Musings of a Middle Aged Man

In a group of people, I love having the answer to the vexing questions people ponder, especially when they are stumped and I can jump into the phone booth, change into my cape, and save the day with an eloquent answer. It is a stroke to my fragile ego...

Growing up as I did in the '60s and '70s, it was pert near impossible to be unaware of the horrific murders committed by Charles Manson and his devotees as the shocking images dominated the news cycle. The TV spectacle is what happens when violence...

Have you ever wondered why so many of those labeled prophets sought refuge in the desert? The desert is a spartan landscape where mere mortals including Zoroaster, Nabu, Moses, Jesus...

In our narcissistic arrogance, humanity believes it is the pinnacle of creations, God ordained to rule the Earth on which our two feet and ten toes scraped before being encased in shoe prisons isolating us from the source. A narcissist is unable to see anything...

I, like most human beings, I reckon, am powerfully drawn to beauty, irresistibly taunted as a mariner is bewitched by the Siren's luring melody. Not everyone has identical parameters defining their version of beauty, or societies for that matter. There was a time...

Had I simply broken my leg, even incurring a compound fracture, instead of tearing my knee's anterior cruciate ligament, I would be in a physically better place today. A healed fracture includes a significant calcium build up making the break area stronger than it was previously. When the injury heals...

Driving home from an extended weekend in the UP, the Upper Penninsula, I realized I spend large swathes of time tending to the thoughts living in my head. Too much? I can't rightly say...

According to Joseph Campbell, the preeminent religious scholar of his day, all religions are true...if taken metaphorically. The metaphors represented were designed to help people navigate the life mystery rather than bumble about repeating the same mistakes...

If poetry is, by its very nature, subversive, what are the implications for the poet out of whose soul poetic words are bled onto subway walls and tenement halls? Most likely, the words sprang from a deep sense of injustice, a response to abuse, oppression, malfeasance, or transgression by a government or individual lording their power against the disenfranchised defenseless. ..

One stilting aspect of inner city life is the paucity of bird song. There are a few chirps and tweets here and there but mostly, I hear the woman next door who seems to only be able to communicate by yelling. Hollering at her young kids. Screaming at her husband...

Most people I know are either attracted to the purring surf of an ocean shore where they relax in a gentle breeze beneath an umbrella sipping a Mai Tai and dousing themselves in the amniotic salt when they get too hot. Others are enamored with tall mountains, majestic peaks reaching...

How is it a brain that can create remarkable beauty out of nothing, a beauty potent enough to inspire tears of joy can also plan and commit acts of unspeakable horror drawing tears of pulsing agony? The barbarian...

One of America's many pride points is being known as a melting pot for the myriad people, immigrants from other countries who chose to settle in the United States and live the American Dream. However, the "American Dream", with its 2.5 kids, a suburban home with a white picket fence, and equal opportunity for all, it is a massive lie. A damn lie....

All anger is a mask for fear to wear. ~B.B. Griffith One would think enough people would or could learn from history the devastating effects of anger on societies and individuals, that individuals would have evolved toward a more beneficent society with a corresponding increase in world peace. Sadly, it seems the opposite has become the norm. History through the modern day is littered with the cor...

Before Ronnie, Just Say No, Reagan left office he deregulated the NEWS organizations releasing them from the 'burden' imposed by the Fairness Doctrine requiring broadcasters to provide balanced coverage including controversial issues. They were now free to skew...

If living in harmony with the land is considered the Way of Beauty, then the Western mindset of conquering and taming nature is the Way of Ugly or the Way of Grotesqueness or some similar moniker built around an antonym of the Harmony...

I have been saddled with an angst for most of my cognizant life that I'm not where I am supposed to be thus can never realize the destiny of who I am supposed to be, to become. Despite knowing exactly where I am, I'm perpetually lost, seeking a phantom space that nourishes body and soul...

I rarely dream at night. At least, I recall very few nights swathed in dreams which does not mean I did not dream only that the awake and sleeping mind failed to connect unconscious dreaming to conscious awareness. When I do dream, it is extremely rare...

Every so often, I come across a mind blowing idea during my reading that completely alters my perception of life. Off the top of my head, I can quickly come up with three significantly impactful to how I perceive and conduct my life. The earliest I can remember occurred in High School when...

have a sick and twisted relationship with the concept of war. The twisted way it affects my soul leaves me sickened. On the one hand, I admire the valor of the combatants and the high ideals that sees a person put their life on the line to protect their comrades in arms on the battlefield. It is an act of self-sacrifice that is typically viewed through the lens of heroism. Being a bit of an adrena...

It seems all the rage to identify a GOAT, a Greatest of All Time, for athletes or others deemed exceptional in their arena, claims vociferously defended with myriad statistics. This is despite statistics being last in the increasingly false sequence of lies, damn lies, and statistics...

Growing up Catholic in the 60s and 70s, I attended parochial grammar and high schools. Prayer was required at various times, particularly on First Fridays of the month when we were dragged to mass. It was nice having classes shortened despite the tradeoff being less than invigorating. Prayers in mass were recited by the congregation in concert with the Priest or in response to the Priest acting as...

It is beyond my ken that anyone would deny trees have a heartbeat when the thump, thump, thump is palpable to anyone listening deeply with their soul. The same people, uneducated in medicine though they are, who will jump through hoops justifying an electrical blip on an oscilloscope screen is a cell blob's heartbeat, and refuse to raise a finger to protect our sentient brethren trees from dea...

My dog is currently a canine version of Schrödinger’s cat. I do not know if the thirteen-year-old Shih Tzu is alive or dead. She puked three days ago, stopped eating that night, then lost the ability to walk eventually suffering spasms like an alligator in a death roll....

I have been saddled with an angst for most of my cognizant life that I’m not where I am supposed to be thus can never realize the destiny of who I am supposed to be, to become. Despite knowing exactly where I am, I’m perpetually lost, seeking...