Musings of a Middle Aged Man

The sordid history of the West is rife with tales of people who view nature as a beast to be tamed, a bird whose wings must be clipped to remove the gift of flight, then confined to a cage where it perches looking longingly at the free skies where it once danced starting with a few flaps of elegantly clothed wings. This abominable act so a human may keep beauty chained in their isolationist home w...

My soul has been abuzz with spiritual angst for as long as I can remember. It is a queasiness similar to that felt in a churning stomach when suffering through love unrequited. There is a longing for connectedness that hovers just outside my grasp, resulting in deepening susto, soul sickness, and the sense that I am at odds with the beauty, harmony, peace, and balance of the universe. I've stu...

So critical to the successful survival of the human race is the Secular Humanist drive to compassion, it has become a core tenet of the major religious cults dominating society, claiming it as their own rather than borrowed from nonbelievers. In Buddhism, it is called karunā and is considered one of the highest virtues for a human. The central path of the Bodhisattva is to help others attain enlig...

I first heard this quote in the incredible movie, The Dead Poets Society, featuring Robin Williams. It was a role that earned him significant nominations from the Motion Picture industry, but, through an oversight born of myopia, he did not win. The Germans, however, did bestow an award for Best International Actor. Gracias, Deutschland for doing what the Academy, with their heads up their asses,...

Intimacy is a many splendid thing, until it isn't leaving at least one, maybe both parties, in a state of excruciating pain, confusion, and a fear to ever be vulnerable again. I am not referring to sexual intimacy, which tends to be a mixed bag of emotional and physical connectedness. Sexual congress can also arise devoid of intimacy because one or both parties craves sexual release, a common...

One of the greatest challenges for the continuation of the human species is that we view ourselves as separate from, rather than an integral part of, the natural world. From this perspective, that places us on a perch with the other gods and goddesses, we believe it is our right to hurt, maim, kill, and obliterate our fellow travelers, be they animal, bacteria, mineral, or plant.

Depending upon perspective, the monkey regularly hijacking my mind, swinging from idea to idea without exploring the savory thoughts ripening on the branch, is either a curse or a blessing. The term monkey mind is derived from a Chinese word meaning heart-mind monkey. It is an idea foundational across Buddhist traditions to describe how thoughts jump capriciously from one focus to another, no matt...

Given my druthers, I would prefer to drive the three thousand miles necessary to cross the country than take a plane covering the same distance in a fraction of the time. Not because I don't value my time, but rather because I tend to be diligent in investing my time for maximum return. Life is a collection of loosely connected experiences. Those experiences can be direct through participatory...

I have an affinity for Ravens, which is odd for a person growing up in an area of the country where they don't typically venture. I have a particular, perhaps peculiar, fondness for a Raven with sun-yellow eyes named Mortimer, whom I have encountered on unique occasions while visiting my beloved southwest United States. It is just now that I am putting two and two together and realize the conn...

Raised, as I was, in a Western, Judeo-Christian society, I was indoctrinated not only with the concept of a capricious, vindictive god but also with the associated philosophy that time is linear, a limited resource, a one-way progression with a beginning and end bookending me in the present, a unique sequence of non-repeating events moving forward with an ultimate deadline.

I have heard the human condition is as a body harboring the spirit, and, alternatively, a human is a spirit inhabiting a body. The subtle difference in language when equating body and spirit has an impact well beyond the juxtaposition of the two words, body and spirit. The former arrangement implies the body is the primary home that releases the soul upon death. The latter designates the soul as t...

Back when my father could still heave a musky lure into Canadian waters where the loons serenaded from dawn until dusk, we took an annual fishing trip into the great Canadian Wilderness where we dropped lines in the massive Minnitaki Lake on our quest for monster pike and fleshy walleye bound for the skillet and a shore lunch in pristine surroundings. As with any fishing trip, the fish must be fou...

Sometimes I think I am actually a ghost wandering the halls of my small home undetectable by human senses, catching the begrudging attention of the dog and cat, both of whom live in an extra-sensory world where they can smell the unseen and hear the invisible touch. Then, I think, ghosts exist devoid of bodily functions, negate the need for beverages and food stuffs. I have a cuppa with me almost...

