Musings of a Middle Aged Man

Given the opportunity or, if I had written it myself, a level of intelligent creativity that often eludes me, I would replace the word holy in the opening quote with the word sacred. True, the two words are often used interchangeably and frequently used as synonyms, however, there are subtleties altering each quote's personality.

The insidious aspects of groups come when the individual is seen as a cog in the system often filling roles that do not make use of their unique interests, skills, and abilities. Even worse, they frequently succumb to groupthink, a dehumanizing state where individual opinions are shunned placing the non-compliant thinker in danger of being ostracized.

There are a couple of religious leaders I begrudgingly admire despite their association with the cults of organized religion. Or, as Christopher Hitchens calls them and others of their ilk, the enemy. My admiration comes from a single utterance unique to each of them but are closely related in essence. The first of the leaders, Pope Francis, currently struggling to stave off his end of life, when...

I find it fascinating that words not only can be used to describe objects and fill in the gaps needed to understand action and non-action on a subject but also color entire society's attitudes toward the subject. Take, for example, the compound word wilderness. It is derived from the individual words wild, meaning savage coupled with doer, meaning beast. Together, they describe a savage place...

By general standards, at 4,434 unique posts, and counting, I am a prolific blogger. Of course, quantity does not necessarily equate with quality. At a mere average of 24 views per post, my offerings are barely a wart on the ass of influencership. Not that my goal is to achieve notoriety as an influencer. They tend to be entitled bottom feeders expecting the world to bow to their presence and showe...

rowing up, I recall watching a made-for-TV movie about two Irish boys, one Protestant and the other Catholic, plucked from the 'Troubles' plaguing Northern Ireland. They were sent to the US and housed, temporarily, with a US family. The twist? The sponsoring parents, a mother and father, were a Catholic and a Protestant living in harmony, well, as harmonious as any marriage can be. I was b...

The three most impactful events I've ever seen on television are the moon landing in 1969 magnificent for human ingenuity overcoming complex problems using nascent computer technology to set foot on the mysterious celestial body that has intrigued humanity (and animals and plants) since time's dawn. Next comes in 2001 when two planes crashed into the Twin Towers, including their subsequent...

The scary thing about cult members, zealots if you will, is they are able to twist any information, even if it is directly opposite their position, to prove their case by utilizing mental gyrations that defy all logic, including pretzel logic. Most of the time they appeal to the source of their information to prove their source, an alarming usage of circular logic a type of logical fallacy where t...

It feels as if my parents did a disservice to me and my five siblings when they filled us with buckets of no strings attached love. They loved us as unique individuals through thick and thin, come hell or high water, for better or worse, in good times and bad, and against all odds.

The challenge of empathy is, that if you don't have empathy for others, you lack the necessary empathic ability to realize you lack empathy. This enables you to commit unspeakable acts because you don't know or even care how the recipient of the acts feels. The terms to describe a person with an empathy deficit include sociopath, psychopath, and narcissist.

Diversity is necessary for any endeavor...another triggering Boomer topic who see DEI programs as giving jobs to lesser skilled minorities when it was instituted to overcome lesser qualified white male candidates being hired over better qualified minorities.

Personally, I can't fathom the mind that would shun languages or people simply because they are different. This closed mindset is anathema to learning and growth. And if we are not growing then we might as well be dead. There is little difference between the two.

New beginnings. A blank book decorated for the first time with 179 pages eagerly (I hope) anticipating their turn for the ink to wax eloquently, to wane dispassionately, to invest time in growing my creative abilities while purging the existing slop, infecting my mind, heart, and soul.

A crucial factor creating a separation gulf between man and other animals is our ability to imagine, to create what-if scenarios to stretch our understanding of existence and the laws governing existence. Even more astonishing, it allows us to create something that never before was known or imagined by another, in a sense, making us gods in our own right. The creation can be as beguiling as an abs...

The "land of the free and home of the brave" has devolved into "land of the oppressed and home of the fearful." Tell them this and they will yank out their concealed carry guns and, maybe spit in your face, to exhibit their bravery not realizing the gun they are toting is the hard evidence they live in abject fear. This partly explains the rise of Christian Nationalism and the...

I experienced an aha moment the other day, a mega-watt lightbulb moment illuminating a truth previously hidden in the deep shadows cast by my lack of awareness, disdain for religion, and a closed thought to an idea that seemed radical at the moment but, upon reflection, a fiber of common sense truth. I imagine it was similar to the lightbulb moments such as Newton formulating the theory of gravity...

Is it profound arrogance or simple hubris that drives humanity to believe we are separate from nature and have dominion over the natural world? Sure, we mostly have dominion over ourselves within the boundaries established by the government but to extend self dominion of our natural selves to claiming dominion over nature is a stretch that makes sense only to religious and political zealots.

A stark contrast separating science from religion comes about from science being dedicated to discovering what they don't know so they can fill knowledge gaps whereas religion is happy to claim God is the answer filling any blindspots with mythological nuances no matter how fantastical, improbable, or irrational. It is a form of willful blindness by people terrified of reality, no different th...

Since Limbo is no longer de rigueur in the Catholic canon and the simple fact I've been baptized twice so could never be eligible for the imaginary place of natural happiness for those who died without personal sin, I can only conclude I have been banished to a state of perpetual purgatory for my soul will never be purified. Unlike the slippery Catholic doctrine defining purgatory as a state o...

One of the darkest periods in US history was the forcible removal of Indigenous children from their parents and confining them to "re-education" schools where they were shorn of sacred hair and beaten when speaking their natal languages. The historical fact that Navajo Code Talkers helped save allied lives during WWII is a massive up yours to the fools and evil doers insisting the childr...

I have heard numerous times that an artist encodes themselves in their work. Not purposely. It is a natural outcropping of the creative process, a process as intimate as loving another human being. Perhaps, the reason I feared making art for large swaths of my life is that I am either uncomfortable having others see the hidden me or I am terrified of seeing the essence of myself.

If recent events spanning the past ten years, have taught me anything it is that the typical American cares little for any truth that would undermine the lies they hold so dear and near to their deceitful hearts. It is not just little lies like your new hairstyle is becoming or, yes, your butt does look deliciously phat in that outfit. It is grandiose lies peated and repeated ad nauseum in a bid t...

What does art demand? Easy. Everything. Heart, mind, body, and soul dedicated to art with no less zeal than a zealot willing to sacrifice themselves for their religion. And that is why I will never be a great artist. I am a reluctant enthusiast, a part-time creator saving a large chunk of my time to simply, " Be! " Or it may be a convenient excuse to cover my lack of imagination and inab...

By their nature, feathers are imbued with a magical mystical quality helping the mind soar to unforeseeable, unfathomable heights, elevating the soul into ethereal realms with a flock of kindred creatives. At least, they do for me and, I suspect, for the gaggle viewing Earth as the one true god, and nature as the one true path to God. This is not a fluffy God that will reach a finger down to rescu...

The decisive factor contributing to human ascendency from tree-dwelling, shadow-hiding primates into the dominant species on the planet is our unique ability to encode thought into a set of symbols for future reference rather than being slaves to the instincts encoded in our DNA. Writing and reading are human superpowers. They bestow upon us the ability to learn from people we will never meet incl...