 Z51 model Corvette makes 475 horsepower. The jaunty wave of the hand from the car toward my daughter taking the picture, was but a small part of the story. I have…
The Tears of Eros will remain as a barb in my consciousness, or better, a striation layer of my unconscious. The truth, always there, undisclosed by daylight – is like the black-backing of a mirror. I continue on to a second book by Georges Bataille, The Theory of Religion. What do I expect to…
Every life is, more or less, a ruin among whose debris we have to discover what the person ought to have been. -José Ortega y Gasset The typical greeting for encounter of any sort is “How is your day?” The expected reply is a chipper “Just great!” To answer simply “good” is sometimes received…