The pondering that kicks off whenever I go camping tends to focus my monkey mind while I am out and about in the wild spaces. My focus lingers for diminishing days until the monkey resumes control. Or, more accurately, the monkey resumes the lack of control, scattering thoughts, making it difficult to write a coherent sentence, let alone an enticing essay or a seductive story worth reading. Campin...

I can't say I've always felt like an outcast, but it was a prevailing burden in my psyche's coming of age and has become a dominant theme by which I navigate emotional existence. Truth be told, living on the periphery is a house with its own charm and challenges...mostly charm...still some challenges, but not enough challenges to permanently evacuate my charming house.

Possibly, the greatest US delusion, running just ahead of the Christian Nation fallacy, is we are the only country with freedoms or that we are the freest nation on the planet. Some idiots go so far as to refer to imperial measurements as freedom units and US currency as freedom money. However, when it comes to freedoms as measured by guaranteed rights, guaranteed liberties, and guaranteed freedom...

I have spent most of my life in a state of rebellion, locking horns with authority figures and not always in constructive ways. I believe this operating mode is innate, the alignment of my DNA against the prevailing geomagnetic lines such that I am genetically predisposed to meet them orthogonally. It is not like I have a choice in the matter. If I did, my life would have flowed from point A to B...

I am finally at the age I have cursed because my joints are stiffening, my back is less stable, my mind is slipping, and my available years are diminishing. It is also an age I have looked forward to because I am financially stable, with the workaday world dominating my life since 1985, fades in the rearview mirror, while the 40-year dreams await on the horizon to be realized. It came a couple of...

It is said, rightly so, humanity is a gregarious offshoot of prehistoric ancestors, evolved and spreading to the eight corners of this spherical earth because we gravitate toward community with others of our ilk. Further evidence of our NEED to associate is the adoption of the feathered, furred, and scaled people as surrogate family members who are often treated better than human members of the fa...

American education tends to fixate on producing the "correct" answers to standardized tests, even if by rote, as its measure of success. It is not until the Master's level at University that the curriculum switches to one requiring the student to do their own research and to think critically about data on their way to data-centric conclusions that can withstand scrutiny.

At a recent concert, an iconic American musician hit out at the tRump administration as "corrupt, incompetent, and treasonous," and declared that the America that was "a beacon of hope and freedom for 250 years" is now under the thumb of a corrupt regime rotting the America that was from the head down. To be clear, the "beacon of hope" is not without significant blemishes, including, but not limit...

Humanity's earliest hominid upright walking ancestors were arboreal, tree dwellers, descending from the safety of trees to forage diverse, patchy environments with wetlands, forests, palm groves, and grass-rich areas, offering a range of resources from arboreal, terrestrial, and aquatic habitats. This ecological diversity likely supported an opportunistic lifestyle, requiring adaptability to both...

Zafón, easily my favorite author hailing from Barcelona, Spain, possibly my favorite writer in all of Europe, wrote books that read like poetry while telling compelling stories anchored in Spain's tumultuous history. He easily holds a place in my top authors along with Edward the Prophet Abbey, Eduardo Galeano, Haruki Murakami, Gabriel Garcia Márquez, Pablo Neruda, and Terry Tempest Williams,...

If you had told me the seminal book 1984 by George Orwell, I read decades ago, was a prognosticator rather than a theoretical dissertation based on historical realities, I would have laughed in your face while keeping my fingers crossed that we as a society, learned enough from experience with the totalitarian regimes of Hitler, Mao, Mussolini, and others to never slide down that vile rabbit hole...

I enjoy learning about things, amassing knowledge about stuff, having the answer ready should some obscure, vexing question arise. This innate drive was expressed, as I recall, with a fascination of many things in the scientific realm. Not so in-depth with biological sciences. The dynamics of human bodily functions confuses and, I must admit, sometimes gags me with a spoon. Unless they were more a...