A Petty Game Unworthy of both Men and Gods

Written June 23rd, 2009 It was Nietzsche who said: “Be careful, lest in casting out your demons you exorcise the best thing in you.” I have not been able to locate the exact book this quote derives from, but I’m fairly sure the context was his critique of “sin”,...

Or Would You Rather Be a Fish?

This is one of my favorite essays, and that stretches back across 30 plus years now. It goes without saying that I was moved by the film, but my intuition about it’s core meaning, elaborated at the end of this piece, I believe few people caught. I mention that...

Domestication

Written June 26th, 2020 Domestication: “Starting when we are very young, we are presented with either a reward or a punishment for adopting the beliefs and behaviors of what others find acceptable. When we adopt these beliefs and behaviors as a result of either the reward or punishment, we...

Candlelight, and the Caution of Woo Woo

Written October 19th, 2019 In his book “Anam Cara”, the Irish Poet, John O’Donohue, made an astutely aesthetic observation that I simply must mention here. Truth be told, the book is full of such observations and would require that I spill a lot of ink to mention them all....

Defiance – Democracy’s Immune System

It’s not my intent to be purposely ‘defiant’ on this 4th of July weekend, I love my country and it’s founding principles as much as anyone, but over the past four years we’ve all seen a fevered, dogmatic version emerge, with heavy doses of Patriotism/Nationalism coursing through the veins...

Of Dragons and Saints

Written February 17th, 2006 I came across quite an interesting convergence of ideas yesterday while re-watching Joseph Campbell’s “The Power of Myth”, the transcendent six episode interview he gave to Bill Moyers. While watching the episode titled, “The Hero’s Adventure”, Campbell explained how the hero’s journey is a consistent...

The Brilliance of Peter Gabriel’s “Biko”

Written July 2nd, 2009 I’m quite sure to be wrong about this, but I don’t recall ever hearing the complete song before. Perhaps over the years I heard snippets and just didn’t fully catalog it to memory. Whatever the reason, I find it odd that I don’t recall it...

It’s All In the Touching

Written February 19th, 2021 I may have mentioned before at some point that I was a fairly late bloomer to ‘books’. I certainly had no interest to read in high school, nor at any point through my teens in general. Most, if not all, of the books on my...

Mozart’s Singing Violins

Written March 26th, 2016 I will admit it now, before going any further that I know next to nothing about Classical music. It’s a genre that simply never found any traction in my aesthetic wheelhouse. Some twenty years ago, I stumbled across the great Cellist, Yo Yo Ma while...

A Dog, a Monk, and a Mystery

Written February 11th, 2017 A number of years ago, perhaps as many as twenty-five or more, while reading one of my many books by Joseph Campbell, I stumbled across a line of thought that has stuck to me like Velcro from the moment it first crossed my eyes. Campbell...