Each of us occupies a construct of memory, belief, identity and meaning that not only generates the sense of self we require to meaningfully function as individuals, but generates our picture of the external world as well. I often call this construct a worldview. It is an active perceptual process within each of us that works continuously to sustain, protect and strengthen the idea at its root. And while it may seem there are a […]
There’s a way in which identity politics are a luxury. To engage in them, you at least need a voice. Over the past several months I’ve listened to Sam Harris’s interview with Charles Murray, for instance, his subsequent debate with Ezra Klien of Vox magazine, and a later interview by Harris of Coleman Hughes. These were interesting segments that collectively explore the residual difficulties of speaking about the issue of race in America—among other things. […]
In his landmark paper “What Is It Like to Be a Bat?” philosopher Thomas Nagel suggested that an organism is conscious when there is something that it is like to be that organism. It’s a beautiful definition, I think, and one that can be expanded to all sorts of questions of identity. What is it like to be American? To be a farmer? To be an art critic? To be a woman? To be Latino? […]
We’ll never know what it’s like to exist forever in a condition of perpetually transforming joy and goose-bump inducing discovery if we don’t consider it a very real and inevitable possibility. It does sound pretty out there, but so don’t NASCAR races to German Shepherds. If we don’t consider it a very real and inevitable possibility, we’ll likely take something perfect and beautiful just as it is, something like space exploration or boat building or […]
“I feel better. But I did that thing again, didn’t I, Hafiz?” “Yes.” “How come we both know what I’m talking about, but we can’t explain it?” “The horses giving chase always get mud in their eyes.” “That was easier than I thought. But giving chase to what?” “To whatever you think is over there.” He waved his hand limply towards the distance, indicating that somewhere along the periphery of my mind there were these […]
The description I love best is that each of us is an intersection of matter and spirit, the above and below, the eternal and the present, of knowledge and mystery. I am tired of materialism—so very tired of its laborious absurdities, the dead ends it tries to pretty-over, the delicate faculties of the human being it would all but silence. Even so, I would not discard logic or rational thought. I would simply hold them […]
Peace taken up by the flesh has a rhythm to it. A field of frozen grass and falling snow, mixed with true inhabitants, will ripple with tongues of steam. Life will move in and out of itself, and possibilities will disperse from their smoky origins, drift into the branches of trees at the field’s edge, and nestle into nooks beneath the boughs. We share a breath that’s always breathing– here and there and all at once– a […]
At the center of every human being, something stupendous is happening– something deadpan naked beautiful, a trembling madness, a high outcropping of multiplying swooning cliff diving lovers. I don’t know what it is, but I think it might be related to the fact that the sky is peppered with drums so vast their beats shake galaxies out of the darkness like dust from the Beloved’s rug, that it’s full of light transmissions, secret messages, and the odd comet, […]
Earlier this week I discovered Ka’s invitation to write a few blog pieces around favorite quotations. The challenge was framed as three posts, each built around one quotation, or as one post with three quotations. I realized quickly it would be enjoyable to find a few quotes that I like, and to share them and explain my enthusiasm for them, but then found it was quite a difficult task to narrow down my selections. I […]
At the clock makers convention we arranged ourselves neatly around a life-sized cutaway of a gravitational escapement, observing the pendulum bearing the maker’s seal that swung to and fro behind a nest of hypnotic linkages, together recalling amidst polite chuckles and knowing nods the virtuous marriage of metallurgy and time-keeping. Not too many really understood what we did… Not too many could even fathom the significance of what was on display… Pretty cool, eh? said the gentleman […]
Embracing Forever 